Thats not my department

[Leztwerp]

This happened to me just before I quit my last job. I worked in the deli of "insert big chain supermarket here". Besides slicing meat and making sandwiches we would roast chickens and half would go into the front heater near the checkout and half would go into the heater by the deli.
I in all of my five foot nothing glory was told to bring 6 chickens up front. This means I am carrying without a cart (it was broken) six full size chickens in their containers. So of course while balancing all this I am stopped by the dreaded SC.

SC: Where are the canned tomatoes?
Me: I'm sorry I work in the deli, you'll have to ask someone in stock.
SC: Ok, but where is the rice?
Me: Sir, if you'll wait for me to put these chickens in the heater I'll find someone in stock to get it for you.
SC: Cant you just tell me where it is? I'll get it myself.

Me: Sir, I work in the deli. I don't know where those items are and I have to put these chickens in the heater, but I can find someone in stock for you.
SC: If you work here why don't you know where everything is? I'm going to talk to a manager about you!
Me: Go for it sir.

Yes folks because I worked in the super market this meant I was supposed to magically know the location of everything in the store. Ignoring the fact of course that being a deli clerk I never saw the rest of the store.

[Dave1982]

God I hated that when I worked at a supermarket. I still hate it, but at least where I work now, wholesale resets are rare.

Usually, every time I had the store layout figured out was the time they'd change things again, and since i was up front all the time, I rarely got the chance to look around. To this day, I STILL don't know where raisins are because those change location just about every week it seems.

I feel your pain.

[hotelnpa]

As a former stocker in two big box retail stores, even I didn't know where things were sometimes because the items were occasionally moved. But most places do have those signs above (or near) each aisle indicating what is down each row. Oh yeah...SC's don't read!

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Even those of us who work out on the floor don't always know what's going on in the "perimeter" departments such as Produce, Deli-Bakery or the Market.

No, I don't know which cut of beef would be leaner. No I don't know if we have any more of the chicken breasts in the cooler. No, I don't know if we have any more grapes in the back.

I don't go into the coolers every day to see what's back there. We have people who work in those departments daily who KNOW what they have on hand.

And no I don't know what time the truck is coming in. It gets here when it gets here - we have no say so on the scheduling. We get a truck every other day, with the exception of HBA where we get 2 deliveries a week and those days are either Mon & Fri when we have Mon-Wed-Fri-Sun trucks scheduled and the opposite weeks I get them on Tues & Sat when we have Tues-Thur-Sat trucks coming.

And even if the truck has come in, it takes time to break down everything for stocking, as our stuff comes on huge pallets. You need Tylenol? Go online, fill out an application, come back and clock in and you can start helping me sort through the pallet of totes that are stacked 7 feet tall on the pallet and we'll find them for you.

Otherwise it might be better to come back that evening or the next day when everything is worked out by then. Little ol' me can't work but so fast and when you're dealing with a lot of small items being shipped in, it takes some time to sort everything through and organize so that stuff can be stocked according to section. It works better all around that way.

And I think I'll stop ranting now . . . gotta go fix breakfast and get some clothes on. Thank goodness for days off.

[Shengirl]

Something funny a lot of people don't realize is that, many times, even cashiers have no idea where things are in the store. Baggers do; they have to do shop-backs and price checks all the time. But a cashier spends 95% of his or her time at the register, at the front of the store. For that matter, they may not even shop at that store, particularly if they're kids! I've never even attempted to explain this to a customer, though. I can't imagine I'd get a good reaction.

[trunks2k]

I don't understand why people have such a problem finding items in the grocery store. Every grocery store groups items together essentially the same way.

Canned tomatoes? In the same aisle as the pasta.

Rice? In with ethnic foods.

Spices? Usually in the same aisle as the baking stuff.

Sugar? Next to the flour.

Pickles? Same aisle as the ketchup.
etc. etc.

I can understand if you can't find some strange specialty item. But really, rice and canned tomatoes should be really easy to find.

[simplyanother]

Yesterday, we had a customer get pissed off at a co-worker---because the customer thought the coworker was being rude.

Customer was lurking near some craft crap...sees the co-worker and asks something like "who works in this department?"

My co-worker responded "Well, we all do, what do you need?"

Which apparently was just about the rudest thing EVER! I can't quite remember how the idiot customer responded, but she called my co-worker rude and then demanded that someone else help her.

I mean, WTF? The co-worker wasn't even snotty, there was no hint of rudeness in her voice, she may have been out of breath because she was going up and down a ladder, but she wasn't rude in the least.

Gah. I don't know where have the things in my store are. Even when I stock the crap. Customers get mad at me because I can't give them a specific aisle number. Sorry, I remember stuff in relation to other things. Wrapping paper is near the registers, styrofoam is near wedding, tee shirts are a couple of aisles from the back of the store.. that sort of thing. "Ugh, can't you just give me an aisle number?!" Gah, I'd like to just poke one. "Ugh, can't you like..omg..DIE!".

I love it when customers ask about stuff I don't know anything about and that I'm not expected to know anything about (like framing or floral). Because then I can go "oh, I don't know, you'll have to ask blank at the floral counter or blank in framing...."

[RammsteinGirl]

At Kmart, if you're out on the floor and a customer asks you where an item is, you're supposed to walk them to it, even if it's not your department.

[BaristaTrav]

Next time just say "aisle 5." Hell, you might even be right.

[Seshat]

Every grocery store groups items together essentially the same way.

Canned tomatoes? In the same aisle as the pasta.

Rice? In with ethnic foods.

<snip>

I can understand if you can't find some strange specialty item. But really, rice and canned tomatoes should be really easy to find.

You'd be lost here. Canned tomatoes are with other canned veggies, and rice is in the 'rice, pasta and similar grains or grain-based stuff' section.

[justZu]

I don't understand why people have such a problem finding items in the grocery store. Every grocery store groups items together essentially the same way.

I can understand if you can't find some strange specialty item. But really, rice and canned tomatoes should be really easy to find.

My local grocery store just decided they needed to reorganize and I don't know who designed the new layout, but some things are just bizarre. Formerly, baked beans were together with regular beans and canned vegetables. Now, canned vegs are still in their old location, but regular beans are down at the end of the aisle by International Foods. Baked beans? Another aisle altogether, they're across from salad dressings and in the same aisle as cake mixes and spices.
Formerly Spaghetti-Os were in between pasta stuff and soups. Now they are in a different aisle - next to the baked beans and spices.
Am I missing the logic here?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

At Kmart, if you're out on the floor and a customer asks you where an item is, you're supposed to walk them to it, even if it's not your department.

We're supposed to do that at my store too. It is one of the things our secret shoppers specifically look for.

I almost always do walk customers to product, except if it's in softlines. I do not know softlines well enough to steer a customer to many items there. But I usually don't have to. They just ask for the activewear shoes (nike, adidas and other popular athletic shoe brands) or the luggage, which are easy to pick out.

[mattm04]

I work in a supermarket bakery, before i worked as a bagger. I knew where 90% of the items exactly were and the rest in the general vicinity. The just finished a new planogram for the entire store. About 80% of the canned/bottled/dry food food has been moved. The customers can't find it and expect us to have memorize the new plan overnight. yeah, sure. After I get off work i still am sometimes wandering the store looking for that one important item i need that was moved 6 aisles down.

[tacohuman]

maybe it's just me, but i don't see what the big deal is. i work in the deli, too, but i make it a point in every store i work in to learn at least the general location of things, like bread being in aisle one, canned veggies in aisle 2, and so on. this way, even if someone is looking for a specialty item, as long as i can put it into a general category i can usually lead them to it without much trouble.

[BookstoreEscapee]

And I think I'll stop ranting now . . . gotta go fix breakfast and get some clothes on. Thank goodness for days off

you get dressed on your day off???


My mom had a recipe for low-fat cannoli filling, and she was looking for the shells to fill with it. I looked at a couple stores, and couldn't find them. I asked in the bakery; I was told they usually carry them but the girl hadn't seen them recently. I looked in the freezer with the frozen cakes and stuff; they had the little phyllo dough tart shells and stuff but no cannoli shells. I even looked in the international section, thinking maybe they keep them in Italy. No dice. Finally my mom was in the one store I had already looked in 3 different places 2 different times, and she asked someone, who asked someone else, who looked in some reference or other that they have, and said they would be in the ... Pasta aisle! Of course, why didn't I think of that! So after they searched that aisle 2 times, they finally found them down on a bottom shelf or somewhere. In the meantime, we learned that cannoli filling makes a pretty tasty pie in a pre-made graham cracker crust, too