About 5 years ago I was working for a “facilities operations” company. In my case that meant I was a garage attendant. Easiest job I've ever had, until the new senior manager came on board. I had been hearing stories the whole week leading up to him about how he was there to make heads roll and he was a ruthless go getter. On the day I met him, it was raining heavily and a few of the (underground) stairwells began to flood. Myself and two other extra guys arrived to help take care of it. When we got there the new senior manager was there. He told us all to go to the supply closets and grab a squeegee and start clearing off the stairs. When we got to the closet there were only 2 squeegees. The other two guys grabbed one and I (pretty familiar with this garage) went up a few other spots looking for what I needed to do my job. I had stopped moving for maybe 10 seconds when senior mgr came around the corner and chewed me out.
“You can't just be standing around screwing around, grab a squeegee and get to work”
“There are none”
“That's bullshit and you know it, get to work”
“You got it boss”
There did happen to be some landscaping tools in the supply closet. I grabbed a ho and began pantomimimg the action of squeegeeing steps. AND HE WAS APPEASED!!! He said something along the lines of “that's more like it”.
That's when I realized it's not just retail. Managers in any industry are useless knob heads, and I've never taken one seriously ever since.