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Those stores on Fort Myers Beach almost killed me. It appears that due to the hurricane, I outlived them.
On my way up the 7-Eleven corporate ladder, I was an area supervisor overseeing seven stores -- two of them on Fort Myers Beach. Because the stores were so far from town & beach housing was so expensive, they were impossible to fully staff. Worse, they were spectacularly busy, amplifying all the problems that come with short staffing. Quality. Service. Cleanliness. Overtime. Theft.
Unfortunately for me, the corporate real estate guy noticed the high sales so decided to develop three MORE stores on the beach. Now I had FIVE beach stores to staff. Plus the three new beach stores poached sales from the two old beach stores, making the entire beach a net loser. I gained multiple more problems & lost all the profitability.
Every month I had to explain why the beach was losing money. “The real estate guy did it.”
I remember one of my beach store managers going on vacation & leaving me a week’s schedule that required filling 42 shifts to keep the store pictured here open. The rule was, the stores never closed. If a manager couldn’t fill a shift, he had to work it himself. If he couldn’t work it, *I* had to work it. Somehow, by begging & cajoling our pool of employees in the 35-store area, I was able to fill all those shifts. I still have that chicken-scratched work schedule saved in my papers somewhere.
Eventually, I moved up the ladder & someone else got the fun of running that group. We finally convinced the big boss to approve higher wages for those stores & the staffing troubles smoothed out. It took more years for the beach stores to become profitable.
I stayed five more years & left the company in late 1991. I was amazed at all I left behind.
When you quit a job, you don’t just lose a commute, a schedule, a costume, responsibility & stress. You lose all those mental worries & relationships that caused you grief. You no longer have to worry about monthly audits. Or think about that manager who drove you nuts. Or explain problems that were caused by others.
It all vaporizes instantly when you quit.
All those negative files in your brain just get deleted. It’s amazing how much bandwidth is freed up. When you purge the negative, fresh possibility rushes in.
Of course there were good times & good people. You lose some of that too. But the net gain is still so refreshing.
This is why I recommend starting over as often as life allows.
A brain purge is the healthiest, most freeing thing you can do.
If you're immersed in something that's less than your dreams, boring you to death, or eating you alive, quitting is an option that provides that purge instantly.
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This is what the above store looks like after the hurricane:
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