u/39Jaebi

I work in retail, and I'm trying to understand the logic behind something my company has recently done.

Upper management has been putting pressure on store managers to reduce their labour spending. Basically, stores are being told they need to cut employee hours.

At my store, there was a front desk/customer service position that was staffed for 8 hours a day. Management decided to eliminate that position, so those 8 hours were removed from the store's labour budget.

I was working as the security guard at the front door. After the front desk position was eliminated, they moved me from security to the front desk.

So, as far as the store's labour budget is concerned, mission accomplished: they're now using 8 fewer employee hours per day.

Except there's a problem.

The front door still needs a security guard.

So the company hired an external security company to provide a guard.

The security contractor costs roughly twice as much as what it cost the company to have me doing security.

The reason this apparently works on paper is that the external security guard is paid from a completely separate budget. Their cost doesn't come out of the store's employee labour budget.

So essentially:

Before:

• Me: 8 hours of security
• Front desk employee: 8 hours
• 16 hours of employee labour

After:

• Me: 8 hours at the front desk
• External security guard: 8 hours at the door
• 8 fewer hours against the store's labour budget

But the company is actually spending more money because the external security guard costs about twice what I did.

And there's another problem: when I was doing security, I wasn't just standing at the door. When things were quiet, I could cover other employees' breaks, help customers, assist with other tasks, etc.

The external guard obviously isn't there to do those things. They're there to provide security.

So we've reduced employee hours on paper, increased the actual cost of security, lost some flexibility in the workforce, and increased the workload on everyone else.

Yet management seems completely happy with the result because the store's labour numbers look better.

I'm genuinely curious about the business/management side of this.

Why would a company do this? Is this simply what happens when different departments have separate budgets and KPIs, so a store manager is incentivised to reduce "labour costs" even if the company as a whole ends up spending more?

I'd especially like to hear from people who have worked in management, finance, retail, or large corporations. Is there something I'm missing about how companies account for this?

Heading up Mill Rd this morning on the 80 km/h stretch, I checked my rear-view mirror and the lady behind me was looking at her phone. Tsk tsk.

A few seconds later I looked again, and she'd flipped her visor down, staring into the mirror while dabbing makeup all over her face with one of those brushes.

Next glance: taking a swig of coffee before sending a text.

Then she's got a different makeup brush out, doing something to her eyelashes.

Another glance... another swig of coffee, and a both hands off the steering wheel text session.

It started feeling like one of those comedy sketches where every time the camera cuts back, the character is doing something even more ridiculous. I was half expecting her to pull out a cigarette-powered sandwich press and start grilling a panini.

The best part? She was speeding too. After the roundabout I accelerated up to 80 km/h pretty quickly, and she was a long way behind. Within a minute she'd caught right back up behind me, so she must've been well over the limit to close the gap.

Absolutely crazy. I genuinely don't understand how people can think this is worth the risk.

I bought a phone on a Spark plan earlier this month. The deal was a $99 upfront payment for the phone, with the balance paid off over 12 or 24 months.

I paid the $99 upfront fee online by credit card. When I went to collect the phone in-store, staff told me the online payment was still showing as pending, so I paid the $99 again in cash. I was told the original payment would be credited to my account once it cleared.

So at this point, Spark had received $198 from me.

Then my first bill arrived and, somehow, Spark was asking me to pay the $99 upfront fee a THIRD time.

Over the last three weeks, I've had 4 phone calls, 2 live chats, multiple emails, and I've sent screenshots and receipts to different people. Nobody seems able to explain what's going on.

My first bill was:

• $99 upfront phone payment
• $55 monthly plan
• $25 phone repayment

Total: $179

Payments made by me: $198

By my maths, my account should be $19 in credit. Instead, Spark says my account balance is -$67.08. Uuhhh hello?

They also claim they can't find the original $99 credit card payment. It's been three weeks, and they're still saying they can't locate it. At this point, I'm considering asking my bank to reverse the transaction, because Spark insists they don't have it.

To make things even weirder, Spark has credited my account $113. Why $113? I've made two separate payments of $99. I can't work out where that figure has come from or what it's supposed to represent.

And to top it all off, today I received an email saying my $55 monthly plan is increasing to $60. I've been a customer for less than a month, and they are already raising prices? Sheesh.

Nothing says "welcome to Spark" quite like billing errors, missing payments, and a price increase in the first month.

Earlier this month I purchased a phone from Spark on a plan. The agreement includes monthly repayments for the phone itself, plus a monthly charge for my mobile plan (calls, texts and data).

Less than a month after signing up, Spark emailed me to say they are increasing the price of my mobile plan by $5 per month. As part of the change they are also increasing my data allowance by 2GB.

The additional data isn't something I asked for or need. My current plan already includes 6GB, which is more than enough for my usage.

My question is whether Spark can increase the price of the plan so soon after I entered into the agreement, particularly when the increase is tied to an additional service that I did not request.

Do I have any rights under NZ consumer law to refuse the change, remain on the original plan, or exit the agreement without penalty?

Doing the quest [Talbuk Mastery] in Nagrand. Need to kill Bach'lor and get his hoof.

I (66 Druid) spam LFG for 10 minutes with no luck, but finally find a 65 Rogue who needs it too. We find Bach'lor, and I aggro him, but he kills me pretty quick, even tho I hotted myself up and go into bear form, I just can't tank the hits and die.

The Rogue doesn't have the damage to finish him off and dies too.

I suggest that the Rogue aggro's Bach'lor first this time, pop evasion and tank while I blow him up (I'm boomkin). My thinking is that I do more dmg, and generate more threat, so I can kill Bach'lor before the rogue dies, or at least take threat and force Bach'lor to swap to me before the rogue dies.

However, the mere suggestion that I do more damage than him is so offensive, he types "Do it yourself then" and drops group.

Why are people, such fragile babies? We are really out here in 2026 dick meauring dps on level 65 rogues on TBC's *THIRD* go around. Jesus.

After a few Awkward minutes of me spamming LFG again while we are both standing there, both wanting to do it, the rogue invites me to a party, and we try again.

We do it my way, and I was right. The rogue pulls, I blow Bach'lor to kingdom come and before the Rogue can even get to 75% health, I pull threat and Bach'lor swaps to me, and we finish him.