Cleaner/Bagger balance issues.

Stranger · Senior Member

Cleaner/Bagger balance issues.

BagBoy · Guru

I understand completely. If you go up front each and every time nothing will get done.... ever.

Hornish78 · Veteran Member

I've done the cleaning shifts as well and I've learned that these steps help me get plenty done.

1) Eat a lot of high-energy foods and drink some coffee at breakfast.

2) If you have to clear the lot first do it if you have a bunch of carts.

3) Take the cleaning cart to the rooms closest to your cleaning dock.

4) Clean each room in this seqeunce: spray, scrub, sweep, change trash, mop.

5) If you get called or go on break make sure your stopping point is a room finished.

6) Drink more caffiene on your break.

7) Do trash inside and out and the recycle bins last.

Whether you get called up a lot or not at all try to at least get the inside stuff done. As for the price-spying thing why the heck are they making you do that for?

-- Edited by Hornish78 on Thursday 23rd of August 2012 07:28:10 AM

Date: Aug 23, 2012

BagBoy wrote:
I understand completely. If you go up front each and every time nothing will get done.... ever.

You know, it's so true...so true...and yet, no one sees it that way...If they used one of those blacklights like they would use on a hotel bedsheet looking for dust mites or bedbugs, many Krogers would not pass the test...While I can't comment on individual stores personally, I've seen enough of this over the years to believe it...

BagBoy · Guru

Anonymous wrote:
BagBoy wrote:
I understand completely. If you go up front each and every time nothing will get done.... ever.
You know, it's so true...so true...and yet, no one sees it that way...If they used one of those blacklights like they would use on a hotel bedsheet looking for dust mites or bedbugs, many Krogers would not pass the test...While I can't comment on individual stores personally, I've seen enough of this over the years to believe it...

i normally skip 2-3 calls per shift just so i can get something finished before it ends. If asked i always tell them I either didn't hear them or that i was helping someone.

Date: Dec 7, 2016

I have to do the cleaning at kroger since no one else wanted the job. I wondered why no one wanted it and took the job to get myself in the company. I learned that I am treated like dirt sometimes. If no one wants to make the coffee in the morning then it's my fault. That wasn't in my job description. They make one person clean the whole building. I'm a woman and can't lift heavy things. So I have to wait for someone to help me. They expect me to finish things too soon and yell at me for "slacking". I only weigh about 100lb. I'm not going to break my back lifting. I also have health problems not that they seem to care. I see them over working the employees till they puke and then I have to clean it up. I also have to do carts. Someone didn't show up so I had to stay out an extra 2 hour. Hope to find a better job.

Date: Dec 7, 2016

This is why Kroger stores are filthy. There is a topic right now about just that here: http://krogerforum.activeboard.com/t62959240/filthy-stores/

Kroger staffs its stores so thinly that utility clerks hardly do much cleaning. You'll instead find them bagging, getting carts, checking, stocking shelves or put to work in another department to help.

Nobody at my store follows the cleaning calendar, and boy does it ever show. There just isn't time; not when management is screaming about holes, cooler/backroom conditions, freshness, markdowns and so on. Oh, and that doesn't even take into considerations the HOURS lost when getting called to the front end to surge check/bag/do a cart round-up.

Here's the bottom line: most store managers/co-managers know they run dirty, rat-infested (well... in the case of mine, it's mice) stores. The only time it bothers them and they want things "clean" is when the empty suits from corporate are in town and visiting stores. All other times, there's always something "more important" and the cleaning "can wait".

Keep putting off a problem and the results aren't pretty.

4hourrush · Guru

Cleaning calendars = as long as it's marked that you're cleaning, no one cares. I learned that a long time ago.

Date: Dec 7, 2016

4hourrush wrote:
Cleaning calendars = as long as it's marked that you're cleaning, no one cares. I learned that a long time ago.

So much for "Kroger Values" like honesty and integrity. The company sets such a bad example for employees though that you can't really blame the employees for being untruthful when checking off stuff and running reports.

UC151 · Guru

At least you guys have the CC vs UC issue, at my store since we are still going through the whole conversion thing with Krog, we are only UC for bagging, cleaning, carts, carry out, shopback, facing register candy, Drug / GM / Liquor, getting paper an plastic refilled, and store general assistance (whatever the manager tells you to do or if a custy / you stops you / them on the floor to assist them with a product locate and or price check at the register or whatever. Also applies to departments as well as we "can be" called into a dept to assist them on a rare occasion for dept member cleaning / general cleaning tasks. We as Utility also set up / tear down and lock / unlock liquor poles before / after CSR arms or disarms the alarm) So yea, having to do the job of three ****ing separate personnel, is sometimes a ****ing killjoy. And to make it worse, there are only 8 of us total while FE Staff (cashiers, CSRs, service desk) have us outnumbered 3 to 1, with one of "head UCs" who has the most seniority in Utility, is retiring in January. We are ****ing ****ed.

I know once, our HR manager who was running Self Check had me an another UC clean a oil spill from the baking aisle. Welp turns out, the de-greaser from deli wasn't available, so Grocery Manager told him to have us use kitty litter. Off to the shelf I went while my other fellow UC was trying her best not to stain her hands because she didn't have actual work gloves (not the plastic kind, I'm talking liquid blocking / absorbing and cut resistant that I personally bought myself and wash every week / per shift sometimes because I am not touching a glass spill with ****ing plastic gloves that are sometimes **** for protection. welp kitty litter had to be spread through half the ****ing aisle because custys tracked it through on their way before my fellow UC could redirect people and start working. I got sent to assist her.

HR manager has the then wonderful idea of pulling her (and me) up front again so I can go back on carts, and she can go bag again. This spill started at 3:30ish in the afternoon, was not responded to til 3:37ish, started to be cleaned n kitty litter laid by 3:50ish, then completely ignored and "forgotten" about til 5:45ish when me n my same fellow UC flat out begged our Night CSR to let us go back and get everything cleaned up, with our equipment sitting there that entire time with no staff present while custys keep bringing it up about the spill and management just smiling and say "yup we'll get right on it". This pissed me off like you wouldn't believe. I am a UC, my primary task for a spill is prompt and immediate spill response with NO OTHER TASKS UNTIL COMPLETED, not to just leave it alone because management thinks "it can be done later." The longer it's down and not appropriately responded to, the higher the chances of the store possibly being sued if something happens when someone takes a crash.

"just put it down and let it sit for a while, it's going to take some time for it work." HR to me after I ask him if one of us should stay with the spill so as to not have custys killing themselves in the aisle if they slip and face plant. (It did happen to a younger custy and management did nothing but "pretend" send one of us and then paged us back up front a minute later.) This coming from the same SOM who used to be UC a long time ago. Don't know about you buddy, but times have changed since the 19s vs the 20s. God sometimes I want to shoot myself in the foot and wish we could just get more help, some cashiers even want to switch to UC sometimes because they can tell we are busting our asses the entire shift with 2-4 of us running around til the other 3-4 of us come in later and eventually dwindle to just 1 or 2 closers for UC til 10pm.

Sorry for my rant in the beginning but this **** of having not enough help even before we got taken over by Krog, this just pisses me off and is the only ****ing reason I am still a UC (and will be 1 year this week) is because we are so freaking understaffed in FE, and now we are losing one of our two only full time UCs while the rest of us are part time (im ****ing 5th in seniority, so what the hell does that tell you of how many ppl we have had so far since i started). I wish we could hire and keep reliable help instead of them quitting, or being yanked away from us to do a dept / cashier (we have enough ****ing cashiers as it is)

-- Edited by UC151 on Saturday 10th of December 2016 02:24:04 AM

Date: Dec 10, 2016

^ And of course, had someone seriously gotten injured because that oil spill wasn't cleaned up and a lawsuit was filed, you guys on utility would be the first ones thrown under the bus and written up. That's how Kroger is, though. The greed runs so profoundly deep that saving/pocketing money by understaffing is more important than an individual's safety. Kroger is all about rolling the dice and hoping that nothing too terrible happens while putting as few people to work as possible so that corporate profits can go through the roof and all the higher ups can take home nice, fat salary and bonus checks.

That's why when store safety comes up in safety meetings and huddles, and some hypocrite member of management proudly proclaims "safety is number one priority, above all else," I have to use pretty much every ounce of restraint within me to fight back the urge to scream "bull f****** s***!"

mega-kitteh · Guru

When I covered for a UC whilst he was on vacation, my ENTIRE schedule was CLEAN ONLY. Well, a ginormous spill decided to happen and I went to clean it. I must have heard my name a dozen times within a half hour for surge help. Well I weighed what was more important.... The spill won over bagging. When I got the spill taken care of, I went to my cleaning schedule. They kept calling, and calling, and calling. When the UC came back from his vacation I was promptly told I will no longer be covering for UCs anymore. Not because I did a crap job, but because I didn't drop everything and come up front. Apparently checkers HATE going and getting things for customers and are not used to a UC just following his/her schedule to a T. Guess they hate that too.