As it is inventory time and all things needing to be scanned, had to be scanned today. I was curious how long does it take everyone to get inventory done in their department?
Bit of background: I'll be honest only having been on for a year I've never been scheduled to come in during a inventory morning. And the only other time I dealt with inventory stuff was when I was in deli weighing stuff out. And yes, as stated before(multiple times even), I'm bit of a slow poke at times. I can admit it. Something that is apparently not new to anybody. But I stay on task and get what I need to done regardless.
But today however, I must have been the bakery snail or some BS(emphasis on the BS, don't even think it's excuse enough to say she wasn't feeling good and that she is just fed up with Kroger in general(we all are at times, but we still put our shoes on one at a time and do our work all the same)). Cause the lovely senior co-worker of mine(I've referenced her before, the one that told me about the PS pies and does our slack out and truck most mornings and fills in as back up when our back up manager isn't there to do the order, etc.) comes in and starts huffing and ranting that the floor should be set by the time she gets in there(@7:30) and why wasn't it done. And then storms off grabbing tall boys to throw out the bread and so forth. Even marched over to me at one point and just ripped open the packaging of biscuits and threw em up the trays. Saying "it saves time if you put two on a tray at a time(to which I learned last week by her, that it's the floor setter's job to also make the biscuits to replace the other ones if they are marked down that day)" and storms off saying how she is fed up with waiting on frozen to get their sh...out of the way so she can get to bakery's". And eventually went back to get truck and do some of the slack out before going home(loved the bit of a scramble that was to try and get someone to come in. As two of our workers were in class at that time of the morning). And even tried to tell me that another girl we work with, would be doing the inventory too AND filling the floor as she went along. Even got pissed the regional manager guy was looking at the mark downs and saying that is what he likes to see. That we are cutting back. When we clearly haven't been. As we still have 3 carts out there like usual.
But yea, little does chickadee know, I was scheduled to come in at 4 a.m. to noon(new time they are trying out for the floor setter now and 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. for the bakers) and when I arrived, I was told NOT to ADD or REMOVE anything from the floor(til she had scanned it first and put it in a cart for me to mark down AFTER she was done) save for yesterday's mark downs, by our back up manager as she was going through and doing the inventory. Even told me the same for when she pulled out the carts in the freezer. That I can only touch stuff that is on the carts once she has pulled them out. Which I was cool with and figured since it is Tuesday, I can jump on cleaning the cooler out(lovely new responsibility). I'll be honest it may have taken a good few mins longer than necessary to do that as the hose kept kinking up and I couldn't get the wash and water out properly and may have set me back a little bit. But dude, considering the fact I had to wait for the back up manager to put stuff in carts so I could mark them down, and even separate out the bread onto 2 carts and sweet stuff on another like they like to have it on the floor. I still do not think I took that much time on ANY of that.
What got us behind though, I believe is the fact that even though our DH, 2 back up managers were there early and myself(for bakery floor setter and the deli floor setter). I feel like they should have scheduled the second deli back up manager to come in early as well to help with floor set. And even called in miss pissy attitude earlier today too. As I honestly feel like there is no way in the world they could expect everyone else to come in at their regular time, have their floor setter come in at an hour later than the usual floor set time. And knowing how long inventory takes, still expect all that to be done by 9 a.m.! Hell even knowing that more often than not at our store Frozen takes their time moving their stuff and it delays us getting to our stuff in the mornings. Not to mention once peeps get done with inventory, instead of helping put out some of the stuff the back up manager had pulled on her own from the freezer. Everyone BESIDES myself, decides to get into these yackfest sessions. And then when they look around, cause it's a mad dash session to get everything out on the floor as we only had a few mins before 9 to be set. Like really people? And yet, I'm more than a little certain that there were some times where my name had to be brought up for getting EVERYONE behind. >_< I mean dude, they always witch about folks not being able to work and talk at the same time. But seriously, look around. If you are doing that one yourself you have no need to complain about someone else. Also, if you see something that needs doing just do it and shut the F up already! I know we aren't officially a "team", but sometimes just TAKE one for the team and make EVERYBODY's day smoother, by pulling your share of the work sometimes. End of rant.
THANK YOU! And I don't think it really helps having folks storming around and fussing about junk either. Heck, I don't even appreciate the comparison's to another co-worker. Most especially when it continuously sounds like back when said co-worker was hired, they were putting more effort into training folks fully and properly back then, vs. how they are now. But again not MY fault.
Not to mention, they knew inventory was coming up. If you want things done a certain way and via certain peeps, you would have talked to everybody to coordinate their schedule to make it happen. They were coordinating things enough for tomorrow to prep for the walk thru Thursday. So why not for the inventory day?
Is it done 3 times a year? April, August, December or every 1/4
March, June, September, December? And I'm asking for food4less.
I'll leave that up to 4hourrush or someone that has more experience with it to answer. As I am really not sure, I mean as I said before my managers were there before I came in at 4 a.m. So I'm quite sure they might have come in around the same time as our baker did. And my only experiences with doing anything inventory related has been helping in deli to weigh and re-tag the lunch meats and cheeses down there. Come to think of it, even weighing out the meat and so forth seemed to have been a few weeks ago.
But I have no clue how often it's done per year or how long it normally takes to complete it. The communication at my store is very minimal. It's like you show up and they are telling you this bit of something one day. And then the next you are hearing it being said an entirely different way. So I can't always be sure to be honest with you.
9am Set Time..... haha Its earlier in my KMA! Inventory is a funny thing, depending on the store it takes 4-5 hours to 14 hours, all depends on the outside company and the # of people counting. Inventory is kinda interesting, stores are almost expected to be off by 100k + just because of theft and unknowns. Why do stores still have DVDs? Electronics? high thefts and no one buys this stuff anymore! (I just saved the company Millions).....
Is it done 3 times a year? April, August, December or every 1/4
March, June, September, December? And I'm asking for food4less.
I'll leave that up to 4hourrush or someone that has more experience with it to answer. As I am really not sure, I mean as I said before my managers were there before I came in at 4 a.m. So I'm quite sure they might have come in around the same time as our baker did. And my only experiences with doing anything inventory related has been helping in deli to weigh and re-tag the lunch meats and cheeses down there. Come to think of it, even weighing out the meat and so forth seemed to have been a few weeks ago.
But I have no clue how often it's done per year or how long it normally takes to complete it. The communication at my store is very minimal. It's like you show up and they are telling you this bit of something one day. And then the next you are hearing it being said an entirely different way. So I can't always be sure to be honest with you.
In the Louisville division, and it may be the same in other divisions, the deli/bakery has to do inventory every 4 weeks (basically once a month) if you're a red or yellow store and once every 13 weeks or once a quarter if you're a green store. Green stores are the ones making a profit. Yellow stores are borderline. Red stores are losing money. The two things they look at are your sales budget and your shrink. If the percentage you are over budget on sales (meaning you made more than they forecasted) is more than your shrink percentage, then that means you made money and you're a green store. if you are over budget on sales but your shrink is higher than your sales percentage, that means you lost money and you're a yellow store. If you are under budget on sales and your shrink is above a certain amount, you're a red store.
The way we've always done inventory is we count all the stuff not on the sales floor the day before and then count the sales floor early the next morning
Is it done 3 times a year? April, August, December or every 1/4
March, June, September, December? And I'm asking for food4less.
I'll leave that up to 4hourrush or someone that has more experience with it to answer. As I am really not sure, I mean as I said before my managers were there before I came in at 4 a.m. So I'm quite sure they might have come in around the same time as our baker did. And my only experiences with doing anything inventory related has been helping in deli to weigh and re-tag the lunch meats and cheeses down there. Come to think of it, even weighing out the meat and so forth seemed to have been a few weeks ago.
But I have no clue how often it's done per year or how long it normally takes to complete it. The communication at my store is very minimal. It's like you show up and they are telling you this bit of something one day. And then the next you are hearing it being said an entirely different way. So I can't always be sure to be honest with you.
In the Louisville division, and it may be the same in other divisions, the deli/bakery has to do inventory every 4 weeks (basically once a month) if you're a red or yellow store and once every 13 weeks or once a quarter if you're a green store. Green stores are the ones making a profit. Yellow stores are borderline. Red stores are losing money. The two things they look at are your sales budget and your shrink. If the percentage you are over budget on sales (meaning you made more than they forecasted) is more than your shrink percentage, then that means you made money and you're a green store. if you are over budget on sales but your shrink is higher than your sales percentage, that means you lost money and you're a yellow store. If you are under budget on sales and your shrink is above a certain amount, you're a red store.
The way we've always done inventory is we count all the stuff not on the sales floor the day before and then count the sales floor early the next morning
That's very interesting. And based off what you are describing, I would say that my store is a sort of yellowish-green store I guess, lol. I mean we are making enough to keep the doors open for sure. But they always want us sampling more and on occasion they do tend to get on bakery about the shrink being too much at times. Hence we had to cut back our doughnuts a bit more. Even got rid of the roll bin too where folks could buy the telera and other rolls separately and have them in a bag, instead of the 4 or 5 in a pack. And can only imagine what this walk through is going to yield tomorrow as well.
9am Set Time..... haha Its earlier in my KMA! Inventory is a funny thing, depending on the store it takes 4-5 hours to 14 hours, all depends on the outside company and the # of people counting. Inventory is kinda interesting, stores are almost expected to be off by 100k + just because of theft and unknowns. Why do stores still have DVDs? Electronics? high thefts and no one buys this stuff anymore! (I just saved the company Millions).....
Dare I even inquire about what time you have to be set by at your store? As is, I think 9 a.m. at times seems a bit of a challenge given that it is usually just one baker and the floor setter for bakery and and for deli just one person to do all that grab and go, the early bird click list, rotate and spruce up salads, prep the cafeteria area. Turn on the pizza oven, open up sub shop even.
Not to mention for bakery the bakers are essentially baking, packaging, labeling, frosting, etc. Stuff by their lonesome for a while there til the floor setter comes in. And even still pending on how fast the markdowns are done, getting stuff made for an order if need be, working out the back stock and scanning the lows and holes and stuff. Then making sure they get filled. As well as slicing the bread for the morning too. Yea, it tends to definitely take a while to stay on top of it all and look good by 9(although I still don't see how that works when the store opens at 6 a.m. anyway) when you have just 2 people there in the morning.
9am Set Time..... haha Its earlier in my KMA! Inventory is a funny thing, depending on the store it takes 4-5 hours to 14 hours, all depends on the outside company and the # of people counting. Inventory is kinda interesting, stores are almost expected to be off by 100k + just because of theft and unknowns. Why do stores still have DVDs? Electronics? high thefts and no one buys this stuff anymore! (I just saved the company Millions).....
Perishable inventory is different, we do it about once a period now since shrink is sooooooo high in our division (Cincy/Dayton) right now.
Because as we know, that's the most important thing wrong with this company right now.
9am Set Time..... haha Its earlier in my KMA! Inventory is a funny thing, depending on the store it takes 4-5 hours to 14 hours, all depends on the outside company and the # of people counting. Inventory is kinda interesting, stores are almost expected to be off by 100k + just because of theft and unknowns. Why do stores still have DVDs? Electronics? high thefts and no one buys this stuff anymore! (I just saved the company Millions).....
Perishable inventory is different, we do it about once a period now since shrink is sooooooo high in our division (Cincy/Dayton) right now.
Because as we know, that's the most important thing wrong with this company right now.
Our shrink rate in the deli and bakery combined was 3.4% according to the last inventory figures. Our sales however were 4.5% over budget. Since our sales were greater than our shrink, that made us one of the few green stores in the division. We don't have to do inventory again until the end of October: right before the Thanksgiving rush begins.
