It was finally the day of grand opening. My excitement for working at this new location died that same day. After watching my co-workers including supervisors and managers work, I saw the sign of unnecessary stress and headaches to come. I was not being pessimistic. Based on what I know and my experiences from other places, it was not difficult to see there will be some serious turbulence on this flight to the destination. I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but I knew it was going to be a shit show. That day, even before the first working day was over, I was already thinking about my transfer request in near future.

While I was watching my co-workers in action and processing my thoughts, the corporate auditor walked over and stood next to me while he was on the phone with another corporate auditor from the HQ. He said to another auditor from the HQ,

“This place is going to have a lot of problems.”

Aftet hearing that, I thought to myself,

‘The good news is that you are going back to the HQ after this. I’m the one who has to stay and deal with this.’

We didn’t really discuss with each other regarding some challenges I was going to face with. I already knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. I was just going to take one day at a time. Also, the narrative was that it was only natural for all new hires from managers to hourly employees to be unfamiliar with the operation. They would need some time to adjust and understand the culture. For the record, I always disagreed with this narrative or explanation. For starters, many of them needed an extreme change of diet or Ozempic. Then, they needed to read some books or something on business, supply chain and logistics.

If the corporate auditor and I knew there will be many problems. Then, the GM also knew for sure that he was going to be dealing with problems. Even the construction foreman who was in charge of building the location knew it. This foreman was the same person who was in charge of building the previous location where I started at. I asked that foreman about employees he saw in this new location compared to employees from my old building. He said word for word,

“I feel sorry for that guy (GM).”

I was never there for the hiring process, but I personally wouldn’t have hired at least half of new employees they hired regardless of their interviews and work experiences. Regardless of the situation, I made a decision to help out the GM for awhile instead of trying to leave him high and dry right away. Because he did help me out by getting me out of my old building and promoting me, I wanted to help him and do what I can while I was there. However, I definitely didn’t expect the event that was going to shook up the whole place and change the trajectory of my time with this Fortune 100 juggernaut.