A small snow storm came through my area overnight yesterday. Most of the roads in town were cleared by noon, but most of the employees that called in lived outside of town where the roads were impassable. But did customers care? No! Did management allow anyone to stay over to cover? No! I was only shceduled 5.5 hours and our chicken person called in but I was only told to cover chicken until one of the next person came in and hand it of to them.
It gets better, I had to take my mother shopping yesterday evening and she needed some stuff from Kroger. Only 2 cashiers made it in, so all the cashiers we had were the 2 that were scheduled, 2 baggers stuck on registers, the lobby had few carts left in it, and a lady from produce. And the u-scan attendant was on a register while trying to run u-scan.
I asked the man running the office last night how many people called in and of course it was most of the help scheduled. And the funny thing is management didn't allow anyone to stay over or call anyone in. There were several people willing to stay, but our manager doesn't care!
Why doesn't that surprise management would not allow the overtime...... Oh because it happens all the time!!!!! I have feeling my store is getting slammed today with 4-8 inches coming tonight into tomorrow plus it is the day before super bowl equals a night mare but I don't care because I am off this weekend!!!!
-- Edited by mcooldude on Saturday 31st of January 2015 12:17:28 PM
All it takes is a meteorologist to mention the possibility of winter weather and it's like someone fires a gunshot off to mark the start of some great race. Hoards of people rush to their vehicles and put the pedal to the metal with their sights set on the nearest grocery stores. I had to call in twice due to a truly terrible ice storm back in 2013 (anyone that lives in or is familiar with the ice storm that hit the DFW area will know what I'm referring to) as there was such a thick sheet of ice along roadways and surfaces, in addition to several inches of snow, that you couldn't drive faster than five miles per hour without risking sliding off the road. When I called in, I was told not to worry about it, and I said something along the lines of, "well... it shouldn't be busy at all there with the roads in such bad condition, right?" and the response was, "oh... you'd be surprised..." and this was despite police officers making pleas on the news that unless it was an absolute emergency, not to venture out, due to emergency vehicles and police officers being unable to respond for extended periods of time due to conditions being that terrible. Did customers listen? No...
Some management teams will care more than others in these kinds of situations. My particular management team told call-ins, "if you can't make it in, don't worry about it," even if you called in more than one day in a row (which I had to) and will then turn to the employees that did make it in and say, "we're really in a bind. Can you stay for the time being?" and those that we're willing ended up with several, several hours of overtime. I've worked days where I've gotten around six hours of overtime on top of my normal eight hour shift, and that didn't even compare to how much overtime some people that I know of ended up with.
Your management team obviously didn't care though. That's how it is with Kroger, though. You can work in one store and have a terrible management team that runs things poorly and has a "I don't care," attitude while the Kroger store down the street may be just the opposite, with a great management team that tries to make things work as efficiently as they can. Of course, this, in part, also depends on what the district managers and coordinators are like. If the district managers and coordinators consist of people that don't listen and don't care, then it limits what even a good store management team can do.
-- Edited by GenesisOne on Saturday 31st of January 2015 01:47:00 PM
All it takes is a meteorologist to mention the possibility of winter weather and it's like someone fires a gunshot off to mark the start of some great race. Hoards of people rush to their vehicles and put the pedal to the metal with their sights set on the nearest grocery stores. I had to call in twice due to a truly terrible ice storm back in 2013 (anyone that lives in or is familiar with the ice storm that hit the DFW area will know what I'm referring to) as there was such a thick sheet of ice along roadways and surfaces, in addition to several inches of snow, that you couldn't drive faster than five miles per hour without risking sliding off the road. When I called in, I was told not to worry about it, and I said something along the lines of, "well... it shouldn't be busy at all there with the roads in such bad condition, right?" and the response was, "oh... you'd be surprised..." and this was despite police officers making pleas on the news that unless it was an absolute emergency, not to venture out, due to emergency vehicles and police officers being unable to respond for extended periods of time due to conditions being that terrible. Did customers listen? No...
Some management teams will care more than others in these kinds of situations. My particular management team told call-ins, "if you can't make it in, don't worry about it," even if you called in more than one day in a row (which I had to) and will then turn to the employees that did make it in and say, "we're really in a bind. Can you stay for the time being?" and those that we're willing ended up with several, several hours of overtime. I've worked days where I've gotten around six hours of overtime on top of my normal eight hour shift, and that didn't even compare to how much overtime some people that I know of ended up with.
Your management team obviously didn't care though. That's how it is with Kroger, though. You can work in one store and have a terrible management team that runs things poorly and has a "I don't care," attitude while the Kroger store down the street may be just the opposite, with a great management team that tries to make things work as efficiently as they can. Of course, this, in part, also depends on what the district managers and coordinators are like. If the district managers and coordinators consist of people that don't listen and don't care, then it limits what even a good store management team can do.
-- Edited by GenesisOne on Saturday 31st of January 2015 01:47:00 PM
I'm in DFW, I remember that storm. Froze for 4 days until the power came back on. I lived on the sofa I pulled in front of the fireplace. Had the four dogs dressed in my husband's t'shirts. I would lay in bed a night and listen to the tree limbs crack and break. Sounded like a damn war zone one night.
I can walk out my front door and be at the timeclock in 9 minutes. I think it took me almost 20 minutes to crunch my way through the neighbors front yards, it was easier than sliding down the road. I didn't dare drive. I told them call me, it's warmer at work than home lol! That's when we had Peter for a manager. He had his moments but overall was a great manager. We had hours, we had parties, we had cake and pizza all the time. Then management changed AGAIN and it went downhill from there. Don't know where the current group of hellions came from.
What's funny is they'll predict bad weather and the vultures will come in and buy enough stuff to last a good long while and then they'll predict another bad storm and those same vultures will be back two days later? What happened to all the food they just bought?
We're supposed to get anywhere from 3-10 inches tomorrow, depending on where the snow line stops at. I'm sure the store was a disaster today, I work tomorrow morning so i'm expecting to see about 300 OOS on the huddle packet. I'm sure the shelves are empty now.
Last year our manager posted a note near the time clock saying how he's tired of the vast majority of the call ins during the winter are from people who live in town while the one who make it into work live outside of the town where our store is located. Problem is the last several years the street dept. of our town has gotten really bad about keeping our roads clear. Just yesterday all the employees I talked to that worked during the day and lived outside of town said the roads were awful the closer they got to the store.
We're supposed to get pretty nasty stuff tomorrow and I have to work in the afternoon. Keep in mind that I'm way outside of the area, so if it's looks too grim in the morning I might have no choice but to call out. Bet at least one person is gonna call out in my department if I don't though. And if it's a closer, we're kinda up a creek.
