what does your store do if you take longer than 15 minutes on your breaks and lunches? Our store has begun hilighting our timecards and printing out a list of how many minutes each employee steals each day/week. If you take a 16 minute break for instance, you stole 1 minute. The problem is they don't count if you came in a few minutes early, worked over, or took a shorter break the next time to make it up. So basically you can be 7 minutes late and leave 7 minutes early and they probably won't say anything but look out if you take a 16 minute break! I don't think they can do anything about this, but they're trying to make it a big deal. They're worried about saving time but the problem is they're paying someone to go check into this every week. .... probably overtime at that!
Simple solution to this: take a bathroom break, there aint $hit they can do if you have to take a dump on the clock. Here's my thought for them, we're going to get these extra minutes one way or another, so you might as well deal with it!
Don't let it shake you up. I recommend standing at the time clock until you the clock changes so you get a new minute. Walk up a 2:19 wait until 2:20 so you get the WHOLE minute. That might show them how babyish they are being.
Breaks around our store are usually stretched into an extra minute or two but when it starts to get to be excessive, them management starts making everyone clock in and out for breaks to track the time. If they see it getting excessive then I have known them to start to take time off an employee. All they tell us is if you leave the store or the smoking area outside, then clock out for break or lunch and go. In our market, we usually just take a 30 minute break and do not worry too much if it is a minute here or there. Only when those 30 minute breaks start dragging into 40 to 50 minute breaks.
Don't let it shake you up. I recommend standing at the time clock until you the clock changes so you get a new minute. Walk up a 2:19 wait until 2:20 so you get the WHOLE minute. That might show them how babyish they are being.
oh yeah we do that! I swear it seems like sometimes they're watching you walking up to the clock because the second you lift your finger from the timeclock it switches to the next minute...FFFFUUUUUUUUUUCCCC!! For that reason, most people wait for it to change. Like I've said before, we're going to get those minutes one way or another...they can't keep you from taking a crap...or just going in and sitting (how are they going to know?) They'll probably start factoring that into key retailing and alotting us time for restroom priveleges lol
Now this isn't a problem at our store anymore, but a lot of people would start walking to the time clock at say 7:51 or 7:52 when they were scheduled til 8:00...because of the 7 minute rule they'd leave at :53. I can see why they'd get mad about that!
If you go by the 7 minute rule you could steal a lot of time in a given day. Clock in 7 minutes late, 7 minutes extra on all breaks and lunches, then leave 7 minutes early...basically you could get away with 35 free minutes on an 8 hour shift and that's not counting bathroom breaks!
Hell,whats a few minutes anyway. We got 20+year employees doing squat every week. They're stealing 45 hours a week and thats 5 hours overtime. So whats a pi$$y a$$ minute for a real worker?
had our meat wrapper decide to go on break Sunday. She took about 45 minutes. Left management know at 30 minutes and paged her back 4 times. Then she decided she was going on break again shortly after I left to go home. came back in the store to shop and she was going outside to take another break. Took 15 minutes. Told her if she does that again that she could be terminated for theft of time. Asked her if she wanted a second write-up on this or just have management go in and place a 30 minute ( non-paid) lunch her time? In the last 6 years of managing the market, I always gave my help the options of taking the lunch or working thru it and taking 2 15 minute breaks or one 30 minute break. Never sweated the few extra minutes on a 30 minute but when it gets to 40 or more and then they decide to want to take a extra break once I leave then I get to be as big a pain in the ass as the co`s if not more , on them stealing time . But then consider this is a lower volume store and for one to take a extreme break will usually mean that a department will run with only one person there or un-attended for periods of time.
some people in my store are ballsy... a 15 minute break plus the 7 minute crap... 22min break. on top of this they will clock back after the extra 7 minutes and go sit their butt down to finish a card game. i myself feel i should work what i'm paid for, i beleive in karma and i'm not out to find ways to rip kroger off
Why not? Kroger you bet is out to find a way to burn you. Don't think for 1 minute they wouldn't put the screws to you. They look at it as " nothing persoanl,just good business"
had our meat wrapper decide to go on break Sunday. She took about 45 minutes. Left management know at 30 minutes and paged her back 4 times. Then she decided she was going on break again shortly after I left to go home. came back in the store to shop and she was going outside to take another break. Took 15 minutes. Told her if she does that again that she could be terminated for theft of time. Asked her if she wanted a second write-up on this or just have management go in and place a 30 minute ( non-paid) lunch her time? In the last 6 years of managing the market, I always gave my help the options of taking the lunch or working thru it and taking 2 15 minute breaks or one 30 minute break. Never sweated the few extra minutes on a 30 minute but when it gets to 40 or more and then they decide to want to take a extra break once I leave then I get to be as big a pain in the ass as the co`s if not more , on them stealing time . But then consider this is a lower volume store and for one to take a extreme break will usually mean that a department will run with only one person there or un-attended for periods of time.
That might show them how babyish they are being. 
THIS WEEK I WORKED A 10 HOUR SHIFT WITH NO BREAK, LUNCH, OR POTTY BREAK . THIS IS A COMMON THING IF YOU WORK IN OUR FUEL CENTER. 
