I am a Night Crew Foreman at a million a week store in central Colorado. Any questions about anything, from policies to how things really work, and anything in between, I'll answer to the best of my abilities.
I am a Night Crew Foreman at a million a week store in central Colorado. Any questions about anything, from policies to how things really work, and anything in between, I'll answer to the best of my abilities.
Thank you for your offer. I have never got a straight, informative answer about this from anyone at work, so here goes:
Exactly what does Kroger do with all the plastic bags of plastic? I mean, are they actually sent to a recycling center, and are the different types of plastic separated there? Are certain types of plastic actually not supposed to be put in the bags?
I wonder, since I have seen all kinds of plastic, no. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, plastic wrap, stryrofoam, black hard plastic pieces such as used in some banana boxes, plastic bottles, sheets of "odd" light plastic netting, hard white straps that were tied around apple boxes, etc, etc.
I wonder if some of this is actually a "wrong" type of plastic and should not be recycled, since I was under the impression there are actually some rules about "contamination" from certain "unaccepted" plastics at some recycling companies.
Has this subject EVER been addressed or discussed in official paperwork / emails by Corporate??
I am not the Op but that is a very good question. I am curious about their input. There might be a chart by receiving that shows the types of plastic and what is accepted. The trick for each store is getting 200 employees and all the new people to follow those guidelines.
Eco friendly is nice but it is a lot of work to do it efficiently.
I saw a you tube video about china buying American recyclable plastic years ago. They wanted everything. They soon realized no one knows how to clean it or sort it so now they reject much of it. They ended up having to throw a lot away after shipping it to china. They don't want to be the worlds' garbage dump.
Going by intuition: I know there are several types of plastic and how they are recycled varies. Pallets are wrapped in plastic. Cases of cans are wrapped in plastic That is easy to recycle. Customers return plastic shopping bags. That is easy to recycle. Customers like to throw glass, cans and cardboard in for recycling. That is not acceptable.
I was told that if their is too much garbage(glass, paper, cardboard or metal) in the plastic recycle bag, it goes into the garbage bin at the warehouse. I was told that the bands for milk crates, blue totes, meat boxes and apple boxes are not accepted as plastic. I was told to throw them away. I often see them still on boxes thrown directly into cardboard baler.
Our receiver will put Styrofoam and empty pill bottles from the pharmacy in their own bag and send it to the warehouse. They are unsure if it is recyclable. I consider smelly seafood plastic and banana box plastic(brown fluid on it) contaminated. I put it in the garbage.
We put collected plastic on top of bales or stacks of pallets. They go back to the warehouse and are sent elsewhere from there.
I'm not OP, but with six years in night crew/freezer/dairy and having been offered a foreman position three times, I can answer some of these. Coincidentally, I'm also in Colorado...
Anonymouse1 wrote:
How do you keep your sanity in tact?
You don't. That's why I haven't accepted a foreman position.
Do you run stock or monitor people during your shift?
By 'running stock' do you mean stocking shelves? Yes, most foreman help the crew. And yes, "monitoring" is part of the job description of any level of supervisor.
Do you have double trucks? How do you run them?
As in loads that are so big that they take more than one truck? Yes, it happens every now and then. You 'run them' the same as a smaller load... it just takes longer.
Who runs blue totes, DPI and Nutrition?
For one, DPI is a vendor; do they not have their own paid people that come into the store to stock it in your area? In freezer, I always set it aside for them to come in and deal with. As for the rest, it depends on the store. Not all stores have a dedicated Nutrition department, candy and power bars seem to go back and forth between GM's and Grocery's responsibility, and some store managers decide to dedicate a shift to handling GHC totes. I had that shift at my last store, where I separated out GM and supply stuff for those guys to deal with in their own time (the few orange and blue totes being GM's cigarettes and makeup), then organized the Grocery product by aisle, working that to the shelf, and then working a couple aisles for night crew at the end as I had time. At my current store, someone is randomly designated to break off and organize GHC totes by aisle while the rest of the crew breaks down load, the totes are spotted into whatever aisles they go in, and then whoever works any given aisle is responsible for the totes in that aisle as well.
Who unloads perishable trucks?
Usually the foreman. Every store does it slightly different, though. I think it depends on how your back room is structured. At a previous store, one of our foremen would use the power jack to pull the pallets off the truck and line them up just outside of it, and then one or two normal crew guys would use a manual jack to take them to whatever department's back room they belonged in. At my current store, one of the foreman handles the whole deal, taking each pallet directly off the truck and into the departments' back rooms, one after the other - our more productive truck drivers will often help him out in a similar way to how I described my old store doing things.
Do you sort pallets?
While many pallets can go directly off the truck to the aisles, probably around half will still need broken down; all four stores I've been at broke down pallets. "Commodity alignment" just isn't there for all of the pallets.
Who conditions the store?
Usually crew. Some stores have tried dedicated back-stock/facing shifts, though.
Who replenishes the aisles? Example bake aisle and sales items?
My stores have all had dedicated daytime replenishment shifts. Whether they do it well is another matter...
Who runs backstock? Does Active all get ran daily?
Depends on whether your store has adopted 'sky shelves' like Wal-Mart has (at least in my area). With sky shelves, there's usually a dedicated daytime replenishment shift specifically to work that product. Anything on boats in the back room seems to always be worked by crew before they start the night's load.
Who fills water?
Whichever crew member gets stuck working those aisles that night.
How large are your trucks minus bulk items?
Can't remember this one. I'm in freezer now. Interestingly, though, my current store is one I left four or so years ago. Back then, load sizes were roughly 350 on the big end, and now they're around 450-500 because of all the people moving here.
How many people on the night crew?
Two stores ago, my crew had around five full timers that weren't going anywhere, and I think about 4 or 5 consistently "part time." My current store I think is about 6 or 7 people including the two foremen; but it's hard to keep track with how no one seems to last more than a couple weeks.
-- Edited by Anonymouse1 on Saturday 14th of December 2019 08:46:39 PM
As a fellow Coloradan to the OP, I can tell you that... well, I hear that a newer contract might top out lower, but as a ten-year non-foreman, I make $18.91 plus the overnight dollar, and a foreman is only making a dollar more than I am.
