Lessons Learned From Working At Harris Teeter In High School

The biggest lesson in teamwork I’ve learned was from working at Harris Teeter in high school. When I started, I had the best manager in the company. It took me four months to get a job offer, and it showed why. People loved to come to work for Shane. He intimidatingly demanded perfection, but rewarded everyone by making the environment fun. For example, he had the entire staff over to his house for a Christmas party. He did the schedule on his own time weeks before it was due, and it was always right. Shane was a great man to work for. Unfortunately, he was relocated to a different store to help address problems over there. As further evidence of his greatness, about 70% of our staff transferred with him, and then Keri took over. Now I don’t

Problems like these were a big deal for us. Our store was so important because it was the third biggest Harris Teeter in the world, and made the company millions of dollars in profit every year. However, the store ran at a 2% margin. So when things went wrong, they went really wrong, and management noticed. We received regular visits from corporate, and were often in meetings with our managers imploring us to do better. I have two takeaways from this experience. First off, it really developed my interest in becoming a business major. I hope to be in a positon where I make management decisions, and I don’t want to repeat the mistakes of my superiors. When I make decisions that affect people’s livelihoods, I want to be sure I know what I’m doing, and Kenan-Flagler can help prepare me for that. Second, I realized how much of a difference having the right people on your team matters. When Shane was in charge, the people that worked there were talented, and consistently were ranked in the top 10 for customer service. When he left, turnover skyrocketed, and we started getting ranked in the bottom 10. Having the right team makes all the