Yesterday we had a order come into the store placed on line for 37 party trays due at 9 this morning. Some of the items ordered we don't even carry at our store. When our asst. deli manager tried to call to confirm the order, the calls went unanswered. And none of the e-mails back to the address we had were responded to.
So our deli coordinator and merchandiser for our area happened to be in store and they told us to make the trays and management allowed us to call someone in for 5 hours, all o.t., to help make the trays. They even allowed a couple hours of o.t. this morning to make the trays that had wings to be fried. Our deli managers told the coordinator that they felt it was a hoax order, but she said they "might" show up so we need to make them. The people who made them had to take some of the wings off the shelf in frozen to get the job done. All told the trays came to around $900.00
Fast forward to this morning and guess what? No one showed up to pick up the trays! So the coordinator and merchandiser were in the store today and and they acted surprised that the order was a hoax.
Corporate needs to mandate these orders to be paid for in advance.
Or at least make them put down a deposit like 10% maybe. Hopefully the trays weren't a total loss. Since the trays never left the store, much of the stuff could probably be taken off the trays and repackaged. Meats and cheeses could be put in 1 pound packages and put in the grab and go case. The chicken can be packaged up.
That sounded like a hoax order the moment I read "37 party trays". Unless you're having a party for 300 people, no one has a need for all that.
As for repackaging things up, I think the only thing that would probably be salvagable would be the meats, and ONLY if they weren't sitting out for too long. The chicken would've had to been in a hot sitting, and apparently you can't have chicken sitting for more than 2 hours. Since it looks like it was packaged the night before, most of it would be thrown out.
We had people call in prank tray orders. When we tried to call them back, it went to Giant Eagle. We told the manager about it but she still made us make the trays.
One thing that really ticked me off was the fact that the coordinator and merchandiser were surprised and upset that we didn't have the deli completely set up by 11 even though we were behind because of the f,n trays they said we had to make because they "might show up."
I'd think that after no response to several calls and e-mails they would get the point that it was a hoax.
