So, our manager has belittled me and another employee several times. Most notably today we had so Someone call in and were trying to work around it. I offered her a solution and insteAd of listening every time I would go to speak to her she'd shush me. Then she told me she was quote "sick of my departments ****ing bull****." another time a fellow employee asked me to cook 2 day old chicken and I was trying to tell her about it and a customer was nearby so she told me to use my ****ong head, and stop being so ****ing stupid. My issue, there were no witnesses to the first incident, and one to the second. Where should I go? My store manager or straight to the union? She's mean in general. Today I tried making small talk and she told me she didn't care
1. write down exactly what happened. date,time, location, and what occured. 2. Call your union rep. not your steward. and inform them of the situation. and file harassment charges and greviance.
hmm.. i always believe that a manager needs some good educational foundation & unfortunately kroger (aong with plenty other retail operations) just takes what they can get to run the show. anyway, i do not know if this is an isolated incident or is an everyday thing in your department but it might be best to shrug it off and move on. people unfortunately carry an 'intangible' element of emotion in all of us. we get mad, scared, happy, whatever while joe over there slicing coldcuts is going through his marriage problems and mary cooking the chicken is 50 years old and still a virgin and Jose has racial thinskin issues and so on and so forth. thats the beauty of working in a small area like the deli - its a microcosm of the world. document things and quite possibley just ignor it and move on. sounds like she is a little 'unstable' as it is and she will sooner or later get caught up in her own mess w/out you being part of the limelight.
too bad a company like kroger promotes people to store manager positon w/o college degree. i seen this happen where someone was hired at the age of 15 as a bagger and stays with kroger then one day is a store manager. little to no interpersonal training is given along the way to help in these matters. i realize in the above post it is just the deli manager but still. best of luck!
Like the previous person said make sure to document the incident(s) if HR gets involved they will ask you for documentation, you just can't say I remember these 2 times she used profanity at me on the sales floor, but if you say last Saturday Febuary 10th at 3:15 this is what happen then tell your story as to what happen. If the witness will make a written statement that helps a ton, normally however most people will say I don't want to get involved. What you need to do first is get your shop steward and go into the managers office with the store manager and the co-manager you had issues with, look them both straight in the eyes and tell them I am being harrassed and you are creating a hostile working environment and it stops now. The actual store manager will normally stop the co from harrassing you because if you file the grievance they will be the one that pays the price. I know no store manager willing to lose their job because a co-manager is out to get you. HR will ask you if you felt like you were being harrassed how come you didn't tell the store manager so they could stop it? If you do this you can say I did this I have my written statement with a witness I did everything by the book step by step case closed
If for one reason or another you don't trust the shop steward then get your union rep. in there instead. Every year we watch this video or CBT on Harrassment if this is available to you on your stores K-Web watch it, this is a play by play on how to do harrassment. I f I was the steward in your store I would use every cuss word they used on you in that meeting with the managers and ask them how do you like it do you consider this professional? A lot of stewards out there are probably saying that's not right to use profanity directed at store management, but remember when you close that managers door for the meeting you are now on equal ground if they use profanity you can use it right back at them. I am more old school and like to play offense instead of defense. I believe fight fire with fire. I always tell the member let me be the bad guy you tell the story and if management wants to go after somebody I would it rather be me than you. I am not talking crap this happen 2 weeks ago and the co-manager left(she actually said she couldn't stand it anymore) the store manager said to me would you please talk to the new co-manager that replaced the problem co because he is scared to death to be here. I said why would I ? I kinda like hearing that!!
LOL my co is a junkie and the whole store knows it the manager said he has to take a vacation to get his crap togather. We all like him as a person but as a co its a joke. Hopefully if it was a another employee they would be offered the same recpect.
Another suggestion I would make, although you have to be careful how you do this:
Most of the cell phones today have voice recorders built in. If this is a recurring problem, you could set your cell phone to record the conversation. You should have a phone number to the Kroger harrassment hotline in your break room.
Going to the union is nice, but as people have said before, the union and Kroger are in bed together. Going to the harrassment hotline will likely get more done through human resources, especially if you have admissable evidence in the event it would ever go to court.
I do agree with all that is suggested here, but if you can obtain something of the nature listed above, it would only help.
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Which store is this? Sounds like a manager where I work! Do they also let employees who act the same have way too much control? Always talking about green? Maybe they should look outside at the grass, trees and see what green actually looks like!! Just saying.
