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Are the kids back in school YET!?!?!

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  • Are the kids back in school YET!?!?!

    I had an awful day at work today.

    Truck was 1800 pieces and was not finished, despite the unload crew having 5 people working 4:30-10, plus a couple other people helping during that time.

    Then, somebody was scheduled to work overnight because the cleaning company has scheduled a strip-and-wax for the floors. The people who were supposed to do this didn't show up. So overnight guy went home after being in the store for an hour, but gets paid for 8 hours at shift premium wage. Thanks a lot, fuckers. We had been counting on him to do autopulls and maybe fill a smaller department or two.

    But the worst part of all: an ungodly amount of school supplies. I do not know which deity I displeased to be stuck doing this department every truck, but I'm sorry, dammit!

    Two pallets plus two 6-wheelers PLUS 6 shopping carts of stuff out of repacks. And it was all little putzy shit like little boxes of pens, glue sticks, pencils, and so forth Let me tell you in layman's terms how much school supplies I had today: I had a whole fucking lot of school supplies.

    And none of it was stuff we actually needed. NONE. I spent 6 1/2 hours out of my 8-hour shift filling school supplies (remember it has to be filled in two different spots at opposite ends of the store) and still sent about 75% of the shit to backstock.

    No problem, we'll just carry it all over to next year and try to find spots for all the shit going on clearance when the season is over, and count it in inventory next year.

    Fuck, we have to start setting Christmas in a couple weeks. We also have to set the rest of Halloween. The way the freight's coming in, there's no way that will happen. We're still sitting on a bunch of fucking patio furniture that is not selling at its current clearance prices, but corporate refuses to give us the OK to mark it down even further. The schools open exactly two weeks from today; BTS should be winding down now instead of coming in like it's the beginning of the season.


    So in summation: There's a special spot in Hell, right down the hall from Sadaam Hussein and Adolf Hitler, for the person who decided to turn Back To School into this ginormous shopping extravaganza.

    Actually, I take that back. Hell's too good for that person.
    Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Be evil.

    "I never said I wasn't a horrible person."--Me, almost daily

  • #2
    Quoth Irving Patrick Freleigh View Post
    So in summation: There's a special spot in Hell, right down the hall from Sadaam Hussein and Adolf Hitler, for the person who decided to turn Back To School into this ginormous shopping extravaganza.

    Actually, I take that back. Hell's too good for that person.
    Not ever having had to work stocking, I can't really claim to understand how difficult your job is. I HAVE had to pick up our overnight's slack on occasion, when they didn't finish breaking down the mixed pallets, and so I spend three hours in the morning separating the various goods into the three zones of the store, and then schlep it all over the place to put it away, oh, and by the way, there's ten more mixed pallets they didn't finish either.

    It wasn't until I started working the 5am shift on Sunday, and saw the stockworkers scrambling to get everything done (while I'm stuck at the backdoor, not allowed to help out), that I understood, "Okay, these guys AREN'T fucking around. They really are just overworked."

    I work on the front-line, but now whenever I get someone complaining because "there's no [item X] in stock," I get this:

    SC: "How come you don't have any of [item X] in stock?"
    J2K: "Overnight's always extremely busy. They probably just didn't get around to stocking it."
    SC: "Well, that's stupid. Why didn't they stay to finish their job?"
    J2K: "Because corporate won't let us keep them on past their scheduled hours."
    SC: "Why not?"
    J2K: "Payroll issues."
    SC: "Well, why don't--"
    J2K: "Hey, I'm just a peon. I don't make policy. I just abide by it."
    PWNADE(TM) - Serve up a glass today! | PWNZER - An act of pwnage so awesome, it's like the victim got hit by a tank.

    There are only Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse because I choose to walk!

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    • #3
      AH, back to school. My company we ALWAYS get too much. In fact, every year we get to do full case returns of some of it back to the warehouse. Only problem? They have to be IN the original box. But since we don't know the demand of the items, we have to keep the chelves filled. And inevtiably, someone always gets rid of a ton of the boxes we keep to repackage them to send them back. Honest mistake, since it's the only season we do this and they're almost never marked as "don't dispose". If the company KNOWS we're all gonna send it back, why the hell do they send so much?

      We don't even HAVE the half of Back to School set up yet...there's WAY too much summer stuff we have. Screw what corparate says, mark it down to 50% already and get it out of there!

      Overnight delivery at our store is tough too, especially since we've been shorthanded. Used to be we'd get most of the delivery done before the 8 am crew came in. Now we're LUCKY if we can get 1/4 of it done.


      However, as much as I want to see the kids back in school, I want to saver these last few weeks, cause once Halloween starts getting set, it's downhill from there the rest of the year.

      Comment


      • #4
        Some devilish little part of me took glance at the title and thought, "Hmm, I bet I.P. Freleigh wrote this thread". Then thought yup, I was right

        I cashier. Part time. I have to ring customers up for all the BTS crap. I sure as hell don't wanna be the one stocking it or zoning it (zoning...I hate zoning...hate hate hate).

        I'd send warm thoughts your way, but your thread already mentioned the 'ol fire and brimstone
        A lion however, will only devour your corpse, whereas an SC is not sated until they have destroyed your soul. (Quote per infinitemonkies)

        Comment


        • #5
          I can sympathize. I used to work overnight logistics myself, and clearance was an absolute nightmare. At first seasonal stuff isn't bad, but inevitably the seasonal items were hugely over ordered and all the stuff people actually want is picked clean, so its just pushing around all of that seasonal garbage no one wants until it basically all breaks simply due to being moved around so much.

          Halloween clearance isn't so bad however. Everyone likes candy! And strangely costumes and other props also go very quickly. However this is all dependent upon the people on the floor actually pushing the product to the shelves.

          Far too often I was pulling pallets of stuff from the autopull system, the people on the floor would push the pallets around, make a mess of things, then push the pallets back to me without actually pushing the product to the shelves. If its not on shelves its not going to sell, and each time the product is moved a few more items break.

          I felt a lot like Sisyphus, pushing a rock endlessly uphill. I had to backstock the exact same stuff I pulled every night, night after night after night, until eventually there was so much broken stuff that a good portion of the clearance that never got pushed was simply thrown away.

          And this is all while attempting to perform 2 man hours of work for every hour on the clock. Yup, we weren't supposed to give 110%...we were expected to do more in the neighborhood of 200%.

          If we failed to pull off a miracle to do 200% the work expected of a normal human being, breaking the laws of physics, sanity, and OSHA, bosses would descend upon us like some plague and remind us to stop slacking off.

          The only redeeming part about the job is that my coworkers were made of pure win and awesome, however I hurt my back single handedly processing and backstocking 8 pallets of chemicals up about 30 feet in the air. The shelves were all full, but I had this one particularly fat and lazy boss yelling at me the whole time, demanding I break the laws of physics and cram more items onto the shelf than the shelf could physically hold. I ended up putting boxes on the top shelf all the way to the ceiling, literally. The boxes were literally touching the ceiling, such that I had to climb almost out of the basket in the electric vehicle I was using just to reach, which also blocked off all of the sprinklers.


          After that night, I had simply had enough. My back was so screwed up from that ordeal that it was a month before I was able to walk again.

          Comment


          • #6
            Oh, don't get me started on clearance! Oops, too late.

            People in this town are too fucking cheap. They ought to rename it "Cheapsville." Or "Tightwad Town."

            Complement somebody on their nice pair of jeans, or their nice shirt, and they'll tell you "Thanks! I got it on clearance/sale at X store!" (As opposed to "I got at Abercrombie & Fitch/The Gap/Some Other Expensive Clothing Store)

            The corporate suits tell us "People here look for red stickers." Result: We've become the permanent destination for all the clearance at the DC. Anytime the DC workers stumble upon pallets of stuff they thought were long gone, they ship it to our store.

            The corporate office even has other stores transfer their clearance to us. A new store opened this spring and their sales are pretty crappy, from what I've heard. Every so often we'll get in a bunch of repack totes filled with clearance merchandise from that store. Another new store is opening in our district this fall. We'll certainly be getting all their clearance shit they can't sell.

            Also, when stores get remodeled, we'll get clearance from them. Corporate evidently has a thing about there being little to no clearance in their remodeled or new stores. But when we got remodeled, we weren't allowed to transfer out any clearance. No, we had to put it out and sell it ourselves.

            Result: the floor always looks like shit because almost all the back endstands have clearance on them, we have full aisles and valleys devoted to clearance, and nobody straightens them. They figure "It's just clearance, it'll get trashed anyway tomorrow, so why bother?"

            The other problem for me is when clearance comes in on our trucks, we HAVE to work it out. Which usually means rearranging aisles and endstands to make it all fit, and then printing up new labels. We are not allowed to backstock it, and we seldom get to put it to the side and let the floor people deal with it. That only happens when we get in so much clearance that we'd spend too much time trying to work it out.

            We can't backstock any clearance because any clearance located in backstock shows up on a report that goes to the corporate office, and then they call us and bitch. "What's all this clearance doing in your backroom? You need to push it to the floor! We're already losing our margins on this stuff! Get it to the floor pronto!"

            And that's all I have to say on that.

            Quoth Hyndis
            The boxes were literally touching the ceiling, such that I had to climb almost out of the basket in the electric vehicle I was using just to reach, which also blocked off all of the sprinklers.
            And then the fire department comes by and takes a shit right on your head because you're violating the fire code.
            Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Be evil.

            "I never said I wasn't a horrible person."--Me, almost daily

            Comment


            • #7
              The people who were supposed to do this didn't show up. So overnight guy went home after being in the store for an hour, but gets paid for 8 hours at shift premium wage.
              sounds like a good thing to charge the waxing crew for. but that's me

              Comment


              • #8
                Quoth Irving Patrick Freleigh View Post

                Truck was 1800 pieces and was not finished, despite the unload crew having 5 people working 4:30-10, plus a couple other people helping during that time.
                7 people can't get a truck done in 5 1/2 hours the unload crew at my store is expected to do a truck in 2 hours with about that many people, with about that many pieces, and they all get nice, new, ass holes if it doesn't get done


                and on back to school, I had to zone that department for 30 mins, I can't imagine stocking it. even with my store having lots of the boxes that you dump pens and stuff in the top and they take it out from the bottom
                Last edited by nomorecarts; 08-20-2008, 07:31 AM.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Quoth nomorecarts View Post
                  7 people can't get a truck done in 5 1/2 hours the unload crew at my store is expected to do a truck in 2 hours with about that many people, with about that many pieces, and they all get nice, new, ass holes if it doesn't get done
                  Our unload crew is expected to do the following every truck:
                  • Unload all the loose cases
                  • Backstock furniture
                  • Pull all the pallets/carts of freight to the floor
                  • Fill and backstock paper products/laundry detergent from the truck
                  • Strip the plastic from all hanging apparel
                  • Sweep the backroom floor and throw out all the garbage


                  The first two are the most important, and generally all we get from our unload crew. Yesterday they left two pallets of furniture in the staging area that are probably still sitting back there because Numbnuts was working and he doesn't like backstocking furniture.

                  Plus they pushed the pallet of detergent out to the floor with our freight and left it there, so we ended up having to do it. We also had a pallet full of stuff from every department under the sun--softlines, HBA, infants HBA, candy, household chemicals. Pallets are supposed to be sorted by department and not a hodepodge of everything and anything.

                  Our manager is really the only one who will get on the unload crew. If she's working at night she will even help out on the truck and the unloaders do work harder because they can tell they're not going to be able to screw around. She wasn't working Monday night.

                  It used to be we only got 4 people to unload a truck. And if everything wasn't done by quitting time, then I stayed late to finish, no "ifs" "ands" or "buts". There were many nights where I was at work until 12 or 1 in the morning when I was supposed to be gone at 10.
                  Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Be evil.

                  "I never said I wasn't a horrible person."--Me, almost daily

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Quoth Irving Patrick Freleigh View Post
                    And then the fire department comes by and takes a shit right on your head because you're violating the fire code.
                    After that night, when they finally got the injury report of my inability to walk processed to the correct insurance company, they must have made some pretty big changes.

                    When I was able to work again and come back, the stock rooms weren't overflowing anymore! We were no longer at 200% capacity for storing things, so boxes could be stored properly and safely, without causing injury to employees or breaking the fire code.

                    I think it finally got through their thick skulls that they couldn't keep up that kind of insane overcrowding forever.



                    Oh, and when I hurt my back, there was a massive SNAFU involved. I initially reported it to the head of the safety team, who also just happened to be the overnight manager when I injured myself.

                    He didn't report the injury.

                    The next night when I dragged myself in, heavily self medicated with painkillers and barely able to stand, I reported it again, this time to the awesome manager. He forced it through proper channels, and was initially upset that I hadn't reported it earlier, until I pointed it out that I had reported it to the safety guy manager directly. Massive fumbling of job duties right there!

                    Then the awesome manager sent me home since I was too injured to work, let alone even walk without hobbling or leaning on things. I got a huge packet of paperwork in the mail, dutifully filled out all of the injury related paperwork...and then nothing happened.

                    After many phone calls asking what was up, they finally realized that they had reported the injury to the wrong company!

                    The store had switched insurance companies but the computer programs weren't updated...and by the way, this switch took place 8 years prior.

                    After that false start I finally got the correct packet of paperwork to fill out, then was promptly sent to a doctor, but there wasn't really anything to be done. It was a soft tissue injury, though when you have a soft tissue injury to the spine its still quite serious. I gradually regained the ability to walk again, though I cannot do any heavy lifting anymore. Just lifting a few items from low towards the ground to higher up throws my back out, causing substantial pain for several days until it settles in again. I also now walk with a limp, though its not too noticeable most days. On bad days, however, I'm very tempted to bring in a cane.

                    Perhaps the cane might be a clue to EW's that they should lift a finger to move out their own groceries. An able-bodied adult who refuses to take out her own groceries just because she wants to talk on the cell phone is one of my bigger aggravations at work. Yeah, get the guy with the cane to take out your groceries for you...

                    Oh well. At least I've got disability as a safety net, though its actually for mental illness than my bad back. Yes, I'm quite screwed up. Mentally ill and a bad back.

                    But it gives me the ultimate defense against SCs. I simply don't care! Go ahead, get me fired, I actually make more money not working than I do working.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Quoth Irving Patrick Freleigh View Post
                      Our unload crew is expected to do the following every truck:
                      • Unload all the loose cases
                      • Backstock furniture
                      • Pull all the pallets/carts of freight to the floor
                      • Fill and backstock paper products/laundry detergent from the truck
                      • Strip the plastic from all hanging apparel
                      • Sweep the backroom floor and throw out all the garbage




                      Our manager is really the only one who will get on the unload crew. If she's working at night she will even help out on the truck and the unloaders do work harder because they can tell they're not going to be able to screw around. She wasn't working Monday night.
                      our unload crew is expected to unload the trucks(usually 2, sometimes 3, but they do have days they only schedule 0-2 unloaders and they don't do trucks then) before lunch, then when they get back pull the pallets, and I've always been gone by then, so I don't know what they do after that, but it's very, very common for them to have a manager unloading with them, so they don't get to slack off

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Only two small carts of school supplies today, so I got a reprieve! I filled toys, hardware, sporting goods and Halloween seasonal instead.

                        I paid for it in the end though. I backstocked 4 pallets of Christmas chotchkies. Our backstock space for Christmas chotchkies is just about full and we are expecting a similarly large quantity of the shit on Monday's truck.

                        Send .

                        Also, I sincerely hope the retail person who decided it would be a good idea to have Halloween and Christmas split time and selling space is currently turning crispy brown in Hell.
                        Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Be evil.

                        "I never said I wasn't a horrible person."--Me, almost daily

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Quoth Irving Patrick Freleigh View Post
                          Also, I sincerely hope the retail person who decided it would be a good idea to have Halloween and Christmas split time and selling space is currently turning crispy brown in Hell.
                          if not they deserve a good kidney punch from all retail drones. my first duty at the shack was to take all the toys and such and reprice them by hand, stack them in the window, and then put all 300lbs of batteries right next to them.

                          this was for our pre xmas sale, in august.

                          we started getting xmas stuff in september.

                          i know your pain irv, have a shot on me.
                          This is a drama-free zone; violators will be slapped. -Irving Patrick Freleigh
                          my blog:http://steeledragon.wordpress.com/

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                          • #14
                            I hear you. I have the honor of being chosen to give up my In-stocks shifts for four weeks to move to the mid shift doing nothing but caring for the BTS area. The only saving grace of this postion is that this weekend is the last one. after next week it's not my problem any more.
                            They say crime doesn't pay. That must mean what I'm doing at work is illegal.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Oh I.P.F, I know how you feel about the BTS. Back when I was working at Office Max, I had that crap also. Always about 1/2 the pallets on the trucks would be BTS stuff during the season. About 70% would not sale, but yet we would receive more and more.
                              Under The Moon Paranormal Research
                              San Joaquin Valley Paranormal Research

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