I been working at Kroger's for 6 years and in that 6 years it's gone down hill. I been on scheduled 50+ hours for around 8 months. There is a staffing crisis, Kroger has stopped investing in employees, the new equipment is defective and slow, the policies are changing to where it dramatically affects work efficiency and the work home life balance is non existent.
Basically what I'm getting at is, I'm tying to do classes but Kroger's will not give me the opportunity to try to better myself, I can't quit without a comparable wage cause I need the income and health insurance. If I take a educational leave I forfeit my position and go from 20$ a hour to 8, stepping down do the same thing and screw me, I got a mortgage, bills and kids. I been thinking about selling my house and moving into a cheap apartment to get away from Kroger land.
How do I better myself and get out of this **** hole it's become without them preventing it or screwing me over. I can't get a consistent schedule to even do any of the work I need to.
Best I been able to do is start online classes in the spare time Kroger's isn't milking me. For everything I'm worth.
How do I get out and what happened to this company?
The only answer I saw was to stop caring about Kroger. The only way you're going to be able to get anything done is to nail down a consistant schedule and use your sick days, vacation time, and leave to get what you need done complete.
The only other option is to quit.
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Would you like fries with th... I mean, your milk in a bag?
I'm not willing to push my work load off onto someone else, or screw our already short staff by calling in sick. I hate what the company has become, not my coworkers. The courses I need to take are nationwide and appear in large cities only on certain weeks, there are 3 modules each consisting of 60 hour week. So I need to go out of town on very specific dates, for a week. I also need to do some valunteer work to pad my resume.
Quiting honestly might be the best option, but like I said it puts me in a very bad spot. If I could just get a 40-45 hour work week I could probably pull this off. But it's only getting worse, hours getting longer, everyone getting tired and hurt. I been praying for a strike cause it's all stores.
I retired after 41 years. The past 15 years on Xanax 6mg, heavy dose, but prescribed and Zoloft, anti depressant. This helped me get through the final years until I was able to comfortably retire.
I'm in my mid 30s so retirement isn't really on the radar. I'm trying to find a way to safely transition out of the company, I believe they lost their way. I work very close to corporate and I can say with 100% certainty that they have no idea what goes on in stores. Every chance we get caught up and I might get a second day off they schedule a visit.
Is it possible to transition or is the only way to grt their fangs out of your neck to walk?
I want to work with them, but they don't seem to want to work. With me.
With only 6 years in, it is a little early to be burned out, although it was much better in the 70's and 80's. I retired last year. You need 4 more years to at least be vested to collect a small pension in 25 years down the road. Are you supporting a family. What are you bills?
I don't like going into detail cause I don't want to be punished for all this, but burn out is pretty easy in a 2 million dollar store with 10 people. I'm doing 50 hours or so now. But for the past 6 years I been doing around 60-80 most the time.
Its about more than burnout, it's poor leadership. I have corporate people in charge of meat who can't tell the difference between pork and beef. A Co the other day called one of my guys a pussy and said he wasn't hurt, he hurt his back pretty bad, he's pretty much gone for a while, he killed himself for this place and they spit on him.
I support my family and have bills yes, utilities, mortgage mostly.
I don't care about the pension, I just want out before these young bloods trying to make a name for themselves sink our already sinking ship, permanently.
By the way. Havnt gotten a break in around 4 months. I know it's my own fault but they run us so tight that if I walked away for even 5 minutes I'd be written up from a customer complaint.
In the year you retired alot has changed, I wouldn't be looking for a out if it was even close to how it was a year ago.
You know we can't change mins now? Everytime you write a order, it's more taking stuff off than putting it on, I remove around 100 items a day from my orders. Click list isn't removed from inventory till the customer picks it up, yet the entire system is now automated with a screen telling my guys what to cut. Imagine click list orders take 20 ribeyes, yet it doesn't tell them to cut any till tommorrow. So it could possible sit empty for a day. I mean alot has changed and almost none of it is for the better.
The brand new scales, I got 6. Of which 4 failed. It's been 2 months and multiple repair orders. Their still down. The warranty will expire before they are repaired. Now do 200k a week with 2 scales in meat.
Corporate abandoned us, but they got plenty of time to discontinue our best sellers and walk my store complaining about stickers.
Order Evolution was just starting when I left. The handheld already updated for the new allocations and preset mins. It was a real bitch for 10 checkstands of all the same candy and gum. The week they were going live was when I left. One of the people at corporate said that if things get out of control, you can up the BOH and lower the Allocation. This fixes the problem on overstocks but the Allocation is reset the following week and you show up on the list as changing it. So be it
It's been getting reset same day at 12am. All it takes is missing it one time and I got 33 cases of bluegrass mettwurst with a 4 day shelf life on Christmas eve. True story. My backup missed it.
I'm getting derailed though. I guess there really is no good answer on how to get out. Trapped is probably the perfect way to describe it, but I will get out eventually.
Order evolution was the tip of the iceberg, they have implemented some insane measures in meat that make our jobs 10x harder.
Guess I'll be patient and use my vacations and personal days.
Is it possible that you can transfer stores?? Obviously that won't help with all the issues that you described that are an inherent part of the job, like Order Evolution and Clicklist (and I work in a completely different department that doesn't use those things, so forgive me if I don't understand the specifics for the meat department). But at least another store might be better staffed and you could just get your 40 hours so you can finish your education.
Remember how I said poor leadership? I had a family. Member ill and requiring constant care the first time they moved me. I was asked where I wanted to go and I named a few stores I'd be able to do a 40-45 hour week and still take care of the sick member and I explained why. Wether out of spite or lack of lack of empathy, I was moved to one of the few stores at the time where the staff was incredibly short and it guarenteed I would have to do insane hours.
I don't have a choice in my store and they can move me pretty much anywhere they want. I'm afraid if I ask for a transfer I'll be punished or ignored again and put in a store with the same problems but farther away.
The member has since recovered but almost died twice while I was doing ot at work, they are very old. I'm still pretty upset with Kroger's lack of care in that regards, cause there were places I could be sent to that would of helped me balance.
I know what u going through man..I am the lead seafood clerk in a super busy store with no help..why don't you bid to go to another department ? Meat just keeps getting worse.. soon the grinder is gona be gone
The member has since recovered but almost died twice while I was doing ot at work, they are very old. I'm still pretty upset with Kroger's lack of care in that regards, cause there were places I could be sent to that would of helped me balance.
I am sorry to hear that. It definitely should not be that way, where management won't listen to your needs especially where it concerns important things like taking care of family or schooling. It is mind-boggling to me that they can move you wherever they decide, without regard for your preferences and needs. I hope that things turn around for you soon.
The member has since recovered but almost died twice while I was doing ot at work, they are very old. I'm still pretty upset with Kroger's lack of care in that regards, cause there were places I could be sent to that would of helped me balance.
I am sorry to hear that. It definitely should not be that way, where management won't listen to your needs especially where it concerns important things like taking care of family or schooling. It is mind-boggling to me that they can move you wherever they decide, without regard for your preferences and needs. I hope that things turn around for you soon.
It's not meat that sucks, it's Kroger's and its upper management. I love my job. I don't love the adittional 30 hours tacked onto my job through useless programs and corporate **** ups.
