I won't lie. It's been a tough few weeks since the corona virus came to light here in Europe.
Ref:
The media, the panic, the uncertainty of it all. It's funny how something which started out as a total panic here in Ireland has so quickly become a matter of fact and part of daily life. We humans really are quite adaptable. If you had told me a month ago that 90% of businesses would be closed. Pubs empty, sports cancelled, people interned in their own houses I wouldn't have believed a word of it. It sounds like something from a B horror movie.
Now it's a common sight for people to wander the shops with masks and gloves. Streets lie empty and pitches quiet.
I've honestly never seen anything like it before and we are only at the beginning of the curve. Sitting at about a thousand cases with only a handful of deaths. The next week is going to tell us an awful lot as the numbers start to rise and more people get tested.
I work in a major retailer and just like across the world we have been hit massively hard with a surge in customers since the panic started. That first week was manic as everybody tried to fill their houses to the brim before the world ended. Well, before they though that the world was going to end. At least in the beginning we were fully staffed but that wasn't enough to keep the shelves filled and the people served. No matter how hard we worked it just wasn't possible to get enough stock onto the shelves to fulfill the demand that was out there.
The first issue was getting stock from our distribution center. For a normal week we are fairly consistent year to year so when you triple demand we literally don't have enough people to fill three times as much stock or enough lorries and drivers to triple deliveries. It just can't be done. Then with what we were getting into store was about twice as much as usual with three times as many customers means we didn't have enough staff to serve them all on the checkouts and try to pack twice as much onto the shelves as usual.
End result, empty shelves and mass hysteria leading to even more panic shopping. Or a self fulfilling prophecy. The more people panicked about food, the less food there was to be bought.
This at least has been sorted out as shoppers finally realized that the world was not ending nor were we shutting down the shop. For now at least.
While those were two very tough weeks it was possible to survive through team work and hard work. It was tiring but we felt it was worthwhile so it wasn't draining if you know what I mean. You could see and end in sight and it was a team effort which made it manageable.
No, the reason that I've hit that point of exhaustion now is from losing team members along the way. Just temporarily mind you. Nothing too serious at the moment.
Take however this mad situation with triple the customers and suddenly lose 1/4 of the management team. That's a lot of experience and a lot or specific jobs that can only be done by them.
You should have two managers on the morning shift sharing tasks such as organisation, ordering and customer relations during a very tricky time. You now have just me with no support trying to cover two people's work. To be fair there are only a handful of jobs during the morning that absolutely have to be dealt with be a manager so why not spread a little responsibility and ownership to some of the more experienced staff.
Great idea, as on a normal shift I have some great workers with years of experience.
Unfortunately bout 1/5 of these are out as well for various reasons and we have resorted to temp staff with no training or induction to the job. While they are extra bodies. With it being their first week this has added three new people to my shift of 7 that need to be constantly supervised and trained while also covering the work of two managers.
Are you starting to see the problem I'm facing. This unfortunately is everyday for the immediate future. With suspected cases being isolated for 14 days it will only get a lot worse before it gets better or that I have to be taken out of work as well. Now while this is pretty much just me shouting at the wall it's great to relieve a little stress and clear the head. I always find writing to be therapy and now more than ever it's great to have this outlet for my rants and just get it all out of the system.
I need to clear my head before falling into bed and back up at 4.30am to start it all over again tomorrow.
