Do any other front end employees have trouble with breaks and lunches being over an hour late? This seems to happen through the week at times, but always on the weekends. One of our minors asked about his break with only 15 minutes left in his shift and was told by the office clerk in charge, not to bother. He was a little bewildered. If he didn't want to take, it, he would not have asked about it And most other breaks all day long, were an hour to 1.5 hours or more late.
Do any other front end employees have trouble with breaks and lunches being over an hour late? This seems to happen through the week at times, but always on the weekends. One of our minors asked about his break with only 15 minutes left in his shift and was told by the office clerk in charge, not to bother. He was a little bewildered. If he didn't want to take, it, he would not have asked about it And most other breaks all day long, were an hour to 1.5 hours or more late.
A minor got no break at all? In my state an employer can be fined for that and the minor would have gotten mandatory overtime for that whole shift. It's happened to me once before and the floor supervisor's explanation was, "It's your job to tell me when you haven't had a break." And I said like, "Um, no it isn't. If you're the floor supervisor then you are responsible for all breaks and lunches, because whenever we ask for one you always say 'I tell you when to go not the other way around.'" So after all this dumbassery I ended up clocking in for my break 10 minutes after I was supposed to get off and clocked out of my shift when it was over. My gain? Half an hour of pay for sitting on my ass.
The office clerks run the breakboard, not the FES at our store. Is that normal these days? Or is it a control issue with our FEM? The minor did have his first break but not his 2nd. Still, I believe by law he is required to have that 2nd break.
As I use to be a cc, and getting breaks looked impossible, I gave myself a break when I was on lot service. I simply found a place to hide and took my break.
If your store has a good FES you'll rarely ever have a break over 10 minutes late. Bad FES = chaos in the front.
Look, no offense, but I'm increasingly believing that you have a very narrow, naive view of how things work on a front end, and I'd be surprised if other posters disagreed.
It may be that you are lucky enough to work in the rare store where everything goes smoothly every day; if that's the case, then good for you. However, that doesn't give you the right to unnecessarily insult those of us on here who are FESs, some of whom may be more competent than any of the ones at your store.
I've worked as a FES at 2 different stores over the last 5 years, and I was the best one at both stores, imo, and I can tell you that stores can vary TREMENDOUSLY in the difficulty of running the floor.
TL;DR stop insulting the abilities of ppl you know nothing about.
As I use to be a cc, and getting breaks looked impossible, I gave myself a break when I was on lot service. I simply found a place to hide and took my break.
I find that tough to believe. How did you avoid the cc cameras and supervisors? Not to mention the customers everywhere.
Some of the FES are horrible at breaks. Some are good. Mostly they fall into the horrible category. I, personally, prefer my breaks in 2 hour intervals. My FESs know, but insist on giving breaks out at 2.5,5-5.5 and 8.25. I really hate it.
-- Edited by BagBoy on Monday 9th of June 2014 12:48:51 AM
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depends on contract. in ATL we can break you any time after the first hour and you go when we tell you or you do without. don't argue back you're not ready it's juvenile.
there is no 'break board' at my store. we fly by the seat of our pants.
a few of us are very good at timing breaks and some are not. a lot of it depends on scheduling. if there's no coverage, or there's a rush, it's hard to break. my store is predictable weekdays but the weekend floor is a nuthouse of unpredictability.
If your store has a good FES you'll rarely ever have a break over 10 minutes late. Bad FES = chaos in the front.
Look, no offense, but I'm increasingly believing that you have a very narrow, naive view of how things work on a front end, and I'd be surprised if other posters disagreed.
It may be that you are lucky enough to work in the rare store where everything goes smoothly every day; if that's the case, then good for you. However, that doesn't give you the right to unnecessarily insult those of us on here who are FESs, some of whom may be more competent than any of the ones at your store.
I've worked as a FES at 2 different stores over the last 5 years, and I was the best one at both stores, imo, and I can tell you that stores can vary TREMENDOUSLY in the difficulty of running the floor.
TL;DR stop insulting the abilities of ppl you know nothing about.
Sorry, I wasn't very clear in my previous post (I had smoked quite a bit of weed at that point). I'm not trying to suggest that things work smoothly every day or that when things don't go smoothly the FES is bad, just that a bad FES (and there are a lot of bad front end leaders) will result in your front-end being chaos. And yes, some days your hours have been slashed and you're running 3 checkers and a single courtesy during primetime on a busy day and there's complete chaos. However, a skilled leader on the front end can deal with these situations without breaking labor laws (missed break for a minor in my state is pretty heavily punished), mistreating employees, etc. None of our courtesies need to sneak a break in the parking lot
As far as customers are concerned the appearance of working hard is more important than actual speed. We always get lots of OSAT responses (ignoring that yes, OSAT is a flawed measurement of actual customer satisfaction) where customers say they had to wait awhile but since everyone was hauling ass they didn't mind.
YES! I worked 7.3 hours yesterday and I didn't recieve my last break until the last 15 minutes of my shift. . But this is all the time. The supervisors at my store suck!!! They think because they are too busy up front because they are understaffed then they can make everyone wait for their break even if its 2-3 hours late! The nerve of them. And then the managers come out of the office watching all the chaos while doing nothing!! Yesterday was so chaotic! No baggers and having stuck up customers thinking they are too good to bag their own crap. So once you ring up their groceries, you have to run and bag their crap also! I'm so over this job. The lazy ass schedule writer needs to pay more attention to how many people she have scheduled a certain days especially the weekends instead of making sure her 'favorites' have the days they want. Seniority means **** at my store.
On night crew there's so much flexibility and autonomy that you can literally fall asleep in your aisle for 15-30 minutes and nobody will care, so long as you skip your scheduled break(s). They also call breaks over the intercom at my store.
On the other hand, 400 case frozen load + repack + icechest + broken freezer, thawing product on the shelf = can't take breaks. Beats stupid, angry customers though.
The front end is miserable. The work has no challenge (except leadership roles), is repetitive, and customers are awful. Pretty much every other department has at least some autonomy, variety, and challenge (I'd rather have hard work than easy work).
As I use to be a cc, and getting breaks looked impossible, I gave myself a break when I was on lot service. I simply found a place to hide and took my break.
I find that tough to believe. How did you avoid the cc cameras and supervisors? Not to mention the customers everywhere.
Outside, at my store, the cameras are in a fixed position. They dont rotate. So I go where the cameras cannot "see" me. i also removed my apron in case a customer "saw" me. sometimes you have to go to "extremes" to get your breaks
The front end is miserable. The work has no challenge (except leadership roles), is repetitive, and customers are awful. Pretty much every other department has at least some autonomy, variety, and challenge (I'd rather have hard work than easy work).
the front end has that shopping cart s-h-i-t that courtesy clerks get no extra rewards or recognition for. I have seen idiot customers leave a cart ten feet from a corral and just walk away. i especially enjoy the idiots who are kind enough to leave a cart in the foyer but then it blocks the incoming and outgoing path for other customers. courtesy clerks take a lot of crap for those carts and should get paid additional wages for them, but nope.
Exactly. They put up with customers and other co workers bitching at them.
Management bitches them out
They retrieve carts in ALL kinds of weather
They clean filthy bathrooms covered in who knows what
They clean other ooey gooey sloppy messes
Go backs
Restocking checkstands etc.
And they can't do a damn thing about it to put it more in their favor. They try to and they get bitched at and told they can quit if they like.
Depending on what items they have in the cart, I sometimes offer to do all or part of CCs go backs, even if it's just 4-5 items. I almost think that grocery should handle that kind of stuff, with how relieved the CCs look after you point to things. Plus when you're doing backstock you're moving through the entire store anyway, you can just stock the gobacks when you're doing the different aisles.
When you're walking between aisles you leave the backstock carts in the aisle and only pull them back to the backroom 6 hours later (at least at my store), so you're not carrying anything else when you're moving between the aisles anyway.
tomato wrote:
The front end is miserable. The work has no challenge (except leadership roles), is repetitive, and customers are awful. Pretty much every other department has at least some autonomy, variety, and challenge (I'd rather have hard work than easy work).
Night crew usually entails hard work but can entail impossible work with insane case loads, stupidly stacked pallets, people that do crazy things at night, or constant no call no shows with nobody getting fired. But at least management is only angry at you when they can't do anything to you (i.e., when you're sleeping).
My foreman was saying that front end doesn't do anything. Then a customer yelled at me that I was lying that there wasn't a 12 pack of pop in the magical backroom and I figured they'd have to buy a lot of Apsirin.
Exactly. They put up with customers and other co workers bitching at them. Management bitches them out They retrieve carts in ALL kinds of weather They clean filthy bathrooms covered in who knows what They clean other ooey gooey sloppy messes Go backs Restocking checkstands etc.
And they can't do a damn thing about it to put it more in their favor. They try to and they get bitched at and told they can quit if they like.
Yep that's pretty much the wording that was told to me after I was written up.
That was when I lost all emotional investment in my job. I couldn't believe the cold shoulder.
I've only walked out on one job in my entire life but that day it came close to two.
The only reason I am staying so far is because I am looking for a better job and need income -- small though it may be -- to supplement while I do.
Front end is where the glory's at. Constant pressure from management and customers alike, an endless (and futile) war against chaos, never enough workers. It's a fire, but the kind of fire that hardens you into iron or burns you into dust. The strong survive and the weak are weeded out... or promoted. I don't know anyone who's worked front end for any considerable tour of duty and hasn't become so jaded and cynical as to be a misanthrope who harbors a slow-burning, seething rage for humanity and is utterly immune to pleas of mercy.
I screenshotted that last sentence. Ever consider writing?
I'm sure that many English majors work at Kroger. I knew that about everyone at orientation had some art/culture degree. Educated people work at Kroger. But it sure as hell isn't by choice.
I've considered writing (since I was 8, actually), but was never interested in journalism or technical writing, and realistically the options otherwise for writing as a means to a living are quite limited. I need to be able to insert some kind of personal experience or passion into what I write (otherwise I just don't write), and since working in the cleaning-up-human-excrement industry, all I really have are crazy stories about how people are vermin because they leave, on average, 2.5 pieces of trash in every cart. I can write about that pretty well, but it amounts to bitching about my job.
Bitching about your job is like describing your dreams; always much more interesting to you than to anybody else.
As I use to be a cc, and getting breaks looked impossible, I gave myself a break when I was on lot service. I simply found a place to hide and took my break.
I find that tough to believe. How did you avoid the cc cameras and supervisors? Not to mention the customers everywhere.
Cameras on the lot? There is 1 camera on our lot, and it faces just one place. And don't say, there are more. I've worked the camera system and looked for theft and such on the camera system in the managers office. After 5, they are gone and leave their office open for us.
As I use to be a cc, and getting breaks looked impossible, I gave myself a break when I was on lot service. I simply found a place to hide and took my break.
I find that tough to believe. How did you avoid the cc cameras and supervisors? Not to mention the customers everywhere.
Cameras on the lot? There is 1 camera on our lot, and it faces just one place. And don't say, there are more. I've worked the camera system and looked for theft and such on the camera system in the managers office. After 5, they are gone and leave their office open for us.
Your mgmt leaves by 5 every day? Good god how slow is your store? Mgmt around here always stay til at least 10
After another store closed, and our business increased by 40% or so, many nights one of them will stay until 7 or so. We only have 2. Weekly, total store sales including fuel and rx, are 600,000 or so. Not a huge store, but they run us at a bare minimum of help, so they call for help from other departments every 10 minutes or so.
After another store closed, and our business increased by 40% or so, many nights one of them will stay until 7 or so. We only have 2. Weekly, total store sales including fuel and rx, are 600,000 or so. Not a huge store, but they run us at a bare minimum of help, so they call for help from other departments every 10 minutes or so.
or so.
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Would you like fries with th... I mean, your milk in a bag?
ID checks like for alcohol or cigs? Nah, as long as the cashier is 18, it's up them to check. Matter of fact, store management doesn't have a whole lot of input on the day to day operations of the front. 99% of problems are handled by whoever is scheduled to run the service desk, or any one who has the knowledge to handle it.
I don't know about your store/area, but here, if you're a good worker, and fairly competent at your job, they'll leave you to it.
