Gene Bailey

I've spent more than nine years in operations, most of it running stores. I usually get the hard assignments: a location that's falling behind, a team that's short on people, or a new building with no team yet. The fix looks about the same every time, and it's the line at the top of this page.

The part I'm proudest of is the people. Folks I trained have gone on to run stores of their own. Outside work, I build small teams of AI bots the same way, one job each, and write about what I learn.

Turnarounds

Takes over a location that's falling behind, resets the standard, and gets it back on track.

Growing leaders

Trains people into managers, and three have gone on to run their own stores.

Building a team from zero

Hires, trains and organizes a new crew until the work runs without being chased.

Building with AI

Designs small teams of AI bots that each own one job, and writes up how they work on X.

1. 2025–present

   Store manager, new-market launch

   Relocated to open a new location from the ground up. Ran about 156 interviews to hire a first team of 14, then built a five-person management bench.

2. 2021–2025

   Store manager, turnarounds and team builds

   Turned two money-losing stores back to profit. At a third, grew the team from 8 people to more than 30 and trained the leaders who later ran it to its best month ever.

3. 2017–2021

   Assistant manager to senior assistant manager

   Moved up in about 14 months. Trained eight frontline service leaders and cut repeat-service returns below 0.5%.