I had an enlightening week last week and I am eager to share all of my experiences with you all. On Tuesday evening, myself and many of the members of the Pittsburgh management teams headed to Columbus, Ohio for leadership training. Since the training wasn't until Wednesday afternoon, we had the opportunity to see what Columbus had to offer. The city was very pretty and in some ways reminded me of a (cleaner) version of Pittsburgh. I enjoyed the opportunity to hang out with my work family for the evening in a fun atmosphere.
On Wednesday morning, we woke up and headed to the home office which was one of the most magical experiences of my existence. I feel so bad for everyone in the car that had to hear me say "I'm so excited" every few seconds. Everything about the campus at home office was really cool. To be fair, I only saw a small portion of the campus, but I'm sure the theme was consistent throughout. The cafeteria was bossy and the fact that the sell Abercrombie and Fitch water is just delightful.The leadership training lasted about four hours and it was really great for all parties involved to meet managers from stores outside of our district and to meet district and regional managers that started off their career with the company just as we did. The training taught us how to improve our roles as leaders and also encouraged us to take the things that we learned and take them back to our management team and our staff at our respective stores.
Some of the important items that we talked about at training were things like emotional stability, communication and addressing conflict. Quite frankly, it's a good thing that we discussed these competencies in leadership training, because I needed to utilize them only a few hours after completing the class.
I'll shorten this story because it makes me mad just writing about it. On Wednesday evening we got back to the mall around midnight to pick up my car. Myself, Jesse, Tj, Megan and Liz were all in the car together. Next thing we know, mall security is honking their horn and flashing their lights at us. Jesse stopped the car and security pulled up next to us and the man driving the security car lost his mind and immediately began screaming and swearing at us.
It became VERY clear to me that someone gave this man a mall security badge and he now believed that he was a member of seal team six on a mission.
After Jesse and TJ tried talking calmly to this yelling idiot MULTIPLE times, I finally said, "Sir, what is your name?" To which he responded, "TONY CASSANO." He said his name in an affirmative tone as if to say "take this to the bank." Then he told us that he was going to arrest us, you know, in the parking lot of our own place of work. At this point I let him know that he was out of his mind. Then, I left on my own terms as he yelled, "you better hurry up." The next morning, I took Tony's name to the mall management and let them know about his poor behavior. My one regret from this situation was not utilizing my pepper spray on fat Tony as he screamed profanities at me.
I know that I don't usually expose first and last names but I think that everyone should learn a valuable lesson from this. If you choose to act like an idiot, don't be surprised when people talk about it. If you yell at someone or make a scene, it usually doesn't stay a secret. I'm sorry about your luck, but I am not sorry about your extortion.
On Saturday afternoon I was lucky enough (this is sarcasm) to see a middle aged European woman completely naked in the fitting room at my store. She asked me to get a dress for her, and when I came back she was holding the fitting room door open without a single stitch of clothing on, and began chatting with me as if she was wearing a down parka. Other people in line for the fitting room also got to see everything that this woman had to offer including a lot of hair, and also, large breasts.
TJ would also like everyone to know that he has been in my blog TWICE.
I hope that everyone has a fantastic week and enjoys the sun :)
Here's to appreciating those around us and celebrating accomplishments,
We deserve to!
Xoxo
