"We ain't gonna take it!"

My first position at Walmart was part-time in the cellular kiosk/electronics department. My experience doing cellular customer service over the phone in a call center made me a good fit when it came to selling cell phones in person. I had personally dealt with hundreds of cell phone "customer's" and "dealer's" in my few years manning the phone lines at companies such as T-Mobile, Verizon, Bell and Shaw. I had worked in pretty much every department there was from activations to sales, to tech support, and even something they call "retention". This is when you call to cancel your service and low and behold, all of a sudden, after a strange "warm" transfer, this incredible sale magically appears to your representative in hopes of saving you as a customer, aka "retaining you". Yep, that's right! Not a coinkie-dink at all. Planned, just like every question they ask and every strategically placed item in their storefronts. Whatever it takes to keep you buying what they are selling!

Within hours of my first day, I could feel the tension between department employees. Separating the individuals responsible for the electronic's department from the close-by cell phone department, and even more so the photo lab lent fuel to a fire between employees arguing over who should be responsible for taking care of the awkwardly waiting nearby customer. "It's your section." One would say. The other passive-aggressively stops whatever they were doing to take over the service of this customer.

There are two types of people in this world. Those who care, and those who DGAF! I am one of the ones who cares or has done a good job of faking it, to say the least. Always have been the "helpful" type. Sometimes, too much even. However, this attribute does allow one to climb the ladder of a company with ease in a seemingly short period of time. Being agreeable and showing interest in the needs and wants of others is what makes certain people more popular than others. In high schools around the world, individuals find themselves popular for reasons such as fashion, class, parents, money, fake news(rumours), ect. But in the real world, it is a lot more humanistic than that. Being that as it may, this sometimes means you can't even pay some people to do a good job.

For what, most likely equals years, people had been complaining about having to be passed around the store by uninterested employees like a firework being lit by a group of boys who forgot to first stick it in the ground before lighting it. By all means, a change was needed! Meetings, consultations, surveys, emails, emails, more meetings. Heavy amounts of typing. Ideas had been thought and unthought and finally, they decided that everyone was responsible for everything when it came to helping out a customer. Like duh! So much easier than having an eye-dagar-war with a co-worker because you are both pretty sure neither of you even have a clue what they are asking for. Employees would still have their assigned areas but were expected to take a customer to whatever item they were looking for regardless of where it was located in the store.

After the ridiculous amount of time required to properly type up all the meeting notes, memos, and assignments, store managers were given the horrendous task of rolling out the new procedure to a staff of at least 50, maybe up to 1000. Sometimes all it took was one bad apple to spoil the bunch. The changes could have many pre-emptive promises, or be wrapped in a pretty bow. Didn't matter, they were always going to protest. Have a fit like a child. A tantrum. The event may even cause tears. Storm offs! Complaints were sure to be filed. Because after all change IS hard, and no one likes doing hard things.

I look around at the signs of our times today and I see the same resistance to change as I always have. I find it stems from a lack of communication. Lake of involvement in the solutions. Lake of proper terminology needed to convey certain messages to certain types of people. Eventually, I realized a lot of the people who complain and resist most are the same people who for year after year keep returning to, not just the same job, but the same exact position. In some cases for a mere $0.10 per year raise. They were all this time still unable to adjust the thinking patterns needed to be able to excel in their career and maybe even their life. Of course, it goes both ways. You can always be too agreeable. Too easily swayed. Too quick to jump ship when there is a problem rather than fixing the problem. This again brings my realization back to the fact that time and choices are the keys when rolling out major changes to groups of people.

People need time to weigh the changes for themselves. (How will changing work for them?) Have their concerns been heard and do they knowingly feel that adjustments can be made to suit them specifically. If, alas these changes do not suit them they also need a plan B. Most parents will agree that when it comes to training humans; giving littler humans (both physically & intellectually) lots of choices, however small in nature, is the only way to ensure the least amount of meltdowns are had by all.