Alright, so I left off somewhere around March 2009. The new SM was being trained under the guy who originally hired me at HMV, so I was cautiously optimistic that an outside hire SM would actually be a good fit. My reservations were somewhat selfish, in that what I
needed to move forward in the company was more of a knowledge background in HMV-specific things.
So new SM eventually comes over from Chinook (with me delaying my scheduled week vacation
again because of the decisions of upper management), and states that for the first 3 weeks he'd just be observing essentially. I'm alright with that, but a bit suspicious, like he's waiting for me to make some mistake or do something differently than they do at Chinook. The three weeks pretty much pass uneventfully.
(While writing this I just remembered that I forgot to type in the September 2008 time period that during the Christmas Regional Meetings I mentioned to the DM that in the future I'd be looking to be transferred to the Nanaimo HMV store, as I had great friends on the Island and that it was the closest store to them at the time.)
Anyways, after the 3 weeks the SM starts putting his stamp on things. He begins to push a lot of procedures that Chinook does on a regular basis. Which is fine... for Chinook. I'm not knocking the store, but Chinook has something like 15 people working at a time, whereas my store opened with a maximum of 3 people usually. The same systems
can work in different environments, but not the exact same way. There were subtle clashes between the SM and I, mostly just conversations about why things were done one way versus a differing way.
The new SM came from a "big box" background, managing a Canadian Tire store, and various other vocations that he mentioned to me over many, many conversations / time wasters in the office. Still cautiously optimistic at this point, but April 2009 would set in motion the events that led to my resignation from HMV.
( April 2009 )( June - July 2009 )( August 2009 to October 2009 )( The beginning of the end )