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Post Info TOPIC: Another Training/Communication Fail at Kroger
Bakerchick25

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Another Training/Communication Fail at Kroger
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So they have me on a couple of 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. hours of late and typically nothing too new there that I can't handle. However, I just discovered the other day and I don't know if this has always been the rule or not. Or just something they came up with for the pie challenge. But instead of marking down the PS pies. We are to move them over to the sample table for samples(which my DH told me to do). And when you do that, it's only the day of pies that move up there. Not the next day ones as well.

To which I did not know that, was NEVER informed ABOUT that at all. So when our resident truck worker and bread slack out person comes over to see that there are holes on the table cause I had moved the pies. And I told her what happened and why. She was like "We never mark PS pies down. Like ever. In fact(insert DH's name here) should have told you that."

Now here I am looking like a dumbass and no doubt resident slack out/truck person is all too gleeful to tell our back up manager about my mix up, pretty much all day. But not even stopping to consider the fact that, I don't know maybe, they should have a binder of standard **** we are NOT to be doing in the first place. And make sure folks know what is a go and what isn't. Instead of laughing about someone ****ing up on something they were never told about in the first place. >_<

So in other words, anybody else feel like they make this stuff up as they go along?



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Bakerchick25

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And might I add, since they have had me on 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. shifts. No one has ever officially told me ALL of what I'm supposed to be covering other than bring up truck(don't have to work it, just bring it up), do the mark downs, rotate the artisan bread from the bread wall to the baskets. Replace what is already in the baskets so that can be marked down. Still unsure what to do with all the extra that doesn't fit out on the floor. Mark that down too? fill holes and I guess hop on the bread slicing. But is there other stuff I should be doing that I'm unaware of?



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Anonymous

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Bakerchick25 wrote:

And might I add, since they have had me on 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. shifts. No one has ever officially told me ALL of what I'm supposed to be covering other than bring up truck(don't have to work it, just bring it up), do the mark downs, rotate the artisan bread from the bread wall to the baskets. Replace what is already in the baskets so that can be marked down. Still unsure what to do with all the extra that doesn't fit out on the floor. Mark that down too? fill holes and I guess hop on the bread slicing. But is there other stuff I should be doing that I'm unaware of?


 My csm doesn't tell me a lot of things, so I'll be there looking stupid, but other people will know rules and policies. I feel this is done on purpose.  I really feel my csm is threatened, and also a demon. But I agree, Kroger is stupid for not having a manual related to the job, that tells the rules, so that there is no confusion and so that employees can be informed. But Kroger hates transparency.



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Anonymous

Date:
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Bakerchick25 wrote:

So they have me on a couple of 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. hours of late and typically nothing too new there that I can't handle. However, I just discovered the other day and I don't know if this has always been the rule or not. Or just something they came up with for the pie challenge. But instead of marking down the PS pies. We are to move them over to the sample table for samples(which my DH told me to do). And when you do that, it's only the day of pies that move up there. Not the next day ones as well.

To which I did not know that, was NEVER informed ABOUT that at all. So when our resident truck worker and bread slack out person comes over to see that there are holes on the table cause I had moved the pies. And I told her what happened and why. She was like "We never mark PS pies down. Like ever. In fact(insert DH's name here) should have told you that."

Now here I am looking like a dumbass and no doubt resident slack out/truck person is all too gleeful to tell our back up manager about my mix up, pretty much all day. But not even stopping to consider the fact that, I don't know maybe, they should have a binder of standard **** we are NOT to be doing in the first place. And make sure folks know what is a go and what isn't. Instead of laughing about someone ****ing up on something they were never told about in the first place. >_<

So in other words, anybody else feel like they make this stuff up as they go along?


 What do you mean you don't mark down Private Selection pies?  We mark ours down.  The only thing we've been told not to mark down, and this is coming from corporate, is the Artisan bread.



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Bakerchick25

Date:
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Anonymous wrote:
Bakerchick25 wrote:

So they have me on a couple of 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. hours of late and typically nothing too new there that I can't handle. However, I just discovered the other day and I don't know if this has always been the rule or not. Or just something they came up with for the pie challenge. But instead of marking down the PS pies. We are to move them over to the sample table for samples(which my DH told me to do). And when you do that, it's only the day of pies that move up there. Not the next day ones as well.

To which I did not know that, was NEVER informed ABOUT that at all. So when our resident truck worker and bread slack out person comes over to see that there are holes on the table cause I had moved the pies. And I told her what happened and why. She was like "We never mark PS pies down. Like ever. In fact(insert DH's name here) should have told you that."

Now here I am looking like a dumbass and no doubt resident slack out/truck person is all too gleeful to tell our back up manager about my mix up, pretty much all day. But not even stopping to consider the fact that, I don't know maybe, they should have a binder of standard **** we are NOT to be doing in the first place. And make sure folks know what is a go and what isn't. Instead of laughing about someone ****ing up on something they were never told about in the first place. >_<

So in other words, anybody else feel like they make this stuff up as they go along?


 What do you mean you don't mark down Private Selection pies?  We mark ours down.  The only thing we've been told not to mark down, and this is coming from corporate, is the Artisan bread.


I'll be honest with ya. I think our store does some sneaky **** at times. Cause now that I think about it. I don't think I've seen any of the PS pies on our markdowns in a really long time. I don't know what they do with em if we don't mark em down and/or sample them out.

As for the Artisan Bread, that's kind of our rotational part of things. Meaning since we have such a larger display area now that we are in the marketplace. They want us to take the bread that was say sliced last night. Swap it for the bread that made it to the baskets on the sales floor yesterday that didn't sale. And then take THAT bread that didn't sell and mark it down. I don't know if that is standard procedure or what. But it's what our store has been doing for the last while here.



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Bakerchick25

Date:
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Anonymous wrote:
Bakerchick25 wrote:

And might I add, since they have had me on 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. shifts. No one has ever officially told me ALL of what I'm supposed to be covering other than bring up truck(don't have to work it, just bring it up), do the mark downs, rotate the artisan bread from the bread wall to the baskets. Replace what is already in the baskets so that can be marked down. Still unsure what to do with all the extra that doesn't fit out on the floor. Mark that down too? fill holes and I guess hop on the bread slicing. But is there other stuff I should be doing that I'm unaware of?


 My csm doesn't tell me a lot of things, so I'll be there looking stupid, but other people will know rules and policies. I feel this is done on purpose.  I really feel my csm is threatened, and also a demon. But I agree, Kroger is stupid for not having a manual related to the job, that tells the rules, so that there is no confusion and so that employees can be informed. But Kroger hates transparency.


 Ya, know I think it might be with select depts. they are like that. Cause I know the times I've been in Deli. They have binder after binder of how something is supposed to look and is done. But for bakery, I have yet to find any such binder even though I was told it is supposed to have our info in there like the Deli has theirs'. But I honestly feel like, if you can't find that binder and it's important, I think it's time to talk to Corporate about getting another one down there ASAP. Don't be making things up as you go along. Or worse yet, just have some of the folks that have been there much longer, be willing from the get go to share this type of info. Not in a smug or condescending way. But just be like, in case you missed it, we don't do this or that because. Don't leave particular things up to the "trainer" cause as we know, most trainers don't even have time to train new hires properly. And I'm sure for mos new hires like myself, when I first came on. Never having worked in retail at all. I wouldn't know what questions to ask off the bat. Unless it was over something that was brought up in the first place. I mean at most I was told about making sure to use the proper day glow stickers on particular items and for a time the PS pies were one of them. But nobody ever said anything about not marking them down or anything.



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I think that person is full of it, because absolutely yes you do mark down the PS pies! Right now since the pies are on the pie challenge sale, this means they're marked down to $2.49 for the apple/apple struesel. You mark down anything and everything (except the artisan bread) that has tomorrow's date on it! Unless your division is different (which i doubt) this has been the policy for the last 5 years i have worked there.

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Bakerchick25

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4hourrush wrote:

I think that person is full of it, because absolutely yes you do mark down the PS pies! Right now since the pies are on the pie challenge sale, this means they're marked down to $2.49 for the apple/apple struesel. You mark down anything and everything (except the artisan bread) that has tomorrow's date on it! Unless your division is different (which i doubt) this has been the policy for the last 5 years i have worked there.


 Which I totally marked down the ones on Saturday. But when my DH came in, he was like remove em from the markdown carts and take em up to the sample booth. And that was a hell of a lot of pies to go up there too. As I think he said we had just sold 11 the day before. And I was also "informed" that the PS pie sales wouldn't count if they were bought marked down. Either way though, I'm glad that one older lady I helped with some mark downs Saturday was able to get her two peach pies, before they were removed to the sample booth. And speaking of these pies anyway, when is the challenge wrapping up? I keep hearing another week or two. But as usual communication systems in my store is not the best to rely on.

As for that bread. I think I've been told wrong about that too then. Cause I believe I was informed that along with the bread that I take out of the baskets. I take any extra bread that doesn't fit out there and mark it down as well. But from the sounds of things, our crooked store is at it again. >_<



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Anonymous

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Bakerchick25 wrote:
4hourrush wrote:

I think that person is full of it, because absolutely yes you do mark down the PS pies! Right now since the pies are on the pie challenge sale, this means they're marked down to $2.49 for the apple/apple struesel. You mark down anything and everything (except the artisan bread) that has tomorrow's date on it! Unless your division is different (which i doubt) this has been the policy for the last 5 years i have worked there.


And I was also "informed" that the PS pie sales wouldn't count if they were bought marked down. 


 That part is true.  When you mark something down, the system treats it as a generic bakery item.  If you're doing CAP for example, anything that sold at a markdown price won't be counted when it forecasts how many you need to make.  If you sell 2 pies at regular price and 6 pies at a reduced price, CAP is only going to count the 2 pies you sold at full price as an actual sale and forecast accordingly.  



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Bakerchick25

Date:
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Anonymous wrote:
Bakerchick25 wrote:
4hourrush wrote:

I think that person is full of it, because absolutely yes you do mark down the PS pies! Right now since the pies are on the pie challenge sale, this means they're marked down to $2.49 for the apple/apple struesel. You mark down anything and everything (except the artisan bread) that has tomorrow's date on it! Unless your division is different (which i doubt) this has been the policy for the last 5 years i have worked there.


And I was also "informed" that the PS pie sales wouldn't count if they were bought marked down. 


 That part is true.  When you mark something down, the system treats it as a generic bakery item.  If you're doing CAP for example, anything that sold at a markdown price won't be counted when it forecasts how many you need to make.  If you sell 2 pies at regular price and 6 pies at a reduced price, CAP is only going to count the 2 pies you sold at full price as an actual sale and forecast accordingly.  


 Yea, I guess that makes sense. I just wish they were more consistent about ALL of their information in the department though. Hence I mentioned needing a bakery manual over stuff like this.



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Anonymous

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I am a back up in the bakery and while you can markdown the PS pies, we have not been doing so for the pie sale in my store. We scan them all out as samples. Honestly we have 4 pie tables up right now and on a daily basis pull anywhere from 20-50 pies off of the tables to scan out as samples because of management wanting all tables to be 3 high constantly. If we were to mark all of those pies down the customers would buy the markdown pies instead of the ones out on the sales floor for full price. We sample as many as we can and what ever is left over goes to the food pantry that picks up our outdates the next morning.



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Anonymous

Date:
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Bakerchick25 wrote:
4hourrush wrote:

I think that person is full of it, because absolutely yes you do mark down the PS pies! Right now since the pies are on the pie challenge sale, this means they're marked down to $2.49 for the apple/apple struesel. You mark down anything and everything (except the artisan bread) that has tomorrow's date on it! Unless your division is different (which i doubt) this has been the policy for the last 5 years i have worked there.


 Which I totally marked down the ones on Saturday. But when my DH came in, he was like remove em from the markdown carts and take em up to the sample booth. And that was a hell of a lot of pies to go up there too. As I think he said we had just sold 11 the day before. And I was also "informed" that the PS pie sales wouldn't count if they were bought marked down. Either way though, I'm glad that one older lady I helped with some mark downs Saturday was able to get her two peach pies, before they were removed to the sample booth. And speaking of these pies anyway, when is the challenge wrapping up? I keep hearing another week or two. But as usual communication systems in my store is not the best to rely on.

As for that bread. I think I've been told wrong about that too then. Cause I believe I was informed that along with the bread that I take out of the baskets. I take any extra bread that doesn't fit out there and mark it down as well. But from the sounds of things, our crooked store is at it again. >_<


Here in the Columbus division the pie sale is over Wednesday July 19th as that is when the period 7 price changes take effect.



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Anonymous

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Anonymous wrote:

I am a back up in the bakery and while you can markdown the PS pies, we have not been doing so for the pie sale in my store. We scan them all out as samples. Honestly we have 4 pie tables up right now and on a daily basis pull anywhere from 20-50 pies off of the tables to scan out as samples because of management wanting all tables to be 3 high constantly. If we were to mark all of those pies down the customers would buy the markdown pies instead of the ones out on the sales floor for full price. We sample as many as we can and what ever is left over goes to the food pantry that picks up our outdates the next morning.


 Four tables?  Well, that's just dumb.  Yes, you want to make sure you make enough to cover all your potential sales, but it makes no sense to make that many pies if you're not going to sell them.  If management wants the pies stacked 3 high then you need to get a smaller table.  Whether you mark them down or scan them out as samples, if you're pulling more than 10% of what you put out, you've made too much.  By 10% I mean 10% overall, not just 10% daily.  For example, if you put out 3 of something and pull one, then the shrink is 33.3%.  However, if you sell the other two plus seven more without losing any additional product, then the shrink rate is 10%.



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Anonymous

Date:
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Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:

I am a back up in the bakery and while you can markdown the PS pies, we have not been doing so for the pie sale in my store. We scan them all out as samples. Honestly we have 4 pie tables up right now and on a daily basis pull anywhere from 20-50 pies off of the tables to scan out as samples because of management wanting all tables to be 3 high constantly. If we were to mark all of those pies down the customers would buy the markdown pies instead of the ones out on the sales floor for full price. We sample as many as we can and what ever is left over goes to the food pantry that picks up our outdates the next morning.


 Four tables?  Well, that's just dumb.  Yes, you want to make sure you make enough to cover all your potential sales, but it makes no sense to make that many pies if you're not going to sell them.  If management wants the pies stacked 3 high then you need to get a smaller table.  Whether you mark them down or scan them out as samples, if you're pulling more than 10% of what you put out, you've made too much.  By 10% I mean 10% overall, not just 10% daily.  For example, if you put out 3 of something and pull one, then the shrink is 33.3%.  However, if you sell the other two plus seven more without losing any additional product, then the shrink rate is 10%.


 Yes, I understand that. The original sales plan had the main pie table plus the display around the Kaiser case in it, with a supplemental table up front. But the main office in Columbus along with the deli merchandiser decided that we had to maintain the 4 tables. They didn't really seem to care all that much about how many we were pulling as long as we had all 4 displays full and were making announcements every hour. While I didn't agree with having that many tables up our store did stay in 3rd place for our district throughout the sale.



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Bakerchick25

Date:
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Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:

I am a back up in the bakery and while you can markdown the PS pies, we have not been doing so for the pie sale in my store. We scan them all out as samples. Honestly we have 4 pie tables up right now and on a daily basis pull anywhere from 20-50 pies off of the tables to scan out as samples because of management wanting all tables to be 3 high constantly. If we were to mark all of those pies down the customers would buy the markdown pies instead of the ones out on the sales floor for full price. We sample as many as we can and what ever is left over goes to the food pantry that picks up our outdates the next morning.


 Four tables?  Well, that's just dumb.  Yes, you want to make sure you make enough to cover all your potential sales, but it makes no sense to make that many pies if you're not going to sell them.  If management wants the pies stacked 3 high then you need to get a smaller table.  Whether you mark them down or scan them out as samples, if you're pulling more than 10% of what you put out, you've made too much.  By 10% I mean 10% overall, not just 10% daily.  For example, if you put out 3 of something and pull one, then the shrink is 33.3%.  However, if you sell the other two plus seven more without losing any additional product, then the shrink rate is 10%.


 Yes, I understand that. The original sales plan had the main pie table plus the display around the Kaiser case in it, with a supplemental table up front. But the main office in Columbus along with the deli merchandiser decided that we had to maintain the 4 tables. They didn't really seem to care all that much about how many we were pulling as long as we had all 4 displays full and were making announcements every hour. While I didn't agree with having that many tables up our store did stay in 3rd place for our district throughout the sale.


 Yea, we have 4 tables up as well at my store. For a time though, we had taken down the one in the vestibule area. And even the table that was up at the front end had come back closer to our dept. and was in between the cheese shop and the bar area. Not quite sure what place we are in. But yea, I've pulled tons of pies Saturday morning. It wasn't too bad for Sunday and Monday. But Saturday, I didn't think I could have stopped pulling pies off the various locations. And if we are only selling 11 pies a day, me thinks that is a sign folks just aren't down for pies all that much any more. Although surprisingly enough they are killing the 8" pecan, sweet potato, and pumpkin pies though.



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Anonymous

Date:
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Bakerchick25 wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:

I am a back up in the bakery and while you can markdown the PS pies, we have not been doing so for the pie sale in my store. We scan them all out as samples. Honestly we have 4 pie tables up right now and on a daily basis pull anywhere from 20-50 pies off of the tables to scan out as samples because of management wanting all tables to be 3 high constantly. If we were to mark all of those pies down the customers would buy the markdown pies instead of the ones out on the sales floor for full price. We sample as many as we can and what ever is left over goes to the food pantry that picks up our outdates the next morning.


 Four tables?  Well, that's just dumb.  Yes, you want to make sure you make enough to cover all your potential sales, but it makes no sense to make that many pies if you're not going to sell them.  If management wants the pies stacked 3 high then you need to get a smaller table.  Whether you mark them down or scan them out as samples, if you're pulling more than 10% of what you put out, you've made too much.  By 10% I mean 10% overall, not just 10% daily.  For example, if you put out 3 of something and pull one, then the shrink is 33.3%.  However, if you sell the other two plus seven more without losing any additional product, then the shrink rate is 10%.


 Yes, I understand that. The original sales plan had the main pie table plus the display around the Kaiser case in it, with a supplemental table up front. But the main office in Columbus along with the deli merchandiser decided that we had to maintain the 4 tables. They didn't really seem to care all that much about how many we were pulling as long as we had all 4 displays full and were making announcements every hour. While I didn't agree with having that many tables up our store did stay in 3rd place for our district throughout the sale.


 Yea, we have 4 tables up as well at my store. For a time though, we had taken down the one in the vestibule area. And even the table that was up at the front end had come back closer to our dept. and was in between the cheese shop and the bar area. Not quite sure what place we are in. But yea, I've pulled tons of pies Saturday morning. It wasn't too bad for Sunday and Monday. But Saturday, I didn't think I could have stopped pulling pies off the various locations. And if we are only selling 11 pies a day, me thinks that is a sign folks just aren't down for pies all that much any more. Although surprisingly enough they are killing the 8" pecan, sweet potato, and pumpkin pies though.


If you are in the Columbus division we get the fun of having the pumpkin pie in July sale starting next Wednesday.  



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Columbus Division must be running on the same schedule as Cincy/Dayton division because we get the lovely pumpkin pie sale next week too. As well as all this "Hawaiian" theme stuff.

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Bakerchick25

Date:
Permalink   

Anonymous wrote:
Bakerchick25 wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:

I am a back up in the bakery and while you can markdown the PS pies, we have not been doing so for the pie sale in my store. We scan them all out as samples. Honestly we have 4 pie tables up right now and on a daily basis pull anywhere from 20-50 pies off of the tables to scan out as samples because of management wanting all tables to be 3 high constantly. If we were to mark all of those pies down the customers would buy the markdown pies instead of the ones out on the sales floor for full price. We sample as many as we can and what ever is left over goes to the food pantry that picks up our outdates the next morning.


 Four tables?  Well, that's just dumb.  Yes, you want to make sure you make enough to cover all your potential sales, but it makes no sense to make that many pies if you're not going to sell them.  If management wants the pies stacked 3 high then you need to get a smaller table.  Whether you mark them down or scan them out as samples, if you're pulling more than 10% of what you put out, you've made too much.  By 10% I mean 10% overall, not just 10% daily.  For example, if you put out 3 of something and pull one, then the shrink is 33.3%.  However, if you sell the other two plus seven more without losing any additional product, then the shrink rate is 10%.


 Yes, I understand that. The original sales plan had the main pie table plus the display around the Kaiser case in it, with a supplemental table up front. But the main office in Columbus along with the deli merchandiser decided that we had to maintain the 4 tables. They didn't really seem to care all that much about how many we were pulling as long as we had all 4 displays full and were making announcements every hour. While I didn't agree with having that many tables up our store did stay in 3rd place for our district throughout the sale.


 Yea, we have 4 tables up as well at my store. For a time though, we had taken down the one in the vestibule area. And even the table that was up at the front end had come back closer to our dept. and was in between the cheese shop and the bar area. Not quite sure what place we are in. But yea, I've pulled tons of pies Saturday morning. It wasn't too bad for Sunday and Monday. But Saturday, I didn't think I could have stopped pulling pies off the various locations. And if we are only selling 11 pies a day, me thinks that is a sign folks just aren't down for pies all that much any more. Although surprisingly enough they are killing the 8" pecan, sweet potato, and pumpkin pies though.


If you are in the Columbus division we get the fun of having the pumpkin pie in July sale starting next Wednesday.  


 Just heard about that earlier today. As I was telling my back up manager, that it's crazy how much of the Thanksgiving type of pies(Pumpkin, Sweet Potato, and Pecan), but not very many of the PS ones or other 8 inches too much. Now to learn we will have a special on the pumpkin is kinda going to kill the sales on that now too I think.



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Anonymous

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4hourrush wrote:

Columbus Division must be running on the same schedule as Cincy/Dayton division because we get the lovely pumpkin pie sale next week too. As well as all this "Hawaiian" theme stuff.


 We probably are on the same schedule then. The Kings Hawaiian thing is a joke. I'm in the store that is being remodeled into a market place and having the bakery shut down for 3 months. We are loosing our freezer and keep getting all of these distro's on KH bread and it is annoying. I have like 2 U boats full of KH bread and rolls right now in frozen foods freezer plus what we have in our freezer. They are supposedly getting with the main office to stop our distro's for the 3 months that we won't have our department, but I'm not going to hold my breath. We officially close our department Monday, I will probably be on here complaining a lot about it.  



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