We went through 2 comanagers in my 4 months at kroger. While comanagers are often transfered frequently from what I hear, these two up and quit completely. Rumor has it first Co was supposed to be promoted to manager of the store she was in and replace the current manager. Obviously that didn't happen so they transfered her to another store with the same promise, she quit when it fell through. New comanagers pops up. Lasts two weeks and I hear he quit for the same reason.
First off, I'm glad neither of them inherited the store. Both were giant ass holes, and the current manager, while he is obviously performance driven, uses his brain and I quote "leads through positivity". The one time I was criticized by him it was something along the lines of "you're moving at a pretty good pace, but I'd like it if we can go just a little bit faster". Back when I was a conditioner I was complimented by him on how good the store looked. I also had to call out sick once and was told my health has to come first by him. Overall he's not too bad of a guy to work with so I would be upset if he was replaced by some new overly ambitious dick.
Looks like hourly employees aren't the only ones being baited and screwed.
Naturally. Do some investigation, basic middle-manager pay rates. On the sharpest end of Kroger's screw you stick, those guys can make about what baggers make when you realize they get no overtime compensation. Their vacations and days off can be cancelled with no warning. If corporate demands it, or worse, they think they need to they can end up working 12-16 hour days, 6-7 days a week. If there is a problem they are not present for comes up, they still get in trouble for it. I'd feel bad for them it weren't for so many of them being cutthroat ambitious dicks who seem to think hourly clerks are little more than their personal corporate bonus check army.
The crux of the problem, co-managers are in a crossroads of ****ty work environment, often absurd pressure from above (sometimes in illegal or unethical directions) and often legitimately believe what they are told about their prospects at promotion and advancement. Relentlessly positive is about the best kind of co-manager than can survive the job, the rest must be some flavor of morons. Be that legitimately stupid, or blindly ambitious, many co-managers have issues like this.
__________________
The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent the positions, strategies or opinions of The Kroger Co. family of stores.
Whereas store managers do pretty well with the salary + bonuses that they receive, co-managers get compensated far, far less while being required to put in a ridiculous number of hours and work. I worked with a co-manager in the past who freely admitted "there isn't a week that goes by that I don't think about walking out and being done with this company" and another who told me that "I don't know why I'm still with a company like this". I suspect that a majority of co-managers positively hate their jobs with a burning passion. You can just tell with a lot of them even if they don't all admit it or drop clues. I doubt very many of these people are in it to be a co-manager forever. The only reason they (or I should say some as I've known two or three that reached their wits end and quit) stick it out and put up with all sorts of stupid, crazy crud from corporate and store managers is because they're hoping to one day either be a store manager or be some kind of coordinator or hold some other position in the company that pays better than a co-manager's salary and doesn't come with so many headaches and hassles.
It's sometimes hard for us hourly employees to see and understand, but Kroger actually treats its co-managers just as bad if not worse than its hourly employees.
