This is so much BS, I don't know where to start. I don't know if this is in ALL Divisions, Or ALL stores, but now the departments have more paperwork that they are to go through each and every day, and walk around with the general manager (or co-manager?) and look everything over.
For instance, in produce, there is a detailed sheet of paper with dozens of short paragraphs detailing all kinds of stuff that (they think) everyone in the dept has to be reminded of each and every day. Hey, we already know about this, and we are already doing it as part of our normal regular routine. Constant repeated advisories to remember the "5 Ss", cull constantly, do a freshness check, discuss issues that arise with coworkers, help customers, "coach" the employees constantly, if something wasn't done correctly,.......... all kinds of repetitive stuff that I can't remember the detailes offhand without looking at the paper again.
This is a TOTAL waste of time to go over this stupid paper every day. It is like we, as associates, are issued a TRAINING MANUAL every single day, again and again, over and over, 7 days a week!!! We have already had our training! NOW WE need to WORK, not read and write (and make check marks on all the boxes) refreshers!! Any employee that has a grain of common sense, and has been on the job for a decent length of time, ALREADY knows all this stuff. WHY REPEAT IT OVER AND OVER?????
It is a GIGANTIC waste of time. We need to be ACTUALLY OUT THERE ON THE SALES FLOOR DOING REAL WORK, not reading and writing ABOUT the work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I certainly hope someone in CORPORATE reads my rant and has enough common sense to see the utter idiocy of this whole thing. I can't think if adequate words in the English language to convey what I think about the inane stupidity of all this paperwork.
It accomplishes NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING, but only takes up our precious time, and keeps us from actually DOING THIS WORK THAT NEEDS TO GET DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Hey, you upper Kroger people with a "sit down" job who thought up this dumb paperwork: this detail-oriented pencil pushing is NOT effective for the job we do here in the actual stores........it is a whole different ball game............it just slows us down!!!!!!! Do you understand????????? )
I would send this as an email directly to Rodney (CEO of Kroger) but if he actually read it (which is highly doubtful) he would probably research my email address, find out who I was, and have me fired.
*Oh my GAWD did you have a s ~ s ~ s ~ s ~ s ~ s ~ s ~ s ~ SEIZURE?!?!?*
No, this is just my own little way of trying to get across how STUPID all this stuff is. As you might see, by reading my post again, there is no way to express myself adequately just how DUMB this paperwork is............so I have to repeat some words many times in a futile effort to make the point.
Thank You for our rant. You saved me a lot of time. The "UPPER" management for this company has little or no knowledge of what it takes, day to day to run "OUR" stores.
A "FORWARD" thinking "I HAVE A DEGREE" is making decisions with no, ZERO! experience in "OUR" day to day operations. It's sad. I use to like going to work. I Don't anymore.
Ah, you are thinking what many of us are thinking, OP...You just happened to say it better! And yes, your store is not the only one, in regards to this pencil-pushing crap...No wonder morale is so low in many of these stores! I wonder if all divisions are experiencing this...
Again, someone who has no experience doing OUR jobs thought this crap up and probably has no remorse...
They'd better not be surprised when everyone (esp. the longtime employees) starts pushing back...
Bakery here. I heard starting in January we have to take inventory of our freezer before we make out a frozen order. The people at the office will then decide if we really need what we're ordering. They say it's because all the stores have too much product in their freezers. Hellooo? Stop adding stuff out on our orders then. We had a one day only flash sale on angel food cakes a couple weeks ago. They sent us 20 cases. We put out maybe three cases and half of those ended up being marked down. So now we have a truck of nothing but angel food cakes taking up space in the freezer. Last week they sent us over 30 cases of Christmas related cakes, cookies, and cupcakes. We still have two trucks of Fall and Halloween stuff to put out. Last year they sent over 200 cases of Hawaiian rolls between mid November and mid December. It took us until Easter to get rid of them all. So don't tell me that we're the ones who are ordering too much product.
This is so much BS, I don't know where to start. I don't know if this is in ALL Divisions, Or ALL stores, but now the departments have more paperwork that they are to go through each and every day, and walk around with the general manager (or co-manager?) and look everything over.
For instance, in produce, there is a detailed sheet of paper with dozens of short paragraphs detailing all kinds of stuff that (they think) everyone in the dept has to be reminded of each and every day. Hey, we already know about this, and we are already doing it as part of our normal regular routine. Constant repeated advisories to remember the "5 Ss", cull constantly, do a freshness check, discuss issues that arise with coworkers, help customers, "coach" the employees constantly, if something wasn't done correctly,.......... all kinds of repetitive stuff that I can't remember the detailes offhand without looking at the paper again.
This is a TOTAL waste of time to go over this stupid paper every day. It is like we, as associates, are issued a TRAINING MANUAL every single day, again and again, over and over, 7 days a week!!! We have already had our training! NOW WE need to WORK, not read and write (and make check marks on all the boxes) refreshers!! Any employee that has a grain of common sense, and has been on the job for a decent length of time, ALREADY knows all this stuff. WHY REPEAT IT OVER AND OVER?????
It is a GIGANTIC waste of time. We need to be ACTUALLY OUT THERE ON THE SALES FLOOR DOING REAL WORK, not reading and writing ABOUT the work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I certainly hope someone in CORPORATE reads my rant and has enough common sense to see the utter idiocy of this whole thing. I can't think if adequate words in the English language to convey what I think about the inane stupidity of all this paperwork.
It accomplishes NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING, but only takes up our precious time, and keeps us from actually DOING THIS WORK THAT NEEDS TO GET DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Hey, you upper Kroger people with a "sit down" job who thought up this dumb paperwork: this detail-oriented pencil pushing is NOT effective for the job we do here in the actual stores........it is a whole different ball game............it just slows us down!!!!!!! Do you understand????????? )
I would send this as an email directly to Rodney (CEO of Kroger) but if he actually read it (which is highly doubtful) he would probably research my email address, find out who I was, and have me fired.
You said it yourself. You can't remember all the details unless you are reading the paper work. I actually like the paper work and check lists. I just wish they would do it during all shifts not closing shift. Not everyone is doing their jobs and leaving more for others to be responsible for. I'm not in produce, so I don't know anything about that department, but I am in Deli/Bakery and without the paperwork, there's no proof of who did what or if it was even done.
You said it yourself. You can't remember all the details unless you are reading the paper work. I actually like the paper work and check lists. I just wish they would do it during all shifts not closing shift. Not everyone is doing their jobs and leaving more for others to be responsible for. I'm not in produce, so I don't know anything about that department, but I am in Deli/Bakery and without the paperwork, there's no proof of who did what or if it was even done.
"MyOpinion", I was in a hurry when I wrote that, so let me clarify this: I ALREADY know what I need to do as part of my job in Produce. I understand the procedures, the cleaning, the culling, the sorting, the straightening, the markdowns, etc, the attention to detail necessary to this job. I already know this.
I merely mean't that I couldn't remember ALL the exact detailed repetitive phrasings, verbage, the exact terminology (laid out in excruciating detail) on the paperwork, repeated again and again for each sub-section of the dept (like green rack, apple tables, juice shelves, etc) plus such trite insincere phrases as "everyone friendly and caring" (meanwhile, yeah, while scrutinizing the dept just looking for something minor to bitch about) without having the paper in front of me, which I don't have it here at home!
You admit you know nothing about Produce.
Bakery and Deli is a completely different ball game than produce. However, I can agree with you that you should have a list of things that need to be done each day, for both morning, mid-shift and closing shifts. They could be posted on the wall for all employees to see and study when they have time, and as a reminder, especially for cleaning duties and stuff like that that have to be done each day.
But, so you WANT your deli or bakery manager to get with your store manager, and walk all around your dept, making a checkmark on several dozen things on the paper, every single day? ("GRADING YOU, for lack of a better term??) This is what is supposed to be done in Produce, don't know if there is any similarity to what they are doing (or will be doing) in bakery or deli.
From what I read on this forum, most Kroger stores (maybe not all, but most) are having VERY SERIOUS PROBLEMS with not enough help. Every minute that you take walking around with your manager, making check marks on a paper (every day) are minutes that you lose which could have been used for actually doing the work that needed to be performed. Does this make any sense at all to you?
Are you talking about the "first touch" paper that we do every day?
It doesn't really bother me anymore because it does give us a good idea of what our priorities should be for the day. The store manager goes over what we wrote on it, adds his input and then we go on. Unless you have a lot more to it in your division?
Are you talking about the "first touch" paper that we do every day?
Who comes up with these names? It seems like the people working in corporate spend more time coming up with useless programs than figuring out ways to run the stores better.
Clear as a bell! But, I think some of you have to work produce to get it!
We are short-staffed and we continue to lose good people, and yet, product needs to be filled continually...And I've seen a HUGE uptick in the amount of business our department gets in even just the last 5 years...The people that leave are NOT replaced, which means the REAL laborers (aka skeleton crew) are shouldering much more of the work...It's time SOMEONE starts seeing things for what they REALLY are and not how they WISH them to be!
I will also say this...Many departments really have NO idea what goes on in the other departments because they don't do all the day-to-day stuff that the other departments do and that goes vice versa, as well...
What's amazing is that someone out there who makes WAY, WAY MORE MONEY than any of us will ever see can come up with stupid decision after stupid decision after stupid decision...Where can I get a job like that??? If I had that job, I'd come up with ever stupider ideas than this that'd make people's tempers REALLY flare JUST FOR KICKS!!! But, I won't care because I'll be getting PAID BIG BUCKS to do it!
Problem is...I'd personally be ashamed to look at my face in the morning. knowing the kind of havoc and chaos I'd created...Kind of like Dr. Frankenstein's remorse in a way...But, there it is...Retail reality in a nutshell!
I'm in produce, too and also working with a skeleton crew.
I do actually think the "top of the hour" stuff is working (when it's ACTUALLY done) BUT it's really hard to keep up with when you're one of the only two/three people and salads need to be done, the truck needs to be broken down, the floor needs to be filled from the horrible close last night, cut fruit needs to be put out and it ALL has to be done by 9AM-- no exceptions. It's especially frustrating when I have to spend over an hour walking the sales floor writing down what I need to do instead of actually doing it.
I believe this program could be really good, but you need to have a full crew for it to be useful.
I've found that if you just go out and fill the bananas and straighten up the salad wall every hour (every other hour, condition dry stock), you can pass as having done the top of the hour.
You said it yourself. You can't remember all the details unless you are reading the paper work. I actually like the paper work and check lists. I just wish they would do it during all shifts not closing shift. Not everyone is doing their jobs and leaving more for others to be responsible for. I'm not in produce, so I don't know anything about that department, but I am in Deli/Bakery and without the paperwork, there's no proof of who did what or if it was even done.
"MyOpinion", I was in a hurry when I wrote that, so let me clarify this: I ALREADY know what I need to do as part of my job in Produce. I understand the procedures, the cleaning, the culling, the sorting, the straightening, the markdowns, etc, the attention to detail necessary to this job. I already know this.
I merely mean't that I couldn't remember ALL the exact detailed repetitive phrasings, verbage, the exact terminology (laid out in excruciating detail) on the paperwork, repeated again and again for each sub-section of the dept (like green rack, apple tables, juice shelves, etc) plus such trite insincere phrases as "everyone friendly and caring" (meanwhile, yeah, while scrutinizing the dept just looking for something minor to bitch about) without having the paper in front of me, which I don't have it here at home!
You admit you know nothing about Produce.
Bakery and Deli is a completely different ball game than produce. However, I can agree with you that you should have a list of things that need to be done each day, for both morning, mid-shift and closing shifts. They could be posted on the wall for all employees to see and study when they have time, and as a reminder, especially for cleaning duties and stuff like that that have to be done each day.
But, so you WANT your deli or bakery manager to get with your store manager, and walk all around your dept, making a checkmark on several dozen things on the paper, every single day? ("GRADING YOU, for lack of a better term??) This is what is supposed to be done in Produce, don't know if there is any similarity to what they are doing (or will be doing) in bakery or deli.
From what I read on this forum, most Kroger stores (maybe not all, but most) are having VERY SERIOUS PROBLEMS with not enough help. Every minute that you take walking around with your manager, making check marks on a paper (every day) are minutes that you lose which could have been used for actually doing the work that needed to be performed. Does this make any sense at all to you?
I'm not sure about the grading aspect. But we have a thing called the "Fresh at 5" walks everyday at my store. As well as a morning and the re-vamped good close walk. And although I'm not 100% sure if they are getting at us being up on the 5'S during the walks. But I have noted that at times they are coming at bakery about making sure we sweep under the displays and so forth more often now. Everything is replenished behind the counter. Know what is going on with all the displays and tables on the floor. Frequent top of the hour calls even. And yes, there is clip boards of paper work that the back up managers have to go over with the store managers, when doing all these walks, EVERYday.
I am beyond frustrated with this all this crap. And then to come and insist we go on that stupid 30 minute walk - pulling me away from a task I really need to get finished. And especially when we are working with almost a skeleton crew in deli. Gotta love it. AND........for another rant....I wish we could get rid of our stupid sandwich station. It burns me up when people come for a sandwich. We are fighting to keep our heads above water. And we have to deal with that nonsense. Some stores are lucking out and - they are doing away with the sandwich making. But I guess our sales a a bit too good to get rid of it. UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
