When the big bosses land in.

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It's part of the job that just has to be put up with but it always amazes me how people react when the big bosses call in for a visit. I've been in the job 10 years and have actually outlasted most of the head guys who tend to leave fairly shortly after getting to the big spots in the company. Either that or they get moved to another section of the business.

There tends to be a huge amount of rotation in the top spots for whatever reason but it leads to a lot of messing as each new person wants to stamp their authority on the job and bring in their own initiatives. This tends to cancel the previous ideas, cost a lot of money and start everything from scratch again. Like i said, i've seen a lot of them come and go over the years.

It doesn't really bother me at this stage so when we get a visit announced. I do try to get that extra level of sharpness into the store. We bring in a few extra staff to clean, tidy, organize ect... Basically play the game. They shake our hands and say happy Christmas until we meet the next person in a years time.

At my level I would be 2nd in command for our store but at the moment my direct manager is off on holidays so I would be left in charge to cover him even though there are three others in my position it's accepted that i rank above them for some reason. Not that i've ever tried or wanted to as we all rank the same but my manager and his boss always default to me when he's gone.

We have had the regional director in for the past two weeks in a row so that means we had to get to a fairly high standard to keep him happy. I'm ok with that as it gave us a chance to sort the place out for xmas and with the extra hours we could do it without much extra effort. He has worked his way up to the position as well so especially as he is new to the position he has realistic expectations from working at different levels and knowing how things really operate.

Then today we had the head of the board of directors in. No.2 of the big boys for the whole country and a different proposition altogether. I've just finished after working 7 days in a row and dealing with all the shit that goes with a visit of this level. My district manager practically living in the shop. All hands on deck to clean tidy, make everything procedure. Move every stand 5 times and basically aim for perfection.

This is done by ignoring everything we are told on a normal daily basis and been given twice our normal resources to fix everything to plan. The district manager and even the regional director were in this morning before open to get their hands dirty which says a lot.

The amount of panicking they do is funny to me as while i want to show our best face to someone high in the company there is no point in throwing money at our problems for one week and pretending everything is perfect. I would much rather show the reality and try to improve how we operate.

I refuse to scrape before him like my bosses and want to have proper discussion but it's hilarious to be told not to open any can of worms or let him see how things really work in the business. Instead we are told to smile, shake his hand and hide all the dirty little secrets that we will be killed over every other week instead of trying to do better.

I think that we put in a good effort for the visit thanks to a great set of staff who rowed in behind me for the week. Having the discussion with them afterwards in the office he seemed fairly impressed with the store and the figures are on track for the year so we have the place in a good position.

I take pride in my work but really don't like being fake just because somebody has a high up position. I try to always b myself while doing things to the best of my ability so can't understand the fakeness of my bosses in these situations. But maybe it's my attitude that's wrong......