Just got called into work early. I'm supposed to be there at 5:00 and they want me there at 2:00. I told them the earliest I could make it in was about 3:15. WHY they ask.
If I fill out a schedule change for a day off - WHY?
I know Kroger is open 6 am to 12 am and they want me available those hours but do I really have to answer WHY everytime I can't be available to them?
they can ask i guess but at my store we don't ask why someone can't come in earlier than their scheduled time. if it's a no, it's a no... "why" doesn't change that and if you're part time there's no consequences. just tell them you made plans based on your posted schedule and leave it at that
if you're dept management or full time they can pressure you into skipping class or your entire night's sleep. i've seen that happen in my store. i've done the later and one of my coworkers failed a class because she was forced to miss by management.
I would rather have "why" than the begging at my store. "Pleaaasee can you come in early?" "no sorry" "please it would really help." "I'm sorry, but no. "But it would really really help! Come on!" "No." Same with staying late...which is harder because that conversation is in person and they will not stop pestering you and if you continue to say no they give you the stink eye for the rest of the day.
I would rather have "why" than the begging at my store. "Pleaaasee can you come in early?" "no sorry" "please it would really help." "I'm sorry, but no. "But it would really really help! Come on!" "No." Same with staying late...which is harder because that conversation is in person and they will not stop pestering you and if you continue to say no they give you the stink eye for the rest of the day.
Say you'll do it for better pay. If they say no, you'll be on an equal playing field.
I would rather have "why" than the begging at my store. "Pleaaasee can you come in early?" "no sorry" "please it would really help." "I'm sorry, but no. "But it would really really help! Come on!" "No." Same with staying late...which is harder because that conversation is in person and they will not stop pestering you and if you continue to say no they give you the stink eye for the rest of the day.
Say you'll do it for better pay. If they say no, you'll be on an equal playing field.
I once told them that I would stay extra if I didn't have to work after 4pm for an entire month. You can imagine how well that went over. On the bright side they didn't ask me again for a really long time.
They asked me to come in at 1:00 am to help with nightstock one time and I politely refused. I was scheduled 5:00-2:00. They asked why and kept pestering and pestering. I kept saying no and they asked why. I said Coz I sont feel like it. I'm sleeping at that time. Needless to say, they didn't like me that much for the week.
I love when my dept head or backup wants to call me in on my day off but when it's my day to work and they are off, don't dare call them in (these are usually bizarre circumstances because I'm aware that would give them overtime.
Also I love when you're working a 4 hour shift and they ask you to stay later, "no, but I would've gladly come in earlier. Implying I don't have anything better to do. Make it worth my time.
^forgot to add that when they call me on my day off they always leave a message and say "call us back and let us know either way" yeeeeah that's not gonna happen sorry. Now when I call them on their day off, guess what...no answer.
The store manager at my old store was like that. He'd try to guilt you into staying over to wait on a customer after closing, and whine if you said no. When I lived a 10 minute walk away, it was no big deal and I'd always stay if he asked; but once I moved to the apartment I'm in now, missing the bus meant that instead of getting home in two hours (around midnight) I'd be lucky to make it by 2am (and, depending on how late the bus on that end was, and if the trains were on time, I might miss the last bus coming by my complex and have to wait for the first bus at 5am.) I actually explained that to him once, and his response was, "but we REALLY need you, and you can take a taxi if you miss the bus." Yeah, RIGHT - I can't afford to buy groceries as it is, and you want me to spend $30 for a taxi from the station when you only paid me $1.64 extra to stay . . . I told him, sure, I'll be happy to stay, but YOU have to either drive me home or pay the taxi driver the $100 it will cost me to take a taxi from here to my apartment. He never asked again. LOL
At this store, the management team is much better, and they actually do their best for their people, so I'll normally try to help them out if I can because they've helped me out. One night we had a no call/no show in our department and one of the co-managers called to ask if I'd come in, and how soon I could get there. I told him I could be ready and at the bus stop in 20 minutes, but the next bus wasn't for another 15 minutes after that. His response was, "I'll be there in 20 minutes to pick you up, what's your gate code?"
Kroger has a lot of really good people working for them, but not only do they treat them like crap, they will actually FIRE someone for doing the right thing. Kroger NEEDED me to come in that night, if I hadn't, my department would have been closed 4 hours early because there wasn't anyone there, but if they'd found out he came to get me, they'd have fired him. That makes no sense at all, but that's Kroger for you.
Kroger has a lot of really good people working for them, but not only do they treat them like crap, they will actually FIRE someone for doing the right thing. Kroger NEEDED me to come in that night, if I hadn't, my department would have been closed 4 hours early because there wasn't anyone there, but if they'd found out he came to get me, they'd have fired him. That makes no sense at all, but that's Kroger for you.
I agree 100%. It's almost interesting to see where the line separating good mgmt / bad mgmt falls on a store-by-store basis. Some have great mgmt. Some have great co's and a horrible gm or vice versa. Some just have horrible mgmt from even dept heads up.
Kroger has a lot of really good people working for them, but not only do they treat them like crap, they will actually FIRE someone for doing the right thing. Kroger NEEDED me to come in that night, if I hadn't, my department would have been closed 4 hours early because there wasn't anyone there, but if they'd found out he came to get me, they'd have fired him. That makes no sense at all, but that's Kroger for you.
I agree 100%. It's almost interesting to see where the line separating good mgmt / bad mgmt falls on a store-by-store basis. Some have great mgmt. Some have great co's and a horrible gm or vice versa. Some just have horrible mgmt from even dept heads up.
I know that one well - the store I started at had a really good management team when I started, a great GM, and co-managers (except for the grocery manager, who wasn't actually bad, just a hard-ass.) Then they started giving the GM **** because she'd approve whatever hours we needed to actually DO the job they wanted done and providing the supplies and equipment we needed to do it with. Then they started replacing her team of co-managers with folks that gave her a bunch of ****. She finally moved to corporate so she wouldn't have to deal with all the garbage, and they brought in a new GM who refused to order enough supplies. We spent months on end pulling dish detergent, gloves, and paper towels off the shelf just so we could keep from being shut down by the health department. If it's coming off the shelf, it costs the company more, BUT - it comes out of a different "pot" of money, so the management team gets bigger bonuses for reducing their supply costs and the store overhead. They also kept hours minimal, so we NEVER had enough people to actually take care of the customers AND do all the other stuff like stocking, markdowns, and rotating stock.
It was a total shock when I finally got my transfer and we actually had enough people to get most of the required work done, almost never ran out of cleaning supplies, and had co-managers that weren't rude and hateful to the employees.
