My first blog about RGIS.

I started working for RGIS in 2008. I worked for the New Port Richey District till 2010, I then stopped receiving emails from them as far as jobs that were available. I called the office and kept leaving messages. No one returned my call. So i stopped trying. I moved to Bradenton and desperately needed a job. I tried all other avenues for a job but came up empty handed. So as a last resort i reapplied online at www.RGIS.com. I was called within a couple hours from the District Manager of dist 133. I was asked if i was still interested in the job. I said yes. I drove to Sarasota to talk with the DM. I told her i worked  in 143 district for a year. She said she had to contact them for a reference. I called the DM in dist 143. she immediately called the DM of 133. I was called back and given a position as Auditor. when i left dist 143 i was a specialist. Now to let everyone know how the steps of the positions are: when you get hired you are labeled a "yellow tag" which is an auditor start pay is $8.00/hr. then upon completion of 90 days if you are counting fast (not necessarily accurate) you then move up to a "red tag" which is Specialist pay is $8.50/hr. then you really have to become faster to be a "green tag" Expert pay is $9.50/HR. Then after expert is "black tag" Top Gun pay i believe is $11.50/hr.The basics of RGIS is that when you get hired you are given one uniform shirt and a belt to hang your machine off of and a pouch for "yellow tags" (yellow tags are supplied so you can tag the shelves and merchandise as you scan) and you have to buy black pants (not jeans) and Non slip sole all black shoes. We go to different stores and scan merchandise. when my mom worked for this company the machines were alot different. It was basically just a 10 key pad calculator. it was alot harder back then to do this job. Our machines now are called RM-1's. The machines have a built in laser scanner. We also have Finger lasers which you attach to the side of the machines.when I started in dist 143 they only had finger lasers for the experts and top guns. So if they had an extra lasers you had to get to an inventory early in order to get one. Now they have found the finger lasers help with efficiency and accuracy. I want to clear something else up. We don't "count" we scan and the machines count for us. We do have to verify the total after we finish the area.

 I just got promoted to "green tag". i have been in the 133 dist since May 2011. I was then asked by a coworker if i wanted to be a team leader (grey shirt). Team leaders run the inventory at stores. At first i wasn't sure if i could handle it. The coworker told me He knew i could handle it. So i was then asked by my DM if i wanted to be a team leader. I then said yes. I was trained in 3 stores total then thrown out to run stores.

My first store i ran was Kay Jewelers. That is a "self scan" store which means the employees of Kay's scan there own merchandise with our machines. I was just there to supervise. It went pretty well. Manager was happy. I was very nervous. But gained my composure and the store ran very smoothly.

The second store i ran was Juno and Jove. It is a clothing store. I was nervous at that store too, but I handled my employees very well. It was a learning experience for me since I have never had any experience with supervising other people. The manager of the store was very nice. But when I was done with the inventory another manager (which was not involved in the inventory) filled out the PIQA (don't know what it stands for but it is an evaluation the store gives me and my employees. we strive for all 5's). He gave me 4's and 5's. There was a question he asked me and i truly didn't know the answer to it so i called my DM to ask what the answer would be and i think that is why he gave me a 4. Which is still pretty good. but the store manager that was in the store the whole time would have given me all 5's.

then I started being a "runner" for Dillard's. A runner is the term that is referred to the team leader who "runs" the team to a travel store. As a TL i am responsible for downloading the store program on my company laptop, and then downloading the machines for the employees from my district to use at the inventory. My first Dillard's,i was not the "runner" another team leader was, and i had equipment and so did he. So i told the TL i would download the machines i had for him. Which i did. Everything went smooth. Then Two days later I had another Dillard's which i was the "runner" so I had the equipment and downloaded the program to my laptop. But because I had another Dillard's downloaded in the laptop (which we call a portable) I mixed up the programs and downloaded the wrong program into the machines. What a catastrophe that was!! I was running the "flow" (supervisor who places the employees throughout the store to get the different departments done efficiently). My employees from my district started scanning merchandise and then I told everyone to "transmit" (transmit means send the information to the portable basically thru wifi) there was a problem with transmitting. An error code popped up when they tried to transmit. I called over the walkie talkie to the AM (area manager) of the Tampa district saying i needed him to come to me so I can figure out how this happened. He looked into one of my employees machines and it had the wrong program downloaded. My DM's boss was there and he asked who gave me the P number (p number is the number i use to down load the program into the portable each store has there own P number) I told him i got it from the office. He immediately called my DM and yelled at her. I then received text messages from my dm about the situation. I told her I didn't know how that happened. The AM from Tampa brought me new machines with the right program downloaded. My employees had to rescan and recount the areas (areas refer to area tickets which are hung with tape to break down the merchandise into smaller quantities). Thank god it was only 2 area's per person. But my employees from my district were great. They didn't complain they just went back and started counting. I had to answer to my DM the next day. I told her I will never make that mistake again. It was costly for our company and it will never happen again. And i have had several Dillard's since then and didn't make that mistake again.
My next store was FYE. That is a top 300 store.(top 300 store is a term for a "Goal" store. "Goal store means headquarters have set up a time limit and APH (average pieces per hour) goal that needs to be met.) My DM ran it with me. I was told to add alot of people to that store because in inventories past that store never agreed with our numbers and we had to go back to redo the inventory. So i had way too many people. But the inventory ran smooth. Had a couple accuracy issues

My last store i ran was Hollister. That is a tough store. number one if you have ever shopped in that store it is very dark. It is hard to see the UPC numbers and the tags. It is also a tough store to run. in the procedures for Hollister it says the RGIS supervisor doesn't count anything. I have a problem with that because i always want to count and scan things.LOL. I had 8 people scheduled for the back room. I was only supposed to have 6. But i over scheduled to try to get the backroom done fast.I had one employee who was 5 minutes late and she missed my information speech prior to the inventory. She asked me if there is anything new she needed to know. I then told her the basics and placed her so she could start scanning. there was merchandise on the top shelf which you needed a ladder to get to. I told her to scan what she could reach. I also told her to keep the stacks of clothes exactly how she found them. One of the Hollister employees told me that she was stomping her feet and tapping on the shelf because he was verifying our counts. All she had to do was ask him to move and he would have moved.The store manager politely asked me to ask her to keep her stacks neater. So i did. she then threw her pen to the floor and started complaining. she said "this store manager doesn't like me,i am tired from working 8 hours at my other job,i am tired of people taking my ladder. So call the DM or text her i want to leave. so i did. And my dm told me to tell her to finish the area transmit and log off. and i clocked her out. the store manager of Hollister was very grateful that i let her leave. She also had put her hands on 3 Hollister employees.  I then had two employees that text messaged me saying they were running late because of baby sitter issues. The back room started at 3:30 pm. They arrived at 4:00 pm. I placed them in the second backroom and told them to start scanning. I was then told at 5:00 that they both had to leave at 9:00pm. Then at 7:30pm they came to me and told me that they had to leave in 30 minutes. I then said what happened to 9? they said they had to go. I told them to transmit log off(log off means the log out of the machine) i then clocked them out. they were told to contact the DM the next day. I was then given 3 employees from another inventory that was going on next door. I was almost done with the store but the extra people helped out big time. I was very grateful. I received 4's and 5's on my piqa. I received one 3. but that was because of efficiency issues. which i believe stemmed back to the one employee with an attitude. I didn't think i made "goal". I went to the office the next day and talked to my DM and asked her what did i really do wrong? she said I did make goal in the hours department. she said she was surprised because she didn't think i would make goal because of how hard the store is to run. they have alot of folded clothes. I was very proud of myself when i found out i made goal.