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I just spoke to my RD. It is true, the company is closed. The RDs were just notified at 9pm to contact their DMs and tell everyone do not open the studio tomorrow. This was the Board of directors decision. Good luck to all of you!
Studio mail is down company wide. I dont know whos gonna fix it since the home office is off for good friday and you know they dont work weekends either. lol.
smNY1 yes it does say free 16x20 with purchase so technically the free 16x20 is a special offer and the $9.99 advertised offer is also a special and as far as im concerned you cannot combine the 2. They should have added "Not combinable with single pose package" to the advertisement but its totally in your control. You just have to enforce the "No multiple special offers" rule.
To make an appt. at the website you have to click on offers then you can schedule from that page.
At Christmas we had hang tags to put on the holiday outfits for kids that gives them a free 10x13. I actually had a customer with 6 kids swipe 6 of those and come in every week over the holidays to get nothing but a free 10x13 for each of her kids! They should really say a free 10x13 with a purchase! Thats another way they just keep shooting us in the foot with sales!
I too, avoid that AO package like the plague. I have even acted like i didnt hear them when they tell me thats what they are there for. I Make sure the catalog is strong and varied and I do enhancements to all poses and those are the only ones I show them when all specialty products are created. If they do manage to chew me down to the the ad package i will show them the unenhanced pose then the enhanced and at least try to sell the enhanced ad package for $20 more. I had a customer come in the other day with 4 children under 5 years old, refused to let me do individual poses, only wanted group shots. Try getting 12 poses of only group shots with 4 kids under 5! Not easy. I think we ended up with 8 keepers. I went through all the enhancements, did the whole romance and glamorize, feel, felt, found to overcome all their rejections and then they told me they only wanted the single pose package. " Im sorry but that is for a single subject and no enhancements" I said. I didnt NOT say well its $5 more for additional people! And they didnt ask! (Thank goodness) They bought a Feature collection with a disc, so that eased my mind a bit.
Thank you! This makes so much more sense than the bs they have been feeding us.
I hope its just a mistake on ADP's side that they posted before all calculating was complete because they shorted me over 20 hours!!! If its not a clerical error...I hope those poor DM's are wearing their Depends because they are definitely gonna get chewed a new one in the morning! I can't imagine having your entire district of 80 studios calling to rip you a new one first thing in the morning! Not a happy monday for them im sure!
I have a question for those of you who may have been here a while and know about company policy's. Is it true that if a DM or RD wants to write up a manager they have to do it in person, so the manager can read and sign the corrective action form and be counseled in private? Isn't against some labor law to email a corrective action form to the studio, where anyone who works there or has the password can view that managers private personnel paperwork? Is it not a violation of privacy? I heard this has happened to a friend of mine and I think it is proceduraly wrong and possibly illegal based on labor and privacy laws. Anyone know?
MissDisappointed, I know your upset, we all are .If you consider the fact that Corporate fired, laid off and furloughed the majority of tenured field management and put all the work load on the remaining DMs and RDs, 10 times the work for the same amount of pay. I'm a SM and I'm not defending the actions of the sneaky or overly aggressive DMs or RDs, but I have said for years that I wouldn't want to be a DM because your never off the clock. I felt bad for My Old DM because she had kids and even though she would assign a DMIT to cover her vacation people would still call her and interrupt her family time. No Fun! I know we feel betrayed and don't know who we can trust but try to appreciate the fact that the DM's and RD's Just lost many of their Managers, friends and long time coworkers to the corporate cuts and they know they are more likely to be eliminated than studio staff based on their amount of pay, not based on how well they do their jobs! My old DM was with this company for 20 years and had a top 5 sales district for many years. We are all facing the same fate here, and its hard to stay positive when the other shoe could drop at any time. I have been concentrating on making my customers happy with their experience in the studio, so if we do close, at least their last memories of Me are pleasant, not angry, bitter and uncaring about her baby and the memories i'm creating for them. This is very much a wizard of OZ situation! I'm here to help the customer make memories to last a lifetime, as I always have been.It is not the customers fault and they should not suffer for the stupidity of the corporate marketing catastrophe! And even though there may be an evil corporation bending and breaking this company, trying to wring every last drop of blood from the stone, hiding behind the curtain of my smile...I will not let them break me! I will PAY NO ATTENTION TO "THE MAN" BEHIND THE CURTAIN! And if by some miraculous act of God we do stay open, I will have retained my customer base and not have to fight so hard to get them back once the dust settles!
I remember getting that "accounting Error" check. It was explained to me that they miscalculated my bonuses for 3 three years and it came out to a huge amount of money for me! I was amazed that it could have been such a huge error.
When i first started with the company in 2005 I had a regular Customer Named Donald who came in every month and bought the advertised single pose package every time. He was in his 70's and he always came alone. So I would chat with him and joke that he came in for pics every month to send to all his girlfriends. One day he came in and he decided to tell me why he comes in so often. He said he was all alone, all his family lived across the country and he wanted to be prepared for when he dies so they would have a Current pic for his obit.For 2 years I saw him every 1 or 2 months then when his visits stopped I checked the archive on the local newspaper website and found that he had passed away. There was a condolences guest book and I wanted to pay my respects. As I scrolled through the messages I was shocked to find several comments on how wonderful his picture was in the obituary. If nothing else, I gave him a little comfort in knowing his family would have one less thing to worry about upon his passing then I'm happy.
There are so many reasons why we do, what we do. They cant all be belly laughs and happy memories, But we are woven through our customers lives from the very beginning with their newborn photos, through childhood and angsty teen years, marriage and children of their own, into the golden years and surrounded by grandchildren. When their memories start to fade, all they have to do is open that family photo album and the record of their life is all right there for them to live again. We do that! We are the preservationists of family historys! Their children grew up in front of our cameras and we have inherited the future generations of this family just by being there, smiling and sharing their lives through the gift of memories.
Got confirmation today, from the Dept. of Labor, that in the state of NY if an employer is not going to pay holiday pay that it states in writing in their associate paperwork that it is a paid holiday they must notify the associates in advance of the holiday! 30 Days in advance i believe! Call your state dept. of labor and find out what there policy is!
smNY1 the morning cash count discrepancy happens to everyone at least in pic me studios. and it happens for a reason, the SAS is forcing a 2nd count in the morning to confirm that the cash taken in the the previous day was deposited and not left in the cash drawer. Its just a cash control procedure to confirm proper cash control has been done.If you don't take in any cash or checks the day before, it accepts the first count.i agree that the system needs updating since it hasn't changed its basic operations in years. In fact I was amazed that they actually managed to get the sales to transfer from the sales table to the SAS from the SEA system.
So did anyone have a Conference call this morning? Thought i saw a msg saying that the western division was having one today. Any new ifo for those of us still in the dark would be appreciated. Thanks. :0)
I know that in my studio our goals are higher in February, march and April because this is the time of year my customers that didn't get xmas pics come in with their tax money and buy bigger collections. then tax season runs right into Easter so that raises the customer volume and sales as well. Thats why my goals are higher right now.
The goals not being posted is a normal thing. If you have worked for the company for longer than 6 months and you have made up goal sheets before you would notice that new period goals aren't usually posted till tuesday or wednesday after the end of the period.
From what I understood any and all PTO time had to be used by the end of the fiscal year or you lose your accrued time and start rebuilding. The 2nd was the cut off date to use it. I had to take 3 weeks of vacation right after new years so i didnt lose mine.
I have to agree with you smNY1 on the effectiveness of Vip aquisitioning. It is a busier foot traffic store than sears in the Walmart Pic Me studios...However, the clientele is a whole other breed of people! These people shop at walmart for a reason...because they cant afford to shop at sears and because sears doesn't accept foodstamps. I am not trying to put down my customers, that is not my intention, they are the life blood of my studio, but It is a valid point that approaching people in Walmart with something free is like throwing us to the wolves! I do everything in my power to get them to buy, take a full 12 poses, do all the fancy enhancements, make the specialty products, Romance and glamorize every adorable pose, top down sell and don't even mention the free stuff or the advertised special unless they bring it up, overcome all the rejections they can think of. But never fails, that after 7 years managing my studio and top sits and sales in my district, The company has emailed this customer some extravagant freebie that removes their need to purchase other products and Corp. has shot me in the foot again!
I only have 2 associates in my studio, they only work a few days here and there and i have a dilemma. One of them is a great aquisitioner, she can get vips all day long, she cute and bubbly and people are drawn to her but she cant sell her way out of a paper bag! My other associate is a big guy, 6 foot tall and probably 300lbs but the sweetest guy ever. His problem is he too quiet and intimidated to go out a get VIps but when he does get a sit he can sell like nobodys business. So who do I keep? the one who gets sits but doesn't sell (which was the point of all the freebies, to get those sits) Or the one who can sell but is too shy to approach people to get sits. Because of his size he can be intimidating himself but he approached a woman with a child the other day and said her baby was so cute and she should bring her in for pictures because we were having a special. she told him to get away from her and called him a "creepy pedophile". this is how our walmart customers see us...as stalkers just waiting for a customer with a kid to come through the checkout so we can pounce on them, just like we did the last 6 times they were in the store. I realize none of this may matter based on what happens with this company but these are SM dilemmas that we have to deal with on a daily basis. To add to the daily issues we have to deal with by keeping the entire field staff in the dark and not knowing what is coming is simply unethical. We know how to do our jobs and how to do them well but we can not perform under such pressure and instability. Many SM's don't have anywhere to turn but this site for answers because we don't know who we can trust at this point.I love my job and don't want to leave but if what someone posted on this site a few days ago is true...that Walmart studios will close and we will just wander the stores offering to take pics of people with personal cell phones. That is just the most distasteful and unprofessional approach to this business that i have ever heard and I will not have it. I am a studio manager! If there is no studio then they will have to eliminate my position because im not about to be a Walmart photo stalker!
smNY1 I am also a SM in NY. I havent even spoken to my old DM since she left. I have worked with her for 7 years and i sent her a few messages but got no reply. She was with the company for 20 years and was just tossed aside like trash. I did hear that the RD that terminated her was also let go recently. I wonder if we had the same DM? i Always liked her she was tough but fair and all she expected out of us was to show up and do our jobs. She would never order us to fake numbers! I guess this is what the company has come to, im pretty disgusted with the whole ordeal. What area of NY are you from?
Funny that this is posted today because my dm just sent out a cash control discrepancy list for our district asking all discrepancys be investigated and report back to her our findings. I just returned from 3 weeks of vacation and after my first week i had to go in and retrain one of my associates how to do cash control properly. When i left for vacation there were no discrepancys and when i returned today i found several hundreds of dollars of discrepancys that don't add up right. I hope this is just my associates entering cash control wrong and not fraud or theft. Ugh! tomorrow is investigation day.
The most aggravating thing i hear as a PicMe Studio manager is the cheapskate customer that comes to me and says "I was going to go to a professional Photographer but they were too expensive, so I came here." I always have to remind these customers that we are Professional Photographers and that In my studio i Shoot more Sittings in a week than most Private photographers shoot in a month. So by volume alone I have any Private Photographers beat. Not to mention my 7 years of Studio management with every possible sitting situation you could imagine. Not just specializing in weddings or Baby Portraits like some Private studios. Im not some kid right out of college with a new digital camera and the newest version of Photoshop, I have real world experience. No amount of College courses can teach you how to handle a rambunctious screaming 2 year old, or a handi-capped teen, or an autistic 4 year old who's terrified of strangers, or a huge family group who are only there cuz Mom wanted a pic and they are all grumpy. These are the sittings that teach you and no text book can teach patience, empathy and how to anticipate your clients needs in the way that we do. The majority of my customers who walk into my studio thinking it's just a cheap alternative to A "Professional Photographer" Is guaranteed to walk out with a whole new attitude when I Finish their sitting.
I just checked my pay stub on ADP ipay and the W-2 still isnt available. They very rarely send them out before the end of the month.
Sounds like you are trying to set up a new account but if you can access adp from the studio you already have an account and can use your normal log in info.
Oh i completely agree with you. Business ethics seem to be lacking in many big corps these days.
It should be the same user name@cpicorp and password you use in the studio
Try to keep in mind that the studios aren't shooting heavily and the majority aren't open 7 days a week. So the volume of pics to be processed is not like Christmas volume.
we were told to tell the customers whose delivery is late that there was a "manufacturing error at the lab" and apologize and if necessary offer a free spec sheet as compensation. if 1 sheet isnt enough to satisfy them, offer all 5. They even told us to offer $25 and $50 certificates but i refuse to do that because idk if they will be able to use it if we are closing.
I had a conf. call this afternoon. I am in NY. There was no new information. We were told that its basically business as usual, keep selling as usual, making appointments and ordering from the lab but do not give the customer a delivery date. Just tell the customer it takes around 2 weeks for the products to arrive and that we will call when it arrives. My regular customers are not accustom to not getting a delivery date. We were also told there are a few potential buyers and that we have to prove to any potential buyers that we are worth buying by focusing on sales, full catalogs and session planning. My DM was terminated after 20 years with the company. Ive been here for 7 Years and been realigned 4 to 6 times. I dont know how long before they tell us the truth. I guess they think we are stupid and will just go along with what they say till they cut us all loose.