For fu**s sake, my store even has a cabinet in the backroom that requires an ETLs key to open. What is in the cabinet you ask? Box cutters. Those cheap metallic slider cutters. If a backroom TM (or any other TM) needs one, they have to call the LOD and wait sometimes upwards of 15 mins. Really? A TL can't handle getting those? I wonder how much payroll is wasted company wide if you were to add up all the minutes TMs stand waiting around to get equipment when a nearby TL could easily handle it.
The box cutters are supposed to be secure, not that most stores do. My store has them in the receiver's lock desk. They do not come easy either. It is the principle of the thing, not to save a buck We GIVE you something to use to help do your job. Be responsible and don't loose it 6 times a day.
Ok, never said they shouldn't be locked up at all did I? Only that realistically those things probably cost 5 cents each bought in bulk, and there is no reason a TL couldn't be trusted with handing them out. It shouldn't take an ETL 15 mins to get all the way from the front of the store to the back, burning payroll the entire time, when a TL nearby (i.e. backroom TL or electronics TL at my store) could easily handle it. If a store can't trust a TL the responsibility of handing out a 5 cent box cutter, then something is seriously wrong.
FYI - let's assume a TM makes $9/hour. If it takes 15 mins for an ETL to get back there while a TM is waiting, that means the company just burned $2.25 in wages for a TM to stand and do nothing because they were worried a 5 cent box cutter might go missing. In other words, the store just spent
45 times as much money as they would have just to let a TL that is 20 seconds away handle it and risk that maybe something would happen to the 5 cent box cutter.
Let's pretend this situation happens just once a week at every store in the company and just say we have 1000 stores. That means the company collectively wasted
$2250 in one weeks time of payroll being wasted while TMs stood around waiting for a box cutter. And if not a box cutter, they probably were standing around for some other equipment. Over an entire year, the company would burn
$108,000 just for TMs standing around for equipment once a week for 15 mins..... and the worst part of all of this? TMs aren't standing around for 15 mins waiting for equipment just once a week.... It is probably happening several times daily at most stores in the company.
Now, let's pretend that the box cutters could easily be obtained by a TL who is in the area. Let's assume that in those 1000 stores 10,000 TMs lost their box cutters in the course of a year. How much is the cost to the company? $500. Assuming a ridiculous amount of TMs lost the damn 5 cent box cutters. (and they are probably even cheaper than that)
Moral of the story? Lost payroll is more expensive than lost box cutters. In other words, it's freaking waste of money to have TMs have to wait for a box cutter while an ETL makes their way to the damn lock box. You say it's the "principle of the thing". Well, the principle is damn expensive. This is a stupid as some guy spending $20,000 in attorneys fees to sue someone who stole his $200 power drill out of his truck for the $200 it cost to get a new one just for the "principle" of the matter.