Why has it been so long? More of the same stuff that's been so aggravating I've wanted to scream, or chuck it all and join a convent (and I'm not even Catholic).
The car issue: The car is fixed. Turned out NOT to be the alternator, but the alternator belt was gone. Not broken, just not there. Apparently it broke and fell off somewhere. Also, the serpentine belt was near rotten so I had to replace that too. Good news, instead of $500 for alternator, it was $150 for belts. While I had the car in, I told them to put in a new battery since I had no idea how long that rebuilt one was there, might as well change that while I had it. So, $300 later, my car was running with 2 new belts and a new battery. The next day, it started thumping when I turned left. Not good. Brought it back in, both front axles needed to be replaced...$500. Only problem I've had since was the serpentine belt came loose and started to squeal, but that was under warrantee so they fixed that no charge.
I'm still dealing with the insurance about dropping the old car and adding the new one. I had gotten a letter right after the accident that said I had 30 days to replace the car to keep my insurance current. I bought the new car 29 days after the accident. When I called to get the new car insured, the girl on the phone said I couldn't drop the old one until the adjuster closed the claim. Um Ok, but I don't own the car anymore...she said to call the adjuster and have him close the claim. For 2 weeks, I paid premium on the wrecked car, then for 2 more weeks I paid a double premium. I'm still trying to get a straight story from somebody at MetLife on what's going on. First, the girl who took the information to insure the new car said they could pre-date the end of the first car to the day after the accident. The adjuster said they could only go back to the day when I returned the rental car, and I did not need to keep the wrecked car insured after I accepted their total loss offer. I called back, talked to another girl about dropping the wreck, she tried to say I couldn't drop it until the claim closed, so I told her what my adjuster said, I don't own it so I can't insure it. She finally dropped it, but for the wrong date. In the mean time, my new car is insured as "car 2" and not getting the discounts that should be applied. Now they're saying that if the pre-date the drop on the wrecked car and add the new one, the premium will be higher because of a "lapse" in coverage...2 weeks? They gave me a month to replace the car and now they're going to penalize me for using 2 weeks? I'd love if somebody at MetLife would get their head out of their butt long enough to come to some conclusion and get the story straight.
Work wise...new policy now forbids me from mentioning the company name in a negative manner, so while I can say they suck, I can't tell their name. However, if anybody's been keeping up with business news, you'll figure it out *g*
The corporate fat cats have decided that in order to cut payroll costs (so says the guys with the $100,000 salaries) they would "streamline" the store management. Where we used to have one manager over grocery and one manager over drug (we do have a much larger drug section than most grocery stores) there would be one manager over the entire store. Of course that would mean that at least half the store level managers would be losing their jobs. Good move! Also, instead of telling one manager "you're fired" and letting the other one take over, they changed management in just about every store. My store got a former drug manager who knows nothing about managing grocery. Some stores have a grocery manager who knows nothing about managing drug. See where this is going? Stores are now managed by somebody who doesn't know diddly about what he's doing. I rarely see my manager because he's over in grocery learning how they do things, so my store is being run by the assistants. To top it off, we lost the best assistant to another store and got one who knows less than a clump of dirt. So basically, we have no leadership and corporate fat cats wondering why customer service scores have dropped to about 30%.
Corporate fat cats, I dare you to work just one month at store level and see what your moronic decisions are doing to the people who are doing all the hard work for minimum wage while you sit in your cushy offices pocketing $100,000 a year.
