My boss (who I'll call B) calls me up Friday, asks if I can come in an hour early. I have nothing else to do, so I say yes. I get there, ask what's new and he takes me into the back room to explain that I've got a month to improve my performance or I'm fired.

A little explanation:Employee performance is measured, partially, by the number of "promotions" we sell to customers, a measurement calculated into a rate per promotion, per employee. Our store is the highest volume store in our district, our is the highest volume store in the region, yadda yadda yadda, we're pretty much the focal point for about half the state of Wisconsin. Christmas was hard, promotion wise. People want to get in, get their stuff, get out, and I don't blame them. But we didn't quit doing our jobs. We still offered everything we could, did everything we were supposed to. Everyone's rates sucked in December, management and non-management alike.

We've got a new regional director, and to hear B tell it, he's running around like a chicken with its head cut off, because his region's performing badly and some regional director is up for firing (nothing would make me happier than to see about half these beaurocrats go - they don't know jack about running a store). Thus, he puts pressure on the district director (who's about as competent as the regional when it comes to front-lines work), to clean up our district. Since our store is supposed to be the top of the heap, we catch the majority of the heat.

Anyway, we're running the store with about half as many people as we're supposed to have, managers (of which I'm one) outnumber salespersons (gotta be politically correct) by about 2/1 - not a good ratio. I'm performing as well as any other employee in the store, better than the head manager in fact, and he gives me a month to get my rates up or I'm out the door (he's not though). He spent a little while telling me why these promotions are so important, gave me the old "explanations are excuses" speech, and I asked for permission to speak freely. When he said yes I told him that if I was as negligent in my duties as he was alleging, he had every right to fire me RIGHT there and he should. He said no, and I think he got my point.

Improving in the manner required to keep my job is near impossible. I'll be resigning the day before the month "grace period" ends, February 6th. What's absolutely hilarious about this is that with the exception of B, the whole store will be fired, whereupon he'll hire a whole new staff that won't know anything about the job (and as the one who trains new personnel, I'll be damned if I'll train my replacement), and their problems will get even worse. Seems to me you don't fix problems by firing everyone who knows what they're doing...but hey, what do I know. When I try and tell the district director that we haven't gotten ANY CDs or movies for a month (I can name 6 off the top of my head that people ask for every day that we don't have) he says "It's only been three weeks." Idiot. (Nor does it seem to matter when required signs and paperwork show up two weeks late, or when our coverage of product lines is cancelled without notice while we've been taking reservations for them for months.)

And what sucks here is that despite all of this, I LOVE my job. I really like the people I work with, I like the work that I do, I like to interact with the customers who come through, and I always do my best (the gift I got from my boss at Christmas indicates he thinks so too). B says if I quit, he'll hire me back 30 days later, without reservation. That's great, but as much as I love the job, I don't know if I want to throw myself (or even tiptoe gently) back into the $h1tstorm that's raging right now.

And to top it all off, it seems a neighbor of mine that I'm good friends with was rushed to the hospital last night, cause unknown.

Any suggestions?

Sorry for venting on you guys. It's too cold to run and the range is too far away, so I don't have many things to do when I want to let some of this out.

Adrian