Company Meeting

We had a nearly-company-wide meeting. I got to meet all the important people that I'd only ever heard about and see other people that I don't often see. Most of the regional managers were there. It was interesting to see how everyone interacted. They were really scraping the bottom of the barrel for a few of the managers, though.

During the actual meeting part I sat with a friend who's a manager at another store and her friend who's a manager at yet another store. The company VP came over to chat and was quite personable, but directed most of his comments to the guy and ignored me and my female friend. ?!!

At lunchtime I sat with yet another friend and one of her co-workers, both quite fun ladies. Someone THEY knew also sat with us. We were trying to save seats for the other two, but the company President came and asked if she could sit with us…….we couldn't exactly say no, could we? We were all a little nervous, afraid we'd say the wrong thing. One girl didn't care, and started talking about why she didn't like her job. Uh, hello!! The COMPANY PREZ is AT OUR TABLE!!

I learned a good deal, they fed us lots of good food, and it was fairly interesting. Some of the stuff was predictable—how to prevent/handle sexual harassment, signs of drug/alcohol abuse, how to sell more stuff, how to make the displays look better. The regional manager's boss tried to be funny, and failed, MISERABLY. We laughed politely, while rolling our eyes at his corny jokes.

At the end it got REALLY boring. The Q & A part sucked. Things got out of hand, with stupid questions that should not have been addressed company-wide.

• "Ms. Prez, our fire extinguishers need to be charged. Who do I need to contact about that?"
• "Mr. VP, I have an employee with bad breath. How should I handle it?"
• "We haven't had any widgets in three months. Can you tell me what's wrong?"

HELLO! Talk to your store manager and/or regional manager! Don't waste our time with your insignificant issues!

All in all it was a good day, and a nice break from a normal workday. I left feeling invigorated and excited about doing my job even better than before.