Flutie Pass Movie Theatre - Framingham

My husband drops me of at the theatre, I walk in and the first thing I notice is how long both winding lines are.  People are waiting.  They look like they have been waiting a long time. Then I see that there is only one ticket seller per line.  I get in line and then I notice that there are 3 people in the booth, one ticket seller and 2 standing watching him. Could they be supervisors? Could they be trainers? Could they be so dumb (DUM) that they don't see the lines and think "hey I could help the line go fasted and sell more tickets if I handled a cash register?". No such luck. The person "overseeing" kept doing just that.  And the poor nervous nelly working the tickets just kept plodding away.  It is sad to me when I see inefficiencies happening and I also see that the employees are not empowered to make a change for the better.  Is it so difficult to think about the customer?  Is it so difficult to think outside of what you have been told? See the need, and fill it.  That is my recommendation, my life advice for all, for free.

Star Market

Yesterday on my way home from work I stopped at the Star Market to purchase dinner as well as general food items. This particular Start Market is unique in that, it is positioned up one level of stairs, so that you cannot take carts to and from your car. Instead the market provides you with a system in which your bags after purchase get transported to a lower garage, where you drive through and your bags are loaded in you car by grocery loading personnel. The system when it works is seamless, though completely inefficient. 3 humans touch your food from the time you check out to the time you drive away. Human Error is the key. An element which can be simply avoided by training and choice. Each individual who touches your bags, should take responsibility for them in conjunction with the others.
Because my groceries were not loaded into my car and because I did not notice they were missing until I unpacked the food and thought, "Didn't I buy more than this?".
This Star Market due to its situation is bound by an inefficient system. I am glad to say however, the Asst. Store Manager on duty was apologetic and did give me a $10 token for my troubles. A gesture of goodwill to a potentially loyal customer.

Kindergarten

www.goodschools.org

Here is my first experience at being a mom of a finishing kindergartener. Today was Progressive Portfolio Day, where parents are requested (required) to come in from 8:30 - 9:00 to listen to their children present their portfolios of the year's school work.

Now in theory this is a great idea. Parents get to see what the kids are working on and the children get to feel proud of their accomplishments. However, it is completely age inappropriate for Kindergartners. Kinder-age children should not have to "present" their work. We are under the misconception that children of any age should be able to learn anything whether, quantum physics, dynamics, molecular biology, or literature analysis. School is meant to be a place to learn not a place to test what you know. I expected my eager child to play some, learn some, and mostly prepare for 1st grade. What I came to find is that somewhere (meaning at home) my child needed to learn how to count to more than 100, then by 5's, then by 10's and finally by 2's. He has to master all of the sounds of the alphabet, as well as write all of the numbers to 100 or beyond. And he has. Because I quickly learned that these markers of success in Kindergarten were not taught there but rather tested, and so took it upon myself to make sure my child progressed. I was not however as proactive or as disciplined as other parents who seem to quiz their children often.
I blame all parents, whose competitive, placement oriented, judgmental ways has created this crazy system of schooling. Where you prep for college in high school but that has been interpreted as taking college classes, you prep for high school in middle school, you prep for middle school in elementary.
Learning, as has been written many times by professionals, is developmental. Just like riding a bike or learning how to walk is developmentally linked, so is understanding and comprehension.
Our children should be able to be children when they are. Let them enjoy running around outside and then let school be a place where you learn.
Let us not require our children to be tested without learning. Let us not be OK with school systems who claim that no child is left behind, but would rather brush them under a carpet. Let us not be OK with individualism in school that ends up as comformatism. Let us not protect the bullies, ignore the quiet ones, feed the loud ones, and turn our backs on the ones who need help.
Our public school system needs an overhaul.
Each of us searches for the place to live with the "good school" system. We pay unbelievable amounts to live in areas where the schools rank in the 90th percentile. We view MCAS like the bible on good or bad schools. There is a blind eye. We are enabling our government to take away programs, art, music, language. My husband and I are always debating: is it better to live in a town with cheaper housing and pay for private education where we may choose the school by philosophy and educational practices or do we live in a town where the schools are rated high by tests we disagree with and with educational practices which do not enrich, teach, prepare our child for the world?

Our children are our future. They deserve to be taught. They deserve to be exposed to all types of educators, all types of learning styles, to be given the love of learning. Our children deserve better education. We the people need to rise up and DEMAND it.

Watertown Diner

This is a sad blog for me to write. I loved this Diner in the crazy Watertown square intersection. It was a great local place for cheap eats, warm family atmosphere, child friendly staff. The omelets though thin were cooked to perfection, the portions were generous and the coffee flowed and flowed like a river.
It has been taken over by the son of the owner, who obviously took some lowgrade business class and has re-painted and added some home depot lights and is charging $1.00 - $2.50 more per item. The staff is still the same, but the prices knocked me out. The portions are smaller, the staff quicker, the potatoes burnt. One cup of coffee, no refills offered. I was sorely disappointed. What happened to the value of securing customer loyalty? What happened to quality over quantity?
It should have registered when we entered at 9:00 a.m on a Sunday and we were seated right away. Both my husband and I noticed the prices right away. Children's menu should never be more that $4.00 for anything. Children do not eat alot. The proportions can be small. You can still make money on the margin. We spent $5.00 for a children's pancake order, in which my daughter ate 1/2 of 1 of 3. Ridiculous.
Does anyone know of a great cheap family oriented diner in the Watertown area? I am looking.

How to be a bad employee

If you wish to be fired or just like to rile/aggravate and horrify your boss, just follow these simple instructions and you will be the worst employee of the millenia.

TIME - have no sense of it. Be late. Arrive never at the same time.
Depart early. Be out sick on important days, like Mondays. Take long lunches but charge for the less.

EXCUSES - have many and often. Be the victim. Blame others. Excuse yourself from difficult work.

COMPLAUN - alot. Complain to your co-workers. Complain to the customers. Complain to the Vendors. Take any change to tell nayone but your boss your complaints.

UNDERMINE - your bosses authority. Complain to your boss' supervisor about his/her behavior. Insite anarchy among the masses. Question everything and for no reason. Compromise secrets.

WITHER - morale. Seek to destroy the morale of the crew. Be spiteful/paranoid/accusatory. Accuse co-workers of doing "outrageous" things like tapping your phone or reading your email or using your computer to search for offensive keywords.

SOLUTIONS - never have any. Tell your boss, your co-workers of problems that need fixing, but do not ever give a solution. Just leave the problem with them and walk away.

SMELL - bad. Do away with hygiene. The people in the 1800's only washed once a month, in dirty water. If it was good for them then, it's good enough for you. Eat lots of garlic. Garlic does wonders for increased communication (not!).

PRETEND - to speak another language or to hear voices. If you can't understand anyone, there will be no communication issues. If you hear voices, well then you always have someone to blame.

DRESS - to impress noone. Wear the same clothes everyday and spill food, so that you can see the progression of food mold. Wearing the same clothes and not washing go well together. Again, the lads and lasses of the 1800's did the same.

* The above behaviors have been documented by professionals. We do not recommend these behaviors for amateurs.

Inefficiency 101

If you have employees hanging around for more than 2-3 minutes at a time,
If you have employees who complain about their breaks, complain about the store,
If you have customers wandering around without items in their basket,
If you have customers waiting in line for more than 15-30 minutes for a sandwich or any food item,
You need to take the following steps to make your store, restaurant run more efficiently.

1) Employees that hang around need to be trained on the steps they need to take in order to keep inventory stocked, the restaurant cleaned and seated. Take an all-hands-on-deck approach. No one is above any task or any job. If an employee sees a task that needs to be completed in another department, your policy should be to let them take the initiative to do it. Make sure they have enought responsibility to fill their day, keep them occupied, make them feel helpful.
2) Fire all employees who complain. Anyone who complains without also giving a solution is a non-thinker and you do not need them. Complainers are downers and they will drag your staff, your customers and your business right down with them.
3)Empower your employees to be helpful towards customers. You can do this with Sales incentives - commisions, or you can do it simply by philosophy. A great working philosophy is the one Disney uses, in which all employees are cast members, so whether you're behind the scenes or working with the public everyday (as in the parks) you must remember that whenever you interface with the public (that includes sibling companies within Disney) that you present yourself in a manner that is helpful and service oriented. Help your customers to fill their basket, to choose from the menu, to entice them with new or promotional items.
4) If you see your check out line is not moving -again take the all hands on deck approach, get the person from the back to make sandwiches. Open another register. Give out free pieces of cookies to those waiting. A little effort goes a long way to making your customers want to come back.
5) Waiting for food sometimes cannot be helped in the food industry. Problems in the kitchen are rampant and sometimes not easily avoided. I get that. But again you can be service oriented in your company. You can empower your waitstaff to give extra bread. If their customers are unhappy with the wait, let your waitstaff give a complimentary soda, a complimentary small appetizer. You don't have to lose your margin in order to save a customer.
These are simple customer service steps. Easy to follow. Easy to do. Just make sure that you train your staff. If you lead with great customer service they will follow.

Kmart - Watertown

I fyou want to get angry, need to get riled up about something, just step into the Kmart in Watertown, MA. It is chock full of employees who hang around doing nothing, knowing nothing, helping no one. I asked a clerk, "excuse me, I am looking for cedar blocks to go in your closet, do you know where they are?" and she said to me,"this is not my department" "i don't know". There was no " let me help you find it" " let me call someone from this department" "we don't carry that". Nothing . No Help. I went to the front of the store and asked a check-out clerk. And I 'm sure you know what her answer was, "I don't know - I don't work in that department - you have to go there and find someone to ask". My blood pressure rises at the thought of walking into that store. I'll drive 15 extra minutes to go Target, where the staff is friendly, somewhat knowledgeable and the shelves are well stocked with merchandise.

friendly's

A restaurant fraught with inefficiencies. A business apathetic to their customer base. Clientele stuck between a rock and eating at home.

It is Sunday, May 16, 2004. It is raining out and we have been to the Stone Zoo. Hungry and wet we search for a place to rest and dine. We see Friendly's; a place to have a burger, fries and a good amount of mac-n-cheese. We enter at 11:50 a.m. to an unhappy waitress, "breakfast or lunch?". "Lunch." I say,my 2 happy children running around me. She looks at me,disdainfully, "we don't serve lunch until 12". I say, "Fine, we'll sit and order our drinks and then it'll be time..." but before I finish, she says ever so pleasantly (note my tone of sarcasm) "you can't sit down if you want lunch, you have to wait". Well we waited. It was only going to be 10 minutes after all. And at 12 we were seated, only to find out 5 minutes later as we were waiting to order our drinks, that it was going to be 30 more minutes before another waitress (just as happy) could take our lunch order. I quickly calculated, that means we won't get our lunch until 1:10 at the latest.
This kind of inefficiency and terrible customer service, just makes me fume. 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1