Why Wawa Let Me Go - My Story
On Monday, Wawa let me go.. Citing I was bringing down morale, which is total bullshit. Also citing the fact that I was disrespectful to a certain management member, Pending further actions I will not go into detail on some of these things, and I also have decided not to name names.
What I will say is, When I left The Malaga store before Thanksgiving, It was widely known that I was fighting against a return to Franklinville, Widely known as far up as Area Managers. I told them that I had issues with the management staff over at the Franklinville Store, I also told them that I had several issues with two girls in particular at Franklin. All of which was known with a certain manager, This Certain manager decided to side with these girls, which in July lead to Write ups, in November however, prior to my return to Franklin I ended up calling Human Resources at Wawa, to further fight for my stay at Malaga. HR told me since I had a write up in July I would be forced to return to Franklinville, the went on to say that they don’t transfer people who have write ups. Which doesn’t make sense because I had been working at Malaga since September 14th, (Two Months) with not one incident and this request was just to make it appear on paper that I had been transferred, even tho i have been at malaga happily for two months. after explaining that these problems I had in the past with Franklinville Wawa to HR, they said after 30 days i would be able to transfer back to Malaga, If a position were available, …which would have been around December 23rd (makes no sense right? To put me in a store I had issues with when Malaga liked me and I liked Malaga)
Since my return to Franklinville it was widely known that I didn’t want to be there. however, in no way did it effect how I worked. (they also made a point to say that on Monday, That it’s not how I work that was the issue).
I believe that I was transferred back to Franklinville to be set up for failure. Moving on..
They also said morale at the store was low because of me. Which is entirely not true, INFACT This is bull shit, morale was low due to hour cuts, failed inspections, and poor leadership, Recently the Franklinville store has gone thru a lot of changes, and in my opinion if it werent for these changes the store would have been more successful. However I as well as all the employees at the store have been thru these changes before, and went willingly along with them.
Until when,
We recently failed what is a major “Internal” Inspection on Daily Operations,
We failed with Mainly with products not being priced correctly on stickers, Cooler not being rotated , Promotion stickers expired but still within sight of customers and messy store conditions, etc.. infact it was an all management team the day of the inspection, why was the store a mess? And among other things, I’d like to note pricing at POS was correct, no health issues were found. Nor were any hazards found, these issues were more along with appearance and inventory.
Wawa inspects each of its almost 600 stores every month to ensure that the product offer is being met, they also send in a Secret Shopper 1-2 times monthly to ensure that our customers are being treated well, (in my opinion most Wawa’s treat their customers with what I feel is customer service that is above and beyond and sets the standard for customer service in the retail industry. ) (yes Wawa rocks with customer service 99/100 times)
I would also like to note Our location NEVER has failed either of these inspections, until this new manager took over. Since this new General Manager Took over, we failed the internal inspection on operations, with a 59/100. (again no hazards or health issues)
I’d also like to point out a positive, Franklinville has gotten a new (and new to the position as well) food service manager, and she and her deli department did extremely well on the inspection. To be short all the issues were in the other managers departments. Not hers.
Moving on..
I had many conversations with other managers at the location and even with the general manager him self about the conditions of the store after he had left and I come in to run the shift following him. These conversations sometimes went as far as
Hours, Inspections, Issues with the store, training and so on..
Secondly, I have also had conversations with management about the General Mgr these conversations were openly discussed and not brought on by me, on many occasions THEY CITED that he was not good at what he does, one even went as far as to tell me that he was an asshole, and not a leader. and he was the reason for our recent failures.
Which leads me to ask, if your own people aren’t 100% behind you, how can you expect me to be? I tried, but it’s hard to follow a leader who sucks.
They also cited that I complained about the conditions of the store.
Seriously.. Look at it from my stand point. I was a shift manager coming into a store that was a disaster and when I say disaster I mean coffee not fresh, product in the back and not available to customers, etc. and who was running the shift before me? My Assistant General Manager , My General Manager, and My Food Service Manager! So why does the store look like it does. I got it fixed because I did my job and I felt that hpeople weren’t. This happened very often. So I as the person in charge was often very blunt, If things weren’t the way that I felt they should be and I felt that an effort wasn’t being made I would say something.
Infact, they complained about the performance of third shift several times and asked me to take over third shift on several occasions, I declined, over my last few weeks there all I heard was that this third shift was not performing and that was the reason why my store looked horrible at 2:00PM the day after when I inherited the store from my managers., (understand 3rd shift left the store a mess, and these leaders weren’t able to correct it within the 8 hours since the third shift left) at that point I got upset with them saying that it was third shifts fault.
I was sick of hearing the excuses, going on to say, that if the 3rd shift person on the overnights was not doing well fix it and stop using it as a daily excuse.,
I’d also like to point out all conversations happened out of view of customers, and in the back rooms of the store.
I was wrong on how I approached a few things things, However I did make sure to only talk to managers about these issues. Since my return, when they asked me to only approach management on issues concerning management.
I know full out that procedure wasn’t followed Monday, which again strengthens my case that they ousted me because, I saw thru the poor leadership.
Values;
I was doing the right thing
Wawa as a company:
Wawa has amazing values and a product offer that can’t be beat. I enjoyed my time there and learned a lot. Wawa is apart of the communities in which they serve and that’s why I loved working there. Not every store is the same on the employee side however, they cut hours around the winter time which forces managers of these stores to cut hours of good people, stores that are understaffed in the summer time may end up over staffed in the winter because of over hiring. leaving some with as little as 4 hours a week, if they are even put on the schedule at all. A constant reminder Wawa is still a corporation.
This Post was originally created on December 26, the day they let me go.
Thank you.
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