Archived Being a captain of your workcenter

[Planosss]

An often forgotten perk about being a well-performing Captain is having a lot of say about your scheduling. I didn’t work a closing shift for over 8 months, despite having open availability and working 40+ hours a week. I had a few months of Monday-Friday opening shifts only, I got nearly any time off request I wanted approved, I got to have say over who would work before with or after me. Make yourself so that they can’t survive without you, and they’ll start making sure they keep you happy. Be global. Make people train you everywhere. Always answer when work calls and always come in for shifts when they need your help.

Don’t expect help from your team lead when it comes to getting promoted. You make their job easier, and you drive results that they ultimately get credit for. We had best comps in the group, best instocks, best looking department, best surveys; you think my boss was going to give that up for me to be his peer? I was strung along, he told me I was SrTL material, that I was doing all the right things but that ‘they’ would want to see it for another year. I started talking to ETLs other than my own about it, expressing my interest. In the end, the ETL GE ended up getting the ball rolling for me. She wanted me to be a gstl, but once the STL and my ETL knew I was serious, they wanted me on the sales floor.

I was having a rough week, and started to feel fed up, when the DM for Target Mobile who had been trying to recruit me since he met me called me and offered me an EEL (their leader position for a store) spot at another store. Now, I know marketsource is generally shit to work for, and I didn’t want to do it. But I took his offer and went straight to my ETL with it and was assured I was next, and that I’d have it by spring. A few weeks later, our hardlines TL left to pursue their dream career and rather than waiting til spring, I had my TL spot just in time for Q4.


One of my old TLs who has long left Target used to say that around here, you either get tons of recognition without the pay you deserve, or you’re paid more but get zero recognition. Speaking from experience, this is 1000% true. Went from being the rockstar TM in the store and district, speaking to the STLs from the district about what I’m doing to get the results that we were getting, to being a not-quite-new-in-role TL, who is given less and less resources every week despite expectations growing more and more, and being held accountable for the result. But I make $7 more an hour!

On my most difficult days, I almost start to think it’s not worth it.

You are not Sr Tl material, you are CEO material, a rockstar TM in the District, how do they even quantify that?

 

[Kompa]

I'd assume in most stores TMs that are "Rockstars", and I use that term loosely because most are just ass kissers, the leaders would want to keep them in that role because because it's cheaper and easier than trying to promote your best tms that can already do the work you want.


In my store, the only time these guys get promoted is when someone from leadership quits. It's said because we two other guys busting their ass for whayewha reason but there are no more leader spots opening up, we are already at max headcount and the current leaders have been in role for years and are showing no signs of leaving anytime soon


I personally think think that effort would be better spent outside of Target. Even me, a shit tm who doesn't care randomly applied to a PMT role out of my way and actually got an interview lol. To bad it was a store I didn't care to commute to

 

[WestLoggy]

Have *never* heard the term used at my Spot.

 

[Him]

Throughly enjoy the replies everyone. Keep them coming as I'm sure we are teaching a lot of people who view this thread the many "phases" of being a captain. On a personal note, I have seen many sides of being a captain and echo sentiments with what has been said. I will add that having a "cash cow/Rockstar" on your team is kudos for leaders in a specific workcenter. However when said leaders PURPOSELY prevent said Rockstars from moving up or abroad, that's when I get upset. A leaders job SHOULD be to develop and grow tm's. They should NOT only be thinking of their own selves.

 

[busyzoningtoys]

I will add that having a "cash cow/Rockstar" on your team is kudos for leaders in a specific workcenter. However when said leaders PURPOSELY prevent said Rockstars from moving up or abroad, that's when I get upset. A leaders job SHOULD be to develop and grow tm's. They should NOT only be thinking of their own selves.

My current development is focused on developing my team to be self sufficient; the goal is to have the department to where it would run smoothly if I was gone for a week, a month, or more. I’m actively developing them to be able to become leaders that if I were an ETL, I could trust and rely on.

 

[BullseyeBlues]

Pretty sure I’m the hardlines captain at my store. Everyone who’s salesfloor of any sort goes through me for training on the processes (learning to push truck or pulls, reading planograms and pic labels, various ways to do searches, merchandise protection, pulling from backroom without screwing up the counts, etc) and then I’m usually the one my TL has chat with any TMs they think need a nudge in the right direction (correction of minor issues done in a delicate/discreet way) and sometimes delegating tasks if we’re really short handed because I know which spots need prioritized based on sales trends at my location. They just know better than to throw around titles that don’t come with any extra incentives at my location, which is what captain would feel like at times because we’re already over the allotted leadership headcount at our store so there’s no chance of captain turning into anything else anytime in the near future.

 

[Him]

My current development is focused on developing my team to be self sufficient; the goal is to have the department to where it would run smoothly if I was gone for a week, a month, or more. I’m actively developing them to be able to become leaders that if I were an ETL, I could trust and rely on.

I wish you could teach leadership @ stores I have been at this!!! #YouEffenRock

 

[Kartman]

Good wording.

 

[BigEyedPhish]

Back when there was a Perishables Assistant position, I pretty much managed Market Myself, as my TL was only over there 1 day a week, the rest were spent in the rest of "consumables" being Beauty, HBA, Pets, paper, and Chem.

I organized and scheduled our sales planners (Easily the most Sales Planners in the store, are Market), Scheduling them for even my TL when he was over here. I also communicated with the vendors to know what day they would be in, so I could have it set and THEY could do the push, and not myself, eliminating part of my work.
I was more often than not the "Go to Guy" even when my TL was on the clock.
I also had to run ad-set myself once a month, and always managed to get in done before we opened, while I had to sit back and watch whoever they scheduled to open Market on that fateful Sunday, struggle immensely. I would often comment on it, and try to help, which leadership despised, and would reply "Your on AD-set, not Market".
To this day, every TM and most of the TL's in the store (who were once my peers, and in many ways still are), call me "Sir".

Its weird.'

I'd say this is probably Captain, but one who fell on his own sword, but that can happen in the mad scramble of trying to jump onto a hand grenade.

 

[gsa4lyfe]

My current development is focused on developing my team to be self sufficient; the goal is to have the department to where it would run smoothly if I was gone for a week, a month, or more. I’m actively developing them to be able to become leaders that if I were an ETL, I could trust and rely on.

This!!!! I’ve been saying this at my store forever and it’s finally working. My old boss always used to say you know it’s tike to move on and you’ve done all you can for your department when you can walk away and it’ll just run itself and I think that’s a huge part about being a great TL or ETL

 

[SFSFun]

I hate the captain title with a burning passion, and I had to stop my leaders from assigning it to me on multiple occasions over the years. I’m fine with giving 110%, taking ownership of things that aren’t necessarily my job, and being the go-to guy for my area. But as soon as your leaders attach a title to it, that’s when THEY start setting the expectations and holding you accountable for things that should really fall on actual leadership. I could be giving 110% but they could say “well you’re the captain so we really need 120%.” Or maybe the department didn’t have a good week, and even though you can prove that you did great like usual, you could be assigned the blame since you’re the captain and you should have made sure everyone else was on top of things.

The captain title only adds risk and no reward to the same job you’ve been doing. I could see an argument to go with it if you’re seeking a promotion, but even then I’d avoid “captain” and have them say you’re “in development” or something that would infer you are learning and improving instead of being completely responsible for leading.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

This^

 

[unknown]

What's with all the percentages some people use? It's such filler. "I give 110%, and I'm a star." It's meaningless to assign this TO YOURSELF.