I don’t know what the ETLs official role is in the new model, ASANTS, and apologies to these ETLs who bust their butts and aren’t like this, but strictly from observation in some places it goes pretty much like this:
Start your shift when you feel like it. You are salaried so you don’t have to arrive on time and punch in like the peons, oh excuse me, the TMs/TLs. If one of your peers is waiting for you to arrive so they can go home, too bad, that’s their problem. Let Snowflake wait. So what if you don’t stay 8 hours? Rank has its privileges.
Go in your office for twenty minutes and do who knows what before emerging from your cocoon ready to start your day. Check your equipment. Have your keys? They won’t unlock the Executive Restroom because we don’t have one, but you can always dream, and the guests view keys as a badge of authority. Have a zebra so you can check your workcenters progress but won’t bother to since it’s so much easier to call out to your team on the walkie all day and interrupt their progress? Have a walkie with a fresh battery so you can give direction to your team over the airways and call them every ten minutes to check where everyone is, what they are doing, when they will be finished, and chew them out so everyone will know that your team consists entirely of incompetent fools but you are on top of it? Don’t forget to take a spare battery. You’ll need it. Have your cellphone in your hand so you can continue taking personal calls all day. Nothing inspires your team to work hard like seeing their boss spending the day taking personal calls. Make sure you have your Starbucks cup in your other hand. That’s your badge of office.
Go out and supervise your team. Whatever anyone is doing, change their assignments immediately to show that you are the boss. Chew them out for being too slow, whether they are or not. It will make them work faster. Don’t forget to chew out the TLs. They must have done something wrong before you got there to micromanage their day and then you can tell your boss that you coached your TLs again so you look like you are in total control and they look like fools.
Break Time! Oh, sorry, I mean store meeting at Starbucks as soon as the doors open. So what if the guests have no where to sit for at least a half hour. Store meetings are important. When else would the ETLs have time to gossip? Except all day, of course.
Continue gossiping on your way back to the store offices. Take a rest in your office. You worked hard this morning, you deserve it. When you’ve rested up from your morning ordeal, go out and supervise your team. Observe them for things you can coach them for, then coach them. Add a few random hours to the schedule but don’t tell anyone, especially not the TMs you added. That would ruin the fun when they don’t show up and everyone wonders if they were nc/ns. If you need extra help on Tuesday, call a TM who was scheduled for Thursday to come in and give him Thursday off instead. Don’t change the schedule in the system and don’t tell the TLs, let them find out when they are short handed on Thursday and wondering why the TM is a nc/ns. Same thing when you cut hours. Why bother to tell the TLs that you cut 16 hours out of Saturday‘s coverage? You’re off this weekend, and they’ll manage. If they can’t finish the workload, you can always CCA them on Monday.
At noon all ETLs are to either gather near the offices or get on the walkies and decide what take out to have for lunch and who’s going to get it. This discussion should take at least 15 minutes. Gather in HR office to talk until the food arrives, then spend an hour eating and talking in the training room. Leave a Senior TL in charge of the store, since they aren’t invited to the party anyway. Heaven help anyone who interrupts the festivities unless there is a true emergency, like an unscheduled DTL visit. Other than that, the store is on its own.
After lunch go out to sales floor and walk around looking important. Always go in pairs to ward off questions from guests. Excoriate your team for any transgressions, real or imagined. If they are falling behind coach then for being too slow, but never help them, that is beneath your dignity. If they finished their tasks early don’t thank them for a job well done, but do make a mental note to double their workload in the future. Chew out your TLs again, regardless of their performance. They must have done something to deserve it, it will make them respect you and inspire them to greatness.🙄
Take your last break, then hang around the offices and chat with the other ETLs, criticizing whatever ETL is not there or your other favorite scapegoats, the TLs. Don’t forget to discuss your new Rolls Royce or world cruise in front of TMs who are worried about putting food on the table for their kids. If the STL is off, go home early. If you have to wait to be relieved by another ETL, spend your last hour walking between your office and the store office, checking your watch, looking at the office clock and asking everyone you meet if ETL so-and-so has shown up yet, muttering under your breath about what a lazy, irresponsible jerk he is for making you wait. When your relief finally arrives, leave without telling your team, because, you know, they won’t work as hard if they know you’re not there, while failing to realize that your team knows that you aren’t there anytime they go 15 minutes without hearing you on the walkie.
Go home and rest up from your hard day at work secure in the knowledge that the store would go under if not for you.
