Hey fellow Kroger employees! I need your help. I'm the lead night stocker for my store and I'm having issues dealing with the insanity of the grocery manager. Put simply, he abuses his stockers mentally and sometimes emotionally. Not saying that we're all weak spirited or anything but the guy is good at pushing buttons and provoking anger and resentment. Sometimes to the point where some (now former) employees have gotten into heated shouting matches with him. He has a pattern that I've picked up on in my year and a half of working at this store.
If he likes the way you work, he'll try to befriend you with small talk. Usually the small talk has to be about him because anything else is not conversation material in his mind.
If he doesn't like the way you work though, instead of giving constructive criticism or (god forbid) training you how to do the job correctly, he immediately declares you as worthless, goes behind your back and demeans you to other co-workers, constantly argues with you about minor bs that doesn't even pertain to the job just to get a rise out of you so that he can then claim that you are being insubordinate.
We have a small team of four stockers. When I first started, we had seven. Two went to different departments in the store. One left for personal reasons. One other guy and I have been mainstays since we started and the other two have been different people every other 3-4 weeks. The main reason is that everyone else wants to get away from/been fired by this GM and can't deal with his conniving ways. He will constantly trash talk you behind your back and then butter you up to get you to do something for him. He takes credit for our hard work and efforts. He constantly whines about the very small amount of work (paper plates, trash bags and the paper aisle) he has to do because we don't have the manpower. He never comes into work at the time that HE himself puts into E-schedule; he's usually 3-4 hours late every night. Yeah he may stay over into the morning shift but then he's trying to get us to stay over and do the work that he thinks needs to be done. Oh that's another thing. How does he expect us to do extra work that he found for us to do several hours after we've already torn into the truck we're working? Four man team. Scattered throughout the store. He comes in late and drinks coffee, fiddles around with the computer for another 2 hours and then tries to delegate extra work that would surely take an entire shift to do. Then he whines when it doesn't get done. Like a small child at that. He never takes responsibility for our departments shortcomings, always blaming it on being shorthanded when in all actuality its mis-management. Me and my team have proven time and time again that we can throw up a 2200 piece truck in an 8 hour shift without breaking a sweat so why can't he manage his hours better to get in there and help with all this extra work. He's trying to get blood from a turnip (or however the saying goes) and its become such a pain in the *** that I've run out of remedies for myself to get through the night.
He lost my last little iota of respect for him the other day when he came into work after being with his wife at the hospital. She had an accident and needed surgery. Instead of this guy being all torn up about how his wife was in bad shape, he whined about how he would have to take care of her and pay all the bills himself. He whined about how he couldn't take his vacation to the casino. Everything was about how he had to change up his plans to take care of her and how mad he was about it. Are you kidding me? Possibly the only person in his life who can tolerate his bs needs him until she heals up and he has a problem with that? Yeah you can argue that their relationship is probably terrible, but still this is the person he married so there has to be something there. I can't even look at the guy now without feeling like I want to push him down a flight of stairs.
And yes, I did go off on a tangent, but I needed you all to read the insane, nonsensical methods of this guy so you could get a sense of what I deal with on a nightly basis. When he walks in the door and gets on the PA to call his assistant GM to the office (whom also doesn't understand computers) our morale instantly drops into the single digits and we all collectively hit up the energy drink and produce section for the boost we'll need to get through the night.
Do you know what the DDP is? Start tracking what your crew does. You are allowed so many hours to condition the entire store. Then, the DDP expects you to throw 60 cases an hour of Grocery and 46 cases an hour of Peyton.(might be different at your store) If you are throwing at 100%+, grow thick skin and ignore his bs. Do your job at 100%. It is his job on the line if the work doesn't get done. If he blames the crew for being too slow, be prepared to show numbers. He is probably stressed about the amount of work and shortage of people.
I just transferred out of a similar environment to full time at another store. I had a Day Grocery Manager(over entire Grocery Department) and a Night Grocery Manager(I think some stores just have a night lead). Are you saying he is in charge of the entire Grocery Department? My previous Day Grocery Manager trusted me(a part timer) to get the job done and knew I didn't milk my time when working OT. My previous night manager knew I could crank thru the work but never complimented me. And spoke poorly about me behind my back. There is a saying to never trust a two faced person. I could get along with him but never trusted him. My Store manager trusted me to do the orders and run the department when the back-up and manager were off. Rumor is store manager cried when they found out I got a full time bid at another store. Can't believe all the rumors you hear tho! :)
I hope some of that 2200 cases was pallets of water and shippers. To run and condition 2200 cases, that should take roughly 55 people hours. A 4 person crew is only in the store for 30 hours during an 8 hour shift each. The old way of keeping track(before the DDP) is to run and condition at 40 cases an hour.
My previous night grocery manager is getting up in years and can't do the work he used to. He does try when the back-up has the day off.
My previous night manager yelled at me and a new guy one morning. I asked if he wanted us to stay to get the work done and he said no. "What are you'll doing? trying to go slow to get OT? GTF out and you can explain it to the store manager later". He said there were so many cases and we took too long. He forgot to count the 200 cases in the first aisle. What he didn't know is that I count cases and knew exactly what we did that night and where our time went. I put it in a spreadsheet and showed it to the store manager. I could show that we did 4 hours too much work that day. While the manager and his back-up wasted time doing little that shift. After we clocked in the next shift, he apologized to both of us. He never ever apologizes ever. A few months ago, his back-up(they live together) was throwing a hissy fit about me working a lot of OT. She asked a question and I answered. She got pissed about my answer. The manager made a comment that bordered being a personal threat.
My previous grocery manager would say he and the backup were doing all the work while the part timers were too slow. When I was in charge of the crew(during their vacations together), I would time us as a team. We win or lose as a team. Most Department managers are having tasks(oos, DDP, etc) added to their workload and are not willing to step into 2014 to learn and keep up with the volume of business Kroger is doing. Learn everything you can so you can replace him if the need arises. Be organized to work as efficiently as possible. If his bs doesn't kill you, it will make you stronger.
I started signing bids like crazy. I wanted out of there. I did not want him to take anymore credit for my hardwork and dedication. After a week, I am happy at my new store even tho it is twice the work. Kicking my a ss so far! I also think the night manager and lead have a good system in place and they actually do work. We just do not have enough people.
If I were you, find out how to print a daily planner for the DDP. Ask a store manager to show you how if you don't know how to. Explain that the Grocery manager says you'll go too slow and you want to be able to show that the crew works at 100%. The DDP is a goal. I think 85% is acceptable. The time on the DDP is just for throwing cases. It does not include ordering, sorting, running backstock, conditioning, clean-up or spotting. Everything is supposed to be run off of pallets. Peyton is hard to run off of pallets. The manager semi sorts it and then we can run off of pallets. The entire crew is supposed to work as a team not every man for himself. Some people will be weak in some areas and others might have to pick up the slack. Try to figure out how to motivate your co workers and keep them content. Try to diffuse drama. It is not an easy job and dealing with the drama makes it worse. There is a lot of work that needs to be done and it has to be done accurately everyday.
We run most aisles off of pallets. Each person is assigned one or two aisles to run, run backstock and condition. 2200 cases sounds like my new store size. But, we have an 8 person crew currently. We have a grocery truck 6 nights and Peyton 4 nights. I am used to spotting and learning to run off of pallets isn't too bad so far. Some aisles are easier to spot and run to me.
How does your crew run 2200 cases with only 4 people?
You're not alone. You are not alone at all. I'm at my wit's end with my overnight grocery manager. Your story is so parallel to my own that it's just amazing to me. I've been threatened with reduced scheduled hours unless I stayed past my scheduled time. I've also been threatened with losing the aisle I've had ever since I started. She's told me that she'll hire someone to replace me. I've been told that I'll be transferred departments. This morning before I left work, she told me not to ask her for any favors... I've never asked her for anything. She's a piece of work with a long history. This is the SECOND time she's had the job. The first time she was stepped down over the same things she's doing now. Ordering monster truck loads, on nights where there's only 4 of us working and little bitty loads when we have every single person there. The only reason that it was given to her again is that no one wanted the job. She didn't even want it. But it was her, or the guy who had been bagging groceries up front for 6 months. I'm not kidding. She's basically as nice as she has to be to get what she wants. If you ever tell her know or don't do something her way. That's what I'm going through right now. I'm ready to quit.
I'm pretty sure our grocery manager and yours are long lost twins. Same exact story. He's terrible on morale. He would always be off fridays and saturdays, and we always wanted to work then. There'd always be a good mood when he wasn't around. Luckily, he liked me, but still wasn't hard to see how much of a terrible person he is.
As per the DDP, it's wildly inaccurate for everything except for stocking. (Ours gives something like 9 hours for conditioning for the WEEK lol, frozen gets 3 hours to turn backstock for the WEEK). You'll have to adjust it up or down in different areas to make it realistic.
Also, since stores are trying to remodel themselves to a standard POG set region wide, "aisle ready" pallets make it easier. However, there are still a lot of stores that have not been remodeled to match(ours is one of them) so the DDP goals will become very unrealistic as there needs to be an extra 4 or so hours to break down a standard 1600 piece grocery truck. Peyton is even worse as every item needs to be separated and nothing is together. That's a big reason why grocery here is allowed to go over on hours every week(we get around 280, but use 300-320). Not to mention the crew here is by and large slow and unable to get it done anywhere near on time.
Long story short, you have a few options.
1) Deal with it.
2) Ask for a transfer to another store.
3) Get into department head training, which may or may not be done by your grocery manager depending on the current training plan roll-out. And put bids into other stores.
4) Raise concerns to your store manager(skip co-managers). Likely, they will already know about his behavior and will try and do something about it.
