For the sake of honesty, whenever talking to anyone about LCBO I introduce myself as a retired 30 year employee with a grudge. I am essentially honest (yes, and obnoxious, nosy, know-it-all, vengeful, nasty, conceited etc etc etc). None of these character flaws make me wrong in the things I see, say or do. See my bio for more b-s.
I developed medical problems over the last ten years of my career, and until very near the end thought that I was being treated with unusual harshness. The last copy of the Employee Union Newsletter that I remember seeing (July 2004) disabused me of the heavily-abused notion. According to the article on pg 3, the Union filed a Freedom of Information request to find out how many employees were on a modified work plan (they say 7.2% of 6,747, which would be about 485 people).
According to the article:
82% feel their modified work plan is not working for them
67% feel the LCBO does not adhere to Doctor's recommendations
63% feel the Store Manager does not adhere to Doctor's recommendations
55% feel that fellow staff members do not adhere to modified restrictions
67% of modified workers are asked to exceed their current limitations
41% of modified workers feel they are not valuable members of their store
45% of modified workers feel they are not given the opportunity to advance.
Guess I wasn't treated as specially as I'd thought I'd been. I have to say that the time spent in Omemee was the least hurtful, and that the best Manager I had was Brian Simmons...
Over the years I worked at the LCBO it was my personal policy to physically outwork my fellow employees each day, and this was generally accomplished (ask those I worked with, and yes I already said I'm conceited). From a very early stage of my career I was designing systems, schedules, methods of accomplishing work that were generally adopted and copied elsewhere in the LCBO. Probably the longest-lasting effects came from things I devised dealing with how to sell off delisted items, how to promote products with reduced prices, how to sell Ontario VQA wines and work on inventory systems.
When I do something, I tend to live it. (And now I'm doing work on alcohol distribution systems in Ontario!) To help the sales of the VQA sections that I established, I started a major wine show for Canadian wine in Lakefield (which is now in Buckhorn, called Fiesta Buckhorn, and is very well known). I also started a long series, ongoing, of tastings of Canadian wines versus imported high-quality wines, inviting the best wine tasters that I could find. After the first two or three years this focused on tasting Canadian Cabernet Merlot wines against Classed Growth Bordeaux. The results of these ever-stricter tastings are online at this location and include a number of articles written about them in newspapers and other publications. Much of my time was spent finding ways of raising funds for local charities by managing, organizing, and helping set up various events connected with Ontario wine.
As a result of these efforts (I was told not for my work within LCBO) a group of local professionals obtained and filled in the forms to nominate me for the Order of Canada. I did not know any of this until two years after it failed. The reason it failed was because it never got formally filed. It was not formally filed because the LCBO refused to endorse the application, and apparently there is no point filing the application if the employer doesn't endorse it. Thanks, boss! (I'd rather have had it fail on it's obvious lack of merit than because my bosses saw it as a way to "get even" with a "troublesome" employee.)
As time passed, I developed a number of serious health problems. The first was arthritis in my knees. Under the advice of my specialist, I started wearing running type shoes instead of hard soled dress shoes to make it easier on my knees. This was fine until my manager was transferred, and the new manager told me I could not wear them (although this manager, in other stores, had allowed selected employees to wear them without medical or other authority). I received a letter from my doctor allowing me to wear these shoes (or soft soled dress shoes) and showed it to this manager. Not only did the manager refuse to allow the practice, he blatantly ignored my direct request to submit the letter to higher authority (we were without a district manager at the time). I must say that the first thing that the new District Manager did was to tell me that there was no problem, and that I should have been allowed to wear the easier footwear. But by this time I had endured months of serious pain, and never since have I been free of knee pain. I've a big nose, like an elephant, and a memory to match. In retrospect, I should have filed a complaint. Probably still could...but this was not the end of my problems with arthritis and the LCBO.
I managed to be transferred out of the Peterborough stores and into the small store in Omemee, where I fit in well with the manager. This was fine for some time, until I was hauled back to Peterborough (I think to be kept under observation). I applied for and got the assistant manager job, then, to escape, used my seniority to apply for the small store in Bridgenorth when the manager position opened. After a few weeks of being put through the hoop, to their great surprise, I declined to become a manager. If I had stayed a manager for the last four plus years at LCBO it would have been a living hell worse than it was. Many watching the situation agreed that LCBO was "Having fun" with me.
I ended up back in Omemee, for a while, until they transferred my manager, brought in another, who was sick all the time. I was transferred out of the Omemee store, back into the Peterborough stores I had escaped, under conditions severe enough to warrant my filing a grievance over the issue.
In any case, despite a number of attempts, I spent the last few years of my career in severe pain, on what I describe as a Punishment Tour. Despite medical orders to move me and the need to take substantial time off without pay, they left me here to the end. Despite my developing Pulmonary Fibrosis, an incurable, usually deadly lung disease, and as insult, diabetes, they would not for any reason move me out of the busy stores in Peterborough. May those who made these decisions not suffer as I have. I wouldn't treat my worst enemies in such a fashion. Haven't yet decided whether to take legal action...having survived cancer and the removal of portions of my innards I may have time now to consider such things again.
A couple of late incidents are noteworthy. Although I was with LCBO for almost 30 years of pensionable time, I did not start full-time until August 1977. In fact, I started the same day as the Assistant Manager at the store I ended up at. The District Manager at the time, one Paul Forsyth, made a special high-profile presentation of the 25 year pin to the assistant manager in the morning. My shift was evenings that day, and while the district manager did come back that day and talk to the manager, on the floor, for more than an hour, it was left to me to pick up my pin off a counter by myself. Whether this was a lack of courtesy, deliberate ignorance, oversight or cowardice I cannot say, but the 25 year pin shortly afterwards resided in the store garbage can. A different District Manager was in charge over my final six months, and despite knowing I was due to retire, could not find time to even telephone me (let alone visit or offer an exit interview) before I retired. Again, is this ignorance, oversight, cowardice, direct orders from on high? Who can say? Any wonder these people have morale problems? of long standing?
The most interesting incident was the Notice of Intended Discipline of 2002. This was - I'm sure just co-incidentally - filed by District Manager Forsyth immediately before the weekend on which everyone knew I was heading for the Amateur Winemakers of Ontario Annual Convention (just as the exact same thing happened the year before!). After this an article was written in Toronto Life in which it appears that District Manager Forsyth illegally discussed my employment situation and disciplinary measures with the writer. I wrote a letter of complaint to Minister Tim Hudak and received an answer from Roy Ecker of LCBO as well as an answer from the Minister but am still convinced that this was illegal. Haven't yet made up my mind whether or not to pursue legal action on this issue.
Please take the time to see what happened. Remember that a Notice of Intended Discipline is a very serious matter. I am convinced that both were used in a punitive sense. Remember that there are no official reprimands on my record, nor any instances of inappropriate behaviour EXCEPT that I always did my best to recommend Ontario or Canadian wines... and that is perhaps the real reason that the Board took their best shots at me over a long period of time. LCBO does of course view Ontario wineries as their only legal competition, and when did you last have WalMart send you to Sears???
Well, it's my turn now...as long as I have life in my body, and there is an LCBO, I will be actively watching what they do. We've only just begun.