I have been a conditioner at Kroger for a couple of years now. This was supposed to be a temporary second job for various reasons and I won't be doing this much longer, but the parade of stupidity I have seen is worthy of a finely crafted novel. Kroger will hire any functioning retard that passes a drug test. Since I have somehow not quit this job in raging frustration yet I am now the experienced one, so please send me the idiots to train. Conditioning is supposedly easy, just pull a couple things up, how hard can it be. Of course we all know that the word "training" at Kroger is nonsense, just follow someone else around for a couple of days and you are magically "trained". If you somehow are not a complete expert at all things Kroger in those couple of days you are subject to abuse and I as the trainer am also somehow subject to abuse for not "training" you correctly. I am constantly subjected to either kids who think this is an easy job, or seniors who may have once been able to contribute to society but who now can barely find their way to the store. The store management has no clue, of course, on any level. And Kroger refuses to pay a competitive wage, so anyone with half a brain quits rather quickly. Yet somehow I am still here, trying to keep an eye on the retards while trying to get the job done. I am going on anti-depressants soon, as any Kroger employee should. Of course I can't get on full time so I have no insurance so I am having to pay for the anti-depressants out of my own pocket. Kroger is such an evil empire, I can't wait to get out of this craziness. Oh, by the way I am also on food stamps because I am paid so little this is the only way I can afford to shop here.
Whatever happened to being trained at another store then being sent to the store in which you were hired? I HATE having to train new hires. I have enough of my own work to do.
As for competitive wages? It is competitive. You have to compete to stay above poverty level, pay bills, and get food. That's "competitive wages"
we're usually given 5 hours to condition the store, but it hasn't been done completely in a long, long time. Many days, the conditioner has to stop doing his job to do the higher priority job of putting up the truck. Therefore the next day when the conditioner comes in, some aisles haven't been touched by the conditioner in a couple of days and are in even worse shape. It snowballs every day. It's more difficult to condition, order, and stock the shelves when they're in such bad shape. I've been told conditioning is top priority but that's just not feasible in the real world
we're usually given 5 hours to condition the store, but it hasn't been done completely in a long, long time. Many days, the conditioner has to stop doing his job to do the higher priority job of putting up the truck. Therefore the next day when the conditioner comes in, some aisles haven't been touched by the conditioner in a couple of days and are in even worse shape. It snowballs every day. It's more difficult to condition, order, and stock the shelves when they're in such bad shape. I've been told conditioning is top priority but that's just not feasible in the real world
Yeah it definitely takes longer to condition than that. I work in what I would consider a medium large kroger (10 checklanes iirc) and I know when I was a conditioner I could get the whole store conditioned in 8 hours IF the aisles had not been neglected. If they were really bad I was lucky to get an aisle done an hour. Some sections like the spices section of the cooking aisle, the gravy/sauce mixes, or the kool-aid and crystal light section often took 30 minutes because they had to be completely reorganized
Also its totally easy to not be trained and screw up conditioning. I know when I started I was double facing and stacking cans (which they didn't want me to do) and I was pulling every single item forward. Also the frozen guy wanted everything L shaped, of course, nobody told me any of this sh!t so I got chewed out several times. It was the store manager who originally showed me the wrong way to condition frozen, ironically.
I also feel like we are being cheated by being given a courtesy clerk classification. How courteous can someone be at 4am when virtually nobody is in the store? We're essentially doing a job that is a stockers job, we are on the grocery schedule and part of the grocery team but get paid chump change and aren't eligible for insurance.
-- Edited by Master Bates on Friday 21st of October 2016 03:44:52 AM
-- Edited by Master Bates on Friday 21st of October 2016 03:50:28 AM
" I am going on anti-depressants soon, as any Kroger employee should. Of course I can't get on full time so I have no insurance so I am having to pay for the anti-depressants out of my own pocket. Kroger is such an evil empire, I can't wait to get out of this craziness. Oh, by the way I am also on food stamps because I am paid so little this is the only way I can afford to shop here. "
Most anti depressants are extremely cheap, especially if you use something like goodrx. I pay seven bucks for 45 zoloft tablets a month. Don't be worried about food stamps. They're there for people like us who can't even afford bills let alone food.
being given a courtesy clerk classification. How courteous can someone be at 4am when virtually nobody is in the store? We're essentially doing a job that is a stockers job, we are on the grocery schedule and part of the grocery team but get paid chump change and aren't eligible for insurance.
-- Edited by Master Bates on Friday 21st of October 2016 03:44:52 AM
-- Edited by Master Bates on Friday 21st of October 2016 03:50:28 AM
your contract must be different than mine. Our conditioners are also on grocery schedule but they get paid just like any other grocery guy. We, too, have about 10 check lanes and it could be done in 5-6 only if it's been kept up on. You are correct: spices, jello, koolaid, and sometimes the cereal bar section can take an eternity without regular maintenance.
They expanded Cc positions to include shelf conditioning here. It's really kinda bullsheeit.
does that take away hours from [more senior] grocery clerks? If so I feel a grievance coming on! Unless they just gave that entire task to the front end to let them decide which job of the day is the least priority (conditioning is often skipped at my store because they'll often have 1-2 people to run both the kmp AND grocery trucks! It's pathetic
Due to under staffing, I don't even condition anymore. Outright refuse to do it until more employees are hired. We're a low-income area store and our typical customer doesn't care about how the place looks as long as they can get their $10/10 items. We don't have dedicated conditioners either.
