Unfortunately most local managers don’t actually have the ability to negotiate. Their job is to administer the machine, and avoid getting sued.

It sucks because it often means they can’t make decisions even if they would make the store more money.

I worked at a big box store for a while and my department was turning away customers simply because we couldn’t serve them. Hiring more help would have brought in revenue far beyond their wages, but my stores hands were tied by centralized corporate policy that dictated how many people they could hire.

I had like $500k in the sales pipeline. I had an excellent conversion rate on the customers I actually had time to work with. But I was forced to spend my time stocking shelves and cleaning while my customers called in frustrated why I wasn’t helping them.

People say it’s all about profit but that’s not actually true. It’s about maximizing the ability of the central corporate office to model and predict the money flows. I wish it were all about profit.

I’ve worked for startups and other small locally-owned businesses and it’s so great to see the flexibility they have. Working for a huge corporation sucked because it was like twelve layers of command structure to get to someone who could make a decision.