I honestly couldn't say. All positions can be stressful and keeps you busy. The job I couldn't do is cashier or the person who assists in self-check out. I can't stand in one spot for too long and wouldn't want to. That would be the hardest thing for me to do.
every department is utter trash. there is no magical "dream department" at kroger and there never will be. i think my department sucks the most to work in, but that's only because it's MY department!
Produce and bakery always seem to be the most understaffed. Other departments like Meat and Drug GM are hard too, but they typically have a full team. Produce and Bakery are the only departments I've noticed in most stores that tend to have the hardest work load.
Produce and bakery always seem to be the most understaffed. Other departments like Meat and Drug GM are hard too, but they typically have a full team. Produce and Bakery are the only departments I've noticed in most stores that tend to have the hardest work load.
Also overnight grocery, obviously.
Yeah, I'm sure it takes a lot of work to bake a pan of cookies.
Produce and bakery always seem to be the most understaffed. Other departments like Meat and Drug GM are hard too, but they typically have a full team. Produce and Bakery are the only departments I've noticed in most stores that tend to have the hardest work load.
Also overnight grocery, obviously.
Yeah, I'm sure it takes a lot of work to bake a pan of cookies.
Without a doubt................. DELI, especially the "hot chicken" end of the dept.
Dirty, messy, heavy lifting, spilled grease, flour, bad smelling drains, chicken boxes, washing dishes, cleaning, PPSTs, taking temps, answering the phone, taking orders, doing the cash register, keeping hot steam table filled, markdowns, scanning out-dates etc, etc. (Note: all stores may not be this bad, depending on how busy they are, who is scheduled, but my store is AWFUL!!!!)
Employee Turn-over rate is tremendously high. Kroger corporate doesn't have enough sense to pay all the Deli people a Good, decent High wage,and allot enough hours, as it would do wonders in keeping enough good workers there to cover the dept adequately and please the customers. (CUSTOMER FIRST, RIGHT??????????)
Produce and bakery always seem to be the most understaffed. Other departments like Meat and Drug GM are hard too, but they typically have a full team. Produce and Bakery are the only departments I've noticed in most stores that tend to have the hardest work load.
Also overnight grocery, obviously.
Yeah, I'm sure it takes a lot of work to bake a pan of cookies.
Anyone who thinks that all the bakery does is bake cookies has never worked a day in their life in the bakery dept. Bakery always gets shat upon because for the amount of actual production, we get less hours because the amount of sales is less than say grocery or produce.
Without a doubt................. DELI, especially the "hot chicken" end of the dept.
Dirty, messy, heavy lifting, spilled grease, flour, bad smelling drains, chicken boxes, washing dishes, cleaning, PPSTs, taking temps, answering the phone, taking orders, doing the cash register, keeping hot steam table filled, markdowns, scanning out-dates etc, etc. (Note: all stores may not be this bad, depending on how busy they are, who is scheduled, but my store is AWFUL!!!!)
Employee Turn-over rate is tremendously high. Kroger corporate doesn't have enough sense to pay all the Deli people a Good, decent High wage,and allot enough hours, as it would do wonders in keeping enough good workers there to cover the dept adequately and please the customers. (CUSTOMER FIRST, RIGHT??????????)
Deli is right behind Front End in terms of new hires though, so the work is spread out evenly. It also probably doesn't help that most Deli departments are full of women, so naturally things don't run smoothly. But Deli is not the hardest department, the most drama and high school tier **** happens in Deli because its staffed mostly by women, but it is not a hard department.
I personally would hate Drug GM the most. There seem to be more tiny items than any other department and nothing is worse than stocking tiny items as you keep knocking things over which have a domino effect. Also counting many time items, and more items to put up and keep up with that are tiny.
Deli/bakery for sure. it sucks when its an all in one department and you have to do it all because you are either 1.) the only person who knows how to do stuff because you are stuck with a bunch of new hires or 2.) half the department quit and you are stuck there by yourself. management doesn't care, most only ever come to the department to point out everything you did wrong and offer no help to you. customers are particularly assholish when it comes to the food. they have no patience. if you put out 10 savories like the ppst says, and all 10 sell, all you can do is put in more and wait. people do not understand that you are trying your best and that it isnt due to lack of effort that you have zero savories out on the bar. then you gotta fight all the chicken battles as you try to do the breakout for the baker. meanwhile you have 20 custoners lined up at the counter banging the hell out of that bell, the phone ringing off the hook (probably a customer wanting to know every single party tray you have, what all comes in them and how much they cost), a slew of little nasty kids wanting their free cookies, and someone hollering for you to write on a cake. worked front end at a different grocery chain and just let me tell you, front end is a whole lot less stressful than the deli. i think anything is less stressful than the deli, truthfully. unless you have worked it, you will never know.
The poster who wrote (about the deli) "but it is not a hard department" could not have possibly worked in the deli, unless they were friends with a manager who made it easy for them, or somehow or other got it easy (hhmmm, working in a store that is very slow, or they are given a pass for being a confirmed slacker).
Although I will agree that the more women you work with, the more drama and nastiness there will be in the workplace, but that is not the point at all: the deli is nevertheless a HARD HARD department to work in as there is so much to learn, and so much pressure from the public and managers, and not enough time for getting everything done properly and still take all your breaks.
A side issue......... Many individuals in the deli at my store are not cross-trained........they only know some part of the workload, maybe only 50 percent of what is done here......some can bake cookies but have never fried a chicken. Others can slice meats but have never dumped the grease overflow bucket from the rotisserie oven. Others may have never baked any chicken but do a fine job of icing cupcakes. Others don't like answering the phone, but do a great job waiting on customers needing something from the salad case. Some workers don't have a clear understanding of the PLU numbers for hot bar items, and never make an attempt to memorize even the most common ones, others know most of them without looking it up.
First off can I say big ups and props to all the peeps that have already spoken about the trials and errors of working in the Deli/Bakery areas!
The only thing I can really add to what has been said without sounding too redundant about things is that. I think Deli/Bakery wouldn't be so hard, if they said when they are hiring people they would like peeps with such and such an experience level to some degree. So people don't feel like they have to take a bunch of time showing new hires how to do things. But that is still no excuse for not making an attempt at properly training the new hires(I had barely a day and half with my trainer. I know it's a fast moving biz and was doing my best to ask as many questions as possible. But putting new hires on shifts that their trainer isn't on, isn't helpful. And I can see how it would annoy other employees that have to do their work too and feel like they have to help out new people at the same time) you get in that DON'T have experience either(I've been working at my store roughly coming up on 6 1/2 months and with some things I still feel like a new hire as I barely was trained how to do most orders or other things, that the back up manager or DH thinks I should know off hand).
Also from personal experience, I find that the communication often makes things hard as hell for working in Deli/Bakery, most especially at my store. As I swear if it's not the fact that someone didn't inform you that you are going to be doing X,Y, and Z until last minute(schedule changes,orders, prices being changed for products, etc.), people anticipating what you are going to say before you even say it(one of our back up cake decorators about blew her wig cause I had come over her direction, thinking I wanted her to write on a cake. But in reality I was looking for a particular color piping bag so I could write on the cake myself, thank you very much, even had my DH ask me one time when I was getting a quick drink of water after bringing up a particularly heavy truck, if I had just taken a pill. Like I'm a freaking pill popper to begin with, and why the hell would I do such a thing at work?!, I won't even get into the numerous times I have tried to ask someone with a bit more experience a question from a customer, and they interpret it an entirely different way than what I said. And then I have to re-explain it 2 or 3 times, til they are like "why didn't you say that the first time? Um if you stopped and actually LISTENED the first time, processed what was said, maybe asked your own questions back, THEN we can be on the same page).
As for the cross-training...I honestly thought that was a wee bit of a joke. As I've only technically been crossed trained over in Deli like one day on the first of the new year. And only worked over there for an hour or so in the last couple of months. And now BAM, I'm on closing for over there tomorrow and have no clue as how to close down their stuff! Sure there will be other peeps over there that can help me out. But still, it's kind of overwhelming. Most especially dealing with the customers and figuring out how to slice the meat to the right size and weight. And yes, as one of the other posters mentioned about the customers....oh lordy are some of them uber rude and pushy. As I had one custoemr the day I was over there filling in for an hour, he wanted his Bologna to be cut at a particular thickness and for a pound and I got that. But he was having a hissy fit cause he wanted me to open one out of the display window. And I kept telling him, dude we have one open already. Sure I hadn't put my hand on it just yet. Actually just moved some of the other meat out the way and was about to pull it out and show him. When one of the other experienced people came over and was seeing what was going on. And then she looked in the case and was like there it is right there. And I was like, dude I was just going to pull it out for the guy, if ya'll would give me a second. Then there was another guy that was I guess in such a rush, wanted a half a pound of pepperoni, and it wasn't even at the half mark, he was like that's enough I'll take that. And just about yanked it out of my hands.
Although the ironic part about it all is that for all the headaches that Deli has at times with call offs and customers. Some how or other, they seem to be a little less stress inducing than working in bakery, and peeps over there can actually get their breaks in at my store.
Without a doubt................. DELI, especially the "hot chicken" end of the dept.
Dirty, messy, heavy lifting, spilled grease, flour, bad smelling drains, chicken boxes, washing dishes, cleaning, PPSTs, taking temps, answering the phone, taking orders, doing the cash register, keeping hot steam table filled, markdowns, scanning out-dates etc, etc. (Note: all stores may not be this bad, depending on how busy they are, who is scheduled, but my store is AWFUL!!!!)
Employee Turn-over rate is tremendously high. Kroger corporate doesn't have enough sense to pay all the Deli people a Good, decent High wage,and allot enough hours, as it would do wonders in keeping enough good workers there to cover the dept adequately and please the customers. (CUSTOMER FIRST, RIGHT??????????)
Deli is right behind Front End in terms of new hires though, so the work is spread out evenly. It also probably doesn't help that most Deli departments are full of women, so naturally things don't run smoothly. But Deli is not the hardest department, the most drama and high school tier **** happens in Deli because its staffed mostly by women, but it is not a hard department.
In our Deli as far as I know there isn't any drama and it's predominantly women working over there. But for sure in the bakery it is. But I think it just comes down to some of the people in general. As I've sat back and observed my own DH, who is a guy, straight, quite married and so forth. Speak more BS right along with some of the women, about other peeps in the dept. with the best of em. At times it just blows me away about how much I've learned about the people I've worked with in the last few months. I mean from hearing about folks infidelities, freaking one teen chick(she's 20 now) having some or other touched one of the store managers she has a crush on, to the DH calling folks in the dept. when he is on vacay, and how one of the back up peeps keeps having romantic scams occurring. Sprinkle in some peeps thinking that others aren't doing their job, but they don't realize how much goes on between morning and night shifts.
It is truly amazing how any of these people can work together at all in my opinion. I mean don't get me wrong I have had a brief moment with some folks being in their feelings about something I'm doing or what they perceive me not doing. But it doesn't last all that long. I guess only cause I don't have all that much going on in my life for them to be talking about me like they do with others. And the little I have shared with a few peeps, if they wanted to say anything about that. Then it would still make them look like even more of an ass. But yea, I think it's more about the peeps than just being women in general.
Bakery always gets shat upon because for the amount of actual production, we get less hours because the amount of sales is less than say grocery or produce. 
