So I was told that Front End was "given" more hours next week for Thanksgiving. When I also complained / mentioned off-the-record about having one person working the entire parking lot for both entrances to bring in carts to one of our cooler Front End Supervisors, he said that when the "hours go down" it would be better.
What does this all mean? Need to know before I go even more insane and more frustrated from trying to bring in carts when the customers are coming in like walkers on The Walking Dead.
Please find another job. You sound like you are going to go postal soon.
I really don't understand why people keep jobs they hate that pay minimum wage with very limited hours. You could find that literally anywhere. The only exception I could see would be if a person didn't have transportation, and it was right next to their house or something.
Please find another job. You sound like you are going to go postal soon.
I really don't understand why people keep jobs they hate that pay minimum wage with very limited hours. You could find that literally anywhere. The only exception I could see would be if a person didn't have transportation, and it was right next to their house or something.
Even minimum wage jobs have become very competitive to get in some areas. I know FrontEndSlave works in the Atlanta District, as do I. Some areas in Georgia are desolate in the unskilled job market.
Please find another job. You sound like you are going to go postal soon.
Because ranting online to help alleviate the stress and frustration from work is a sign of "going postal" It's 2014, who the hell says "going postal" anymore? I don't think there has been an actual "going postal" incident in like, seven years or something.
Hey Anon, I know. Go check out Aisle 25. That's where we sell the "GiveADamn" brand of items.
I'd rather work at Kroger than say Dollar General if they both offered me the same amount of money. At Kroger you at least have some scheduling flexibility and, please don't get me wrong, competent managers. You think Kroger's managers are a bunch of idiots? Well you haven't seen the real bottom of the barrel co-managers at discount retailers who probably know about as much about business management as your average high school sophomore. You may find it hard to believe, but Kroger managers are pretty smart. Their MD1 program is actually kinda competitive among the local business school graduates.
I'd rather work at Kroger than say Dollar General if they both offered me the same amount of money. At Kroger you at least have some scheduling flexibility and, please don't get me wrong, competent managers. You think Kroger's managers are a bunch of idiots? Well you haven't seen the real bottom of the barrel co-managers at discount retailers who probably know about as much about business management as your average high school sophomore. You may find it hard to believe, but Kroger managers are pretty smart. Their MD1 program is actually kinda competitive among the local business school graduates.
If so, then that's sad for the whole retail business.
Well "anon," nobody is forcing you to read them. Nobody is putting a gun to your head to be in this forum. And, on the slim chance that they are, I wish that they would just pull the trigger.
I'd rather work at Kroger than say Dollar General if they both offered me the same amount of money. At Kroger you at least have some scheduling flexibility and, please don't get me wrong, competent managers. You think Kroger's managers are a bunch of idiots? Well you haven't seen the real bottom of the barrel co-managers at discount retailers who probably know about as much about business management as your average high school sophomore. You may find it hard to believe, but Kroger managers are pretty smart. Their MD1 program is actually kinda competitive among the local business school graduates.
Most of ours are not college graduates. We have two who are under the age of 25. One of whom is cool, but the others behavior is just awful. We did have some college managers, you could find them in the office all day or maybe starbucks. I remember reading about dollar general managers were working 6 days a week 12 hours a day and thats pretty bad. I do feel bad for folks in the boonies, its tough to find a good job.
Front end has a certain amount of hours they can schedule for people in each week, so more hours means more people in the front end to cover expected spike in customers this week. That is a good thing. I don't see how having less hours would make anything easier for anyone, let alone a CC, though.
Front end has a certain amount of hours they can schedule for people in each week, so more hours means more people in the front end to cover expected spike in customers this week. That is a good thing. I don't see how having less hours would make anything easier for anyone, let alone a CC, though.
Thank you for explaining it the way I was hoping. Nine, nearly ten months at Kroger and I have had no idea that FE is limited in the amount of hours it can put its employees down in total. Question for you..would this explain why the hell we are always so short-staffed and unable to handle simple things like shopping carts of gobacks or keep carts in our lobby? The other day I mentioned to a Floor Supervisor that we needed help, and his response was "we need baggers". well, yea, we do, because we have nine registers open, but what are your customers going to do, just grab a lot in their arms and walk to the register? I guess if that happens again, just ignore it, flinch, and wait for a customer to complain to the customer service desk or management above Floor Supervisors, so that Front End will actually have to send someone out when we need him or her the most.
Nine, nearly ten months at Kroger and I have had no idea that FE is limited in the amount of hours it can put its employees down in total. Question for you..would this explain why the hell we are always so short-staffed and unable to handle simple things like shopping carts of gobacks or keep carts in our lobby?
That's actually how every dept in the store works. If it didn't, you bet your @$$ there would be enough ppl there every day to do the work.
Nine, nearly ten months at Kroger and I have had no idea that FE is limited in the amount of hours it can put its employees down in total. Question for you..would this explain why the hell we are always so short-staffed and unable to handle simple things like shopping carts of gobacks or keep carts in our lobby?
That's actually how every dept in the store works. If it didn't, you bet your @$$ there would be enough ppl there every day to do the work.
So basically....Kroger's math is responsible. Okay then. Not a surprise. Kroger does its best to make one plus one equal three. The problem is, in our reality, that won't work. But since Kroger recognizes its own version of reality....yea.
Each department gets an hours budget every week based on ELMS.
It's annoying, but if the department head goes over the hours budget they get ripped apart by management. Then, they also don't want part timers going over 28 hours. I've heard of plenty of times where a department has hours they can't use, due to not being able to schedule anyone.
Each department gets an hours budget every week based on ELMS.
It's annoying, but if the department head goes over the hours budget they get ripped apart by management. Then, they also don't want part timers going over 28 hours. I've heard of plenty of times where a department has hours they can't use, due to not being able to schedule anyone.
Jeebus Kee-rist, what the hell kind of company runs a business like this and manages to stay IN business?
It's like that scene in the movie "Dave" where Kevin Kline impersonates the President. Brings his friend in who is good with numbers to look over the budget. Guy looks it over and goes "If I ran my business like this, I'd be out of business".
Holy heck, it is remarks like yours that remind me why I dislike this company. Oh, for ten dollars, you can get ten items! Great. Now try to see if you can find a way to make that work so you have enough people there to a) check the product upon arrival, b) move the product to its location, c) stock the product appropriately, d) place enough shopping carts out to allow a customer to have a holding area for the product, e) have a person able to check the person out after they pick the product and f) have a person there to bag the product for the customer.
Argh.
-- Edited by FrontEndSlave on Sunday 23rd of November 2014 11:06:31 AM
Nine, nearly ten months at Kroger and I have had no idea that FE is limited in the amount of hours it can put its employees down in total. Question for you..would this explain why the hell we are always so short-staffed and unable to handle simple things like shopping carts of gobacks or keep carts in our lobby?
That's actually how every dept in the store works. If it didn't, you bet your @$$ there would be enough ppl there every day to do the work.
So basically....Kroger's math is responsible. Okay then. Not a surprise. Kroger does its best to make one plus one equal three. The problem is, in our reality, that won't work. But since Kroger recognizes its own version of reality....yea.
Something else you should consider too though is your store might actually have more help scheduled if it could get people to apply in the first place. I know in my particular district, the stores are suffering from a labor shortage. Every few weeks, the stores in the area host a "city wide hiring event" because stores are so short-staffed. The store I'm at right now, for example, is typically five-hundred hours short a week, meaning we have five-hundred hours store-wide that are going unused because we don't have any one to give those hours to. Every time we do hiring fairs, we get more minors that we can hire by law and not enough adults. The problem is, Kroger pay is so low and poor, combined with poor benefits, people don't want to work for Kroger when they could go to the competition and get paid a dollar an hour more, if not two, three, four or more dollars an hour more.
So, the hours might be there, but your store may simply not have the people to fill those hours. I've used e-Sked and it does in fact tell you when you are under the number of people needed for a certain part of the day. Thing is though, if e-Sked is calling for three baggers at say 12:00PM, but due to availabilities and requests, you can only schedule two, the software is going to tell you you are one bagger short, but as a schedule writer, there isn't anything you can do because there isn't anybody to schedule. If your store was staffed according to budget (meaning there are enough people for each job classification to fill the hours), then it wouldn't be as bad. Would you still "seem" short? Yes, you probably would, because computer projections and forecasting that determine the budget for a given week aren't perfect, and corporate too wants to protect those profit margins, so you're never likely going to have enough baggers to cover all lanes plus do go-backs and carts, and you're never likely going to have enough checkers scheduled to avoid relying on surge/relief help from the other departments in order to maintain 1 + 1 compliance throughout the day, and getting breaks out at a reasonable time will never always be easy... but if Kroger stores (at least in my district, don't know about the division in general or other divisions) had enough people to use up what hours are being allotted, it would be better than it is now. Not perfect, but better.
