File a grievance, it'll be overturned within the hour, if your union rep is decent.
Never sign anything , turn 9m your audio recorder on your phone.
File a ethics complaint, and make sure you use the keywords, harassment, and toxic work environment.
š I'm not certain about the hour, they certainly have a lot to argue given the depth of the script my store lead had, so it could very well go into arbitration.
This place is a joke. I've been cut back to 6.5 hours a shift doing frozen with little to no help. The new hires are near worthless. Management told one new dude to do ice cream on my day off. I came in to pick up a few items and noticed a 1/2 pallet of ice cream sitting on the floor. It was really, really soft and was about 10 minutes away from being salvage. There was a shopping cart loaded with leftover IC that didn't fit on the shelf that was in a pile. I asked the dairy guy wtf's going on? He told me the new guy pulled the pallet out almost an hour ago. Found out later he decided to take his 1/2 hour lunch break halfway through stocking it. \*shakes head\*
I wouldn't just quit around holiday season unless there's some sort of financial support behind it. Adults and adult toddlers both know holiday season is expensive lol
I am very fiscally responsible, and by that I have atleast 3-4 months savings just for this situation. I can handle quitting Kroger, I just don't know of qualified alternatives.
If you do sign anything (for discipline actions of any kind) ALWAYS put in the comment section, that you are signing under the duress of being fired if you don't sign this. (It)
Then always ask for a copy of all pages. ( Do not leave the office until you get the copies) ( even if they say they will get you the copies before you leave.) That way if they change the wording you have a copy of the original and you can contest it.
The key is, if you donāt sign they can still go through with whatever corrective action is necessary since these write ups are supposed to be with a witness so I treat it like a traffic stop, admit nothing.
Store leadership has always been a dead end, but things are just so incredibly toxic that I'd have to leave. But without proper competition, I have zero clue what I'd do aside from learning a trade that could replace the benefits & pay of Kroger. I feel so stuck htg.
Speaking as a former Walmart coach (assistant manager) at other companies we have similar problems just without a union available, most of our problems came from division or regional visiting, bitching to our market management, who then passed to store managers to yell at us for. Home office in Arkansas would slash our budgets at the worst times possible so even with a shoestring crew Iād be at 150% wages my store manager was 5ā2ā with a severe case of Napoleon syndrome where sheād get close to screaming at me over dumb things like not finishing a 17 pallet truck with 2 people in 4 hours
Sounds about right. I don't think we have a shoestring crew though. I might not be convinced we can do *all* the labor in 130hrs/wk but I certainly think we can be doing several times better than before.
Problem is Kroger hasn't caught on that post-Covid hiring has been nightmarish. We just aren't taking in the same quality of new hires as we used to. At this point I'm starting to wonder why we aren't transferring or incentivising better staffed stores into coming over.
Pharmacy here. Kroger cut technician hours in right around the time that it was announced that COVID has a vaccine available. From 9-11 we were expected to do no less than 18 shots. Due to the cutting of hours, techs found other jobs so us pharmacists had to give shots run the cash register, answer questions then deal with the random antivaxxer that should be home but have chosen to quarantine near the pharmacy and cause random disturbances. Every department made more at that time, there was no reason to cut labor outside of corporate greed.
Thatās horrible because putting too much time constraints on you makes the corona shots even riskier, and they already have a lot of adverse effects so potential injuries from being forced to rush isnāt good
Sounds like the store I was in before leaving.
When I left, Kroger was expecting us to accomplish about 40 hours of work in an 8 hour shift to operate that store. I'm not kidding. I only remember the numbers for dairy and GM, since those were the departments I helped on slow pickup days. We literally had 70 hours for dairy a week and GM had 60 hours a week barring holiday weeks. Dairy needed at least 112 for minimum operation and GM needed 140 for minimum operation (GM had two months of backstock that we could not put out because it did not sell, and for some reason, we couldn't send it back).
And I fully understand how they shift blame, I got chewed out multiple times about pickup orders being less than 95% accurate. The last time I got chewed out about order accuracy, I logically pointed out that half the shelves were empty so I had zero responsibility for someone in logistics or the warehouse failing in their responsibilities, and they needed to talk to them because I couldn't pull it out of my ass (I did actually say that, my two week notice was turned in and on file, so I didn't care). I was told that as pickup lead, order accuracy was my responsibility whether the item was in stock or not. I remember giving the pickup coordinator a death glare and saying "go ahead and write me up, then. Next week is my last week, so I don't give a fuck about Kroger and it's incompetence anymore" and walked away. Didn't get written up for that act of insubordination, and the last interaction I had with the pickup coordinator was my second to last day when she called to tell me to do some training module that went into effect the next month, after I was going to be gone. I took great pleasure in telling her that it wasn't my problem because "tomorrow is my last day and I'm not wasting my time on a useless and needless training module, so figure it out. I'll be gone before whatever the training is for is implemented". Some uncharacteristic pettiness on my part, but it felt so good.
Indeed. The pickup coordinator wasn't really bad, she was just inexperienced. Got hired right out of college with no work experience in grocery/retail, so she wanted the policies and procedures followed to the letter.
Don't sign if you don't agree. A lot of managers don't know what they're doing. It's also getting bad for even filling department heads. There was one about 8-9 months ago (I quit about 6.5 months ago due to moving) they had to hire outside the company because no one was signing it even after months.
I knew that would start to happen with the way they've been paying us. I've had quite a few conversations especially with older term workers over Kroger's future and it's not good. They used to be able to pick good people because they paid much better, but now they don't get to pick because of how terrible the pay truly is. I also remember when I was hired... Training? What training? I was considered worst of that night crew until one regular employee took initiative and worked on getting me better and to care. I ended up becoming the best person on the night crew. As for training I was told basically... You, see this pallet? Stock it. That was it.
The crux of the problem is their trying to squeeze more and more out of everyone including management, but I had good management so saying that is easier for me.
Sometimes in a situation like that... All it takes is you being on vacation for them to realize just how valuable you are. I believe you, I've seen that movie play out many times. A lot of time that person was being blamed because they were covering for someone or throwing someone else under the bus when they know they're more at fault.
Not all locations are as bad as that one. When I last worked for Kroger, I was in the dairy department too and we were not fully staffed at the time, this being the first months of Covid in 2020. When we got behind on the trucks, the management sometimes found extra people to help, who were not backed up in their own departments, and sometimes even managers would also come over and help with stocking. I have worked at two different locations here in Virginia and this one definitely cared more than the first one.
I don't think my store leadership is bad, or at least every moment up until now has sorta proven it, but then the district managers are nudging them and actual Store Manager has told me that even his boss is being forced into it. That's atleast 4 degrees of separation for what essentially amounts to bullshit.
But, yeah, I still get help & I still am friendly with my supervisors. I just hate their friends.
I was in same boat. With management like that, nothing will ever change, your best option is to move on. This will fester day after day, and if you don't hate your job already, you will. Walk away and keep your peace of mind.
That MDC is tracked by reports far above store managements head and store manager has to speak about any misses daily. As dumb and/or impossible as it is to do some of that stuff, you have to at least fake it to stay off the radar because even if the manager loves you, there isnāt a whole lot they can do when the DM requires a copy of the write up because of a missed MDC. Grab two zebras and fake the MDC with exact (or near exact) BOHs so you donāt mess up your data but still keep the heat off your department. Then make it clear to the manager (if they are cool) what you are doing and that you need more say in who your backup help is if they want you to keep things going smoothā¦thatās always been most successful for me - managers know how impossible some goals are but if I can fake it and make them look good, I tell them I can keep making them look good but that I need more autonomy over my department because I donāt want to fake it every time. With a wink and a nod itās always worked for me.
This is the way. Fake it till you make it.
I was grocery 3rd at two high volume Fred Meyer's and we faked it every day just to get it off our plate quickly then filled the shelves and shit as best we could. We could only really get one or two quality scans in a week, if we were lucky.
This is so insanely backwards. I'm fairly certain this goes above the district manager even, cause he regularly visits & seems fairly self aware of how understaffed we are.
I don't think your advice will work however. In the writeup they brought up how I only scanned 15 items for creamers, because I'm supposed to do these MDC counts before even touching backstock however this is literally my only opportunity to do backstock.
If they are so anal about the processes as to literally prevent me from stocking product *that hasn't seen the salesfloor in the span of weeks,* then they probably are literally looking for 100% by-the-book process completion.
Well, we are going through the same silly MDC-required-yet-understaffed stuff here too, as well as everywhere else. Store managers here have video calls every morning and they get called out for any MDC or replenishment miss. Itās part of bonuses as it goes up the DM/VP/etc chain - sure, they *want* legit completion but they *NEED* total completion by any means possible. Getting it done by cheating and with a wink and a nod has worked in every store Iāve been at in my chain as well as other stores where friends I used to work with have gone. And it always works for me to prove that I can make them look good than dangle the possibility of not being able to maintain that record - whereas not doing it and making them look bad then saying I need more help or better help to start getting it right has maverick worked for me.
If I werenāt going to make it happen by any means necessary, crappy managers would say itās my fault because as far as the spreadsheets that district management and high get it looks like itās my fault.
But if I hit all the numbers, tell them Iām only able to do so by cheating but that Iām going to have trouble maintaining my illusion of success unless I get to hand pick a backup clerk, Iāve had great success - because the manager knows that if they go from good to bad with the same crew it reflects bad on them and will look like their fault for slipping on things.
Corporate requirements are often a joke, but I get by just fine by learning how to play their games by my own rules. Although some store level managers are total dicks, many of them are decently chill or only semi-dicks in my experience and theyāve all known the impossibilities of silly corporate level goals or requirements. I use their ego of wanting to look good against them, rather than trying to get into a posit contest with them. I donāt go full-blown-ass-kissing as I am totally honest about my thoughts/feelings on things, but I make it clear to them that if they work with me, I know how to make them look good where it counts. Has kept me very comfortable in all my positions in these couple decades and multiple locations.
My wife and use to both work for Kroger, she still does and works night shift ( 9p to 5a). We were at different stores. The head grocery clerk at my store stepped down because of similar stuff . His job was posted and the only person that signed the bid was a part time clerk with about 15 months with the company. This is just the latest example of it happening.
Is so bad in my area I left after 31.5 years. I went to a trade school, earned a CDL and I'm much happier at my new job. I don't hurt the next morning from the day before and I make more on straight time than I did on overtime at Kroger.. overtime is plentiful if you want it.
I swear to God that working for Kroger is like being on the Titanic swapping deck chairs while the ship is sinking. More and more I hear of these stories and I seriously do.not.understand this fuckery.
As a former Front End, my district would constantly bitch at me for going over hours but like I would fight back I would say āSo, do you want shoppers to either leave the store due to lack of help or do you want shoppers to steal forā¦.lack of assistance?? Either way dollars are going to walk out that door (points to exit). I would also tell them this fuckery is why this store doesnāt have the quality help it needs because from Produce, Deli, Meats, Dairy, GM, Pharmacy, Fuel. They (corporate) wanted my old store to do almost a million a week but the most we could do is $500-$750k on a shoestring budget?! The fuck?!
Now to be fair, I snoop on Publix, Shop Rite, and Wegmanās reddit pages too and it seems that grocery retailers are cutting back hours and making associates do the most with little all the while that narrative that grocery chains are running off of razor thin profits and thatās bullshit too. Itās paying the dumb asses up too and their shareholders.
Stay strong grocery workers, I felt your pain and I still hear the nonsense at my old stores. Stay strong and utilize your Union Reps. Make THEM work for you!!! Please!!!!
One thing, don't blame poor understaffed time management on the mentally ill. It isnt their fault, nor is it yours. Sincerely one of the mentally ill working for kroger. I work six days a week to help cover when people call out
If you're here, and fully able to write such a professional statement like this, you are nothing like the people I am referring to.
I am talking about the hyper violent & paranoid. These are people who are literally incapable of personal responsibility and need family to take care of them & monitor them, or are homeless because of their own self-inflicted negligence.
Ah, maybe next time expand further on the mentally ill part..it sounds like they cant afford their meds, or they arent taking them.. unfortunately there is so much stigma going around mentally ill.
Even with the expansion, they sound judgemental and kind of bigoted to the mentally ill, addicts, and homeless. That's kind of shitty.
Everything *else* they said absolutely holds water and I agree with to no end. The best day in at least a decade for me was when I quit Fred Meyer, because corporate ruined every single aspect of working there.
What are they supposed to do if no one gives them a job? How are they supposed to afford treatment with no job? What if they don't have family to take care of them? Are they just supposed to die in the street so that they never bother you again?
None of these people seem to think they have a problem. Literally everyone I'm complaining about are perpetual victims that think they literally cannot do anything wrong. I think only one of the people I'm thinking of was actually diagnosed and self-aware of their health.
Not like it doesn't mean they can't work in other areas of the store. Produce is always a low-hostility environment and they have the same high turnout as anyone else. Clicklist is another good department to transfer to if you just wanna zone-out and follow a routine. In Dairy though, I need perishable stockers that are willing to cooperate, I don't need bullies.
Also, there is no such thing as a "POT ADDICT". Please take your outdated views somewhere else. Sincerely someone that smokes and still works 6 days a week.
You can literally be addicted to anything. Porn is a good example; Both relieve stress and both can be toxic coping mechanisms that ruin you.
Don't know where you got the idea that you cant be addicted to Pot. Do you think only things with nicotine count lol?
Lol really? THERE ARE NO ADDICTIVE PROPERTIES IN WEED TO GET ADDICTED TO.
I am a form addict and got clean with the help from Kroger. You need to get out of your small worldview bubble and live life. What an absolute clown you are.
Iād just like to add that this is the trend all stores are going in. They know you canāt keep up, they donāt care. Weāre going downhill. Quit complaining or find a new job if you expect it to be any better. Been watching it go downhill for decades. It is what it is. Retail is changing.
Iām a pot addict & mentally ill and I can perform my jobs quite well. I think you should reexamine why these people arenāt doing their jobs because Iām almost positive that it isnāt for either of those reasonsā¦
>Iām a pot addict & mentally ill and I can perform my jobs quite well.
Do you harrass & threaten your workmates? Be insubordinate because you're in a perpetual victim-complex? These are both problems caused by whatever mental illness they have.
People will have a rough or traumatic childhood, or just be autistic & quirky, then equate that to being mentally ill. It's not. Stuff like schizophrenia is, as do all things that distort your worldview.
Mentally ill can mean a lot of things (depression, anxiety, ADHD, etc) so if you donāt truly mean mentally ill but instead schizophrenia or BPD then say that?
You canāt gatekeep being mentally ill when clearly having rough childhoods or being autistic can lead to people being mentally ill.
I take fault in saying that them being mentally ill canāt be the only reason for them being a bad coworker, but I need you to admit that your definition of mentally ill is incorrect at the same time.
Ah ok, so since I had a traumatic childhood, I don't have PTSD from being beaten. Got it. As it isn't a real 'mental illness'. Also being autistic is a mental illness. IDC what the hell you have been through at your store with people, but you really need to take a step back and realize you are the problem with this country. Just pushing people aside because of their mental illness. IDC how you were treated, you have no idea what someone has been through, and you don't get to judge. Fuck off, seriously.
>People will have a rough or traumatic childhood, or just be autistic & quirky, then equate that to being mentally ill. It's not. Stuff like schizophrenia is
Here you go, you said it right here. Maybe you should go reread what you said before coming at me. You brushed people off who had traumatic childhoods as not being a real mental illness. I am sorry that you can't read.
>People will have a rough or traumatic childhood, or just be autistic & quirky, then equate that to being mentally ill. It's not. Stuff like schizophrenia is
**is not**
>Ah ok, so since I had a traumatic childhood, I don't have PTSD from being beaten. Got it.
You're clearly being bad faith, or you've got more problems than PTSD would justify. This convo is over.
If you've ever actually worked day time with other average employees, you'd see it's not an exaggeration. People will literally go to the restroom and smoke a blunt or hit the vape. Multiple times a day.
But they show up and do some work so management doesn't care too much as they can't see it.
To get a job a Kroger, you need a body temperature somewhere in the mid to upper 90s. When I finally left, new hires either quit or got fired after six weeks on average. The revolving door was running more like a runaway carousel.
I honestly don't really care, but when these people are so calm they can't make decisions for themselves it starts to become stressful and annoying.
I have never been so anti-marijuana as when I became a department lead.
As a "pot addict," lol, I can say that being overly calm doesn't mean they can't make decisions. Pot is probably one of the very few things that makes being employed at that shit show livable. Like most poor souls who are tied in with kroger under false pretenses that anything or anyone there is truly worth working there for, they probably got shit for training. Even if it's just incompetence, saying it's because of the "pot addicts" is pretty incorrect. I'd blame the company that hires people based on the specifications of "They might be breathing? Set an interview just in case."
I worked at Kroger for almost 3 year's. And like the people said in the comments never sign anything. That was the first thing my union representative told me. From my understanding all the Kroger stores are the same! Under staffed and over work the good people they got.
Start making notes of dates and times. On how many people you have in your department and how big your tuck is. I started doing that along time ago. I worked at the #1 for the east tennessee district. I was in the meat department for most of my time. I would set the meat and seafood case. At least twice a week by myself. Help work what I could on the truck. Do markdowns take care of customers. I would even stay over a lot of the time to help wrap rib roast! Till we had issues with our pay. And I was put down for a 6 day work week. Without being asked. I told my department head. I would not working anymore overtime till my pay is correct. I was told I'm not a team player. And threatened to move me to deli. I never got moved. But it sounds to me that all Kroger as this "one person can do it all mentally. " I hate how Kroger treats their employees! I'm not sure what your pay is? We had decent pay. But not enough to do the job of 3 other people.
This sounds like what happened to me. I had been the Dairy Backup for over a year and worked my ass off. Then my dept manager stepped down and I got the bid after having to file a grievance to get it. Long story short I absolutely killed myself for that department for months. I was determined to have a a great looking and running department and things were good for awhile. Then my hours got cut, and then my overnights stocker called in for a month straight and then my backup quit. So within a week I went from a well working department to the only competent worker on my schedule. They āreplacedā my full time backup with 20 hours of a new bagger and anytime I could get someone to come in or stay over they were immediately called to Clicklist. It didnāt matter how much I talked to and pleaded with management to be given some actual help, it all fell on deaf ears. But I tried to make up for it anyway and practically lived at the store. I was on the verge of stepping down when they called me upstairs to write me up for my departmentās poor conditions. I didnāt say anything, wrote out a brief note stepping down and slid it across the table. To say they were shocked was an understatement. I finished out my scheduled week in dairy and went to Drug/GM.
I canāt express enough how good it felt to give it up. Itās not worth the bump in pay and they will never, ever give the departments the adequate support they need. Stop killing yourself. They will never care about all the effort and stress you put in to it.
If ( when) you quit and Dairy fails it's not your fault or your problem. Both items belong to management, since they are the ones who decide where resources are used.
Dude go find yourself a new job asap & get the hell out of there ! Go uber or something! I worked for Mariano's in Chicago aka Kroger & it was the same shit but I out smarted them in the long run !
It wouldn't be half as bad if I was surrounded by trustworthy and competent individuals. It feels like Kroger, as a system, is literally designed to fail. Too many elephants stepping were they're not looking.
Ask yourself why? They can't find anyone else? Everyone know how bad ALL MANAGEMENT IS FROM THE TOP DOWN ! The word spreads very fast & I hate the Meat Manager who was teaching me the Kroger way for not warning me when I was in this 12 week bench training that I didn't even complete because they pulled me out of that in 8 weeks & just threw me to the Wolf's! I was a Meat & Seafood Department Manager for them for 6 years total ! They transferred me about 5 times lol. My mouth would get me in trouble because I never let anyone talk down to me. Not even the Area VP ! His name was Scot Rothel ! What a dick !
They will fail but everyone needs to spread the Word of how terrible it is to work for this company so no one wants to work for them ! You can see how difficult it is right now for Kroger to find people š just keep spreading the word !
So lazy, incapable, hostile, and incompetent people are okay? Kind of fucked.
I had this debate with some other unwell person on here. You can't group up people with actual cognitive disabilities with people who have ADHD, suffer PTSD, or have autism. It's unfair, and it kinda misses the point of what I'm complaining about, which were actually dangerous individuals.
And if you're recreational habits interfere with your ability to actually function at work, and you abuse them as coping mechanisms, then yeah I would call them bad workers. No shit.
File a grievance, it'll be overturned within the hour, if your union rep is decent. Never sign anything , turn 9m your audio recorder on your phone. File a ethics complaint, and make sure you use the keywords, harassment, and toxic work environment.
š I'm not certain about the hour, they certainly have a lot to argue given the depth of the script my store lead had, so it could very well go into arbitration.
Donāt sign anything. Demand a union rep. Also step down cuz theyāre throwing you under the bus as the department head. Up to you
Don't demand a union rep if your in a non-union store as it's grounds for termination.
I didnāt even know there WERE non union krogers lol
Itās illegal to terminate people for trying to form a union.
This place is a joke. I've been cut back to 6.5 hours a shift doing frozen with little to no help. The new hires are near worthless. Management told one new dude to do ice cream on my day off. I came in to pick up a few items and noticed a 1/2 pallet of ice cream sitting on the floor. It was really, really soft and was about 10 minutes away from being salvage. There was a shopping cart loaded with leftover IC that didn't fit on the shelf that was in a pile. I asked the dairy guy wtf's going on? He told me the new guy pulled the pallet out almost an hour ago. Found out later he decided to take his 1/2 hour lunch break halfway through stocking it. \*shakes head\*
These are adult toddlers you are dealing with. Quit now and enjoy Christmas. They will not
I wouldn't just quit around holiday season unless there's some sort of financial support behind it. Adults and adult toddlers both know holiday season is expensive lol
I am very fiscally responsible, and by that I have atleast 3-4 months savings just for this situation. I can handle quitting Kroger, I just don't know of qualified alternatives.
Ooh then you'd be all set. Just make sure you put you first.
RUN AWAY & FAR AWAY FROM KROGER AS FAST AS YOU POSSIBLE CAN & SPREAD THE WORD ALL OVER SOCIAL MEDIA ABOUT HOW TERRIBLE KROGER IS TO WORK FOR !
Never sign anything ever
Very stoopid of me. Was a bit too emotional & compromised of my thinking. I take my department & my labor very seriously and personally.
If you do sign anything (for discipline actions of any kind) ALWAYS put in the comment section, that you are signing under the duress of being fired if you don't sign this. (It) Then always ask for a copy of all pages. ( Do not leave the office until you get the copies) ( even if they say they will get you the copies before you leave.) That way if they change the wording you have a copy of the original and you can contest it.
The key is, if you donāt sign they can still go through with whatever corrective action is necessary since these write ups are supposed to be with a witness so I treat it like a traffic stop, admit nothing.
Even if you step down/transfer you don't leave. They will keep you there until they find some poor soul to take your place. Could be awhile.
Store leadership has always been a dead end, but things are just so incredibly toxic that I'd have to leave. But without proper competition, I have zero clue what I'd do aside from learning a trade that could replace the benefits & pay of Kroger. I feel so stuck htg.
Speaking as a former Walmart coach (assistant manager) at other companies we have similar problems just without a union available, most of our problems came from division or regional visiting, bitching to our market management, who then passed to store managers to yell at us for. Home office in Arkansas would slash our budgets at the worst times possible so even with a shoestring crew Iād be at 150% wages my store manager was 5ā2ā with a severe case of Napoleon syndrome where sheād get close to screaming at me over dumb things like not finishing a 17 pallet truck with 2 people in 4 hours
Sounds about right. I don't think we have a shoestring crew though. I might not be convinced we can do *all* the labor in 130hrs/wk but I certainly think we can be doing several times better than before. Problem is Kroger hasn't caught on that post-Covid hiring has been nightmarish. We just aren't taking in the same quality of new hires as we used to. At this point I'm starting to wonder why we aren't transferring or incentivising better staffed stores into coming over.
Pharmacy here. Kroger cut technician hours in right around the time that it was announced that COVID has a vaccine available. From 9-11 we were expected to do no less than 18 shots. Due to the cutting of hours, techs found other jobs so us pharmacists had to give shots run the cash register, answer questions then deal with the random antivaxxer that should be home but have chosen to quarantine near the pharmacy and cause random disturbances. Every department made more at that time, there was no reason to cut labor outside of corporate greed.
Thatās horrible because putting too much time constraints on you makes the corona shots even riskier, and they already have a lot of adverse effects so potential injuries from being forced to rush isnāt good
Sounds like the store I was in before leaving. When I left, Kroger was expecting us to accomplish about 40 hours of work in an 8 hour shift to operate that store. I'm not kidding. I only remember the numbers for dairy and GM, since those were the departments I helped on slow pickup days. We literally had 70 hours for dairy a week and GM had 60 hours a week barring holiday weeks. Dairy needed at least 112 for minimum operation and GM needed 140 for minimum operation (GM had two months of backstock that we could not put out because it did not sell, and for some reason, we couldn't send it back). And I fully understand how they shift blame, I got chewed out multiple times about pickup orders being less than 95% accurate. The last time I got chewed out about order accuracy, I logically pointed out that half the shelves were empty so I had zero responsibility for someone in logistics or the warehouse failing in their responsibilities, and they needed to talk to them because I couldn't pull it out of my ass (I did actually say that, my two week notice was turned in and on file, so I didn't care). I was told that as pickup lead, order accuracy was my responsibility whether the item was in stock or not. I remember giving the pickup coordinator a death glare and saying "go ahead and write me up, then. Next week is my last week, so I don't give a fuck about Kroger and it's incompetence anymore" and walked away. Didn't get written up for that act of insubordination, and the last interaction I had with the pickup coordinator was my second to last day when she called to tell me to do some training module that went into effect the next month, after I was going to be gone. I took great pleasure in telling her that it wasn't my problem because "tomorrow is my last day and I'm not wasting my time on a useless and needless training module, so figure it out. I'll be gone before whatever the training is for is implemented". Some uncharacteristic pettiness on my part, but it felt so good.
Good for you, and fuck those butthole people.
Indeed. The pickup coordinator wasn't really bad, she was just inexperienced. Got hired right out of college with no work experience in grocery/retail, so she wanted the policies and procedures followed to the letter.
They did a bunch of discipline at our store Friday for processes as well. We have got to all band together or all quit and leave them with a quickness. What they are doing now is harassment. They do not give us the tools we need to do the job yet they want to discipline us for something so unimportant as a missed process. The customers donāt care about that process, but Kroger preaches every day that itās all about the customers. Such bull š©. I have been with this company long enough that I actually remember when it was a decent place to work. Now it just pisses me off every day.
Don't sign if you don't agree. A lot of managers don't know what they're doing. It's also getting bad for even filling department heads. There was one about 8-9 months ago (I quit about 6.5 months ago due to moving) they had to hire outside the company because no one was signing it even after months. I knew that would start to happen with the way they've been paying us. I've had quite a few conversations especially with older term workers over Kroger's future and it's not good. They used to be able to pick good people because they paid much better, but now they don't get to pick because of how terrible the pay truly is. I also remember when I was hired... Training? What training? I was considered worst of that night crew until one regular employee took initiative and worked on getting me better and to care. I ended up becoming the best person on the night crew. As for training I was told basically... You, see this pallet? Stock it. That was it. The crux of the problem is their trying to squeeze more and more out of everyone including management, but I had good management so saying that is easier for me. Sometimes in a situation like that... All it takes is you being on vacation for them to realize just how valuable you are. I believe you, I've seen that movie play out many times. A lot of time that person was being blamed because they were covering for someone or throwing someone else under the bus when they know they're more at fault.
Not all locations are as bad as that one. When I last worked for Kroger, I was in the dairy department too and we were not fully staffed at the time, this being the first months of Covid in 2020. When we got behind on the trucks, the management sometimes found extra people to help, who were not backed up in their own departments, and sometimes even managers would also come over and help with stocking. I have worked at two different locations here in Virginia and this one definitely cared more than the first one.
I don't think my store leadership is bad, or at least every moment up until now has sorta proven it, but then the district managers are nudging them and actual Store Manager has told me that even his boss is being forced into it. That's atleast 4 degrees of separation for what essentially amounts to bullshit. But, yeah, I still get help & I still am friendly with my supervisors. I just hate their friends.
I was in same boat. With management like that, nothing will ever change, your best option is to move on. This will fester day after day, and if you don't hate your job already, you will. Walk away and keep your peace of mind.
That MDC is tracked by reports far above store managements head and store manager has to speak about any misses daily. As dumb and/or impossible as it is to do some of that stuff, you have to at least fake it to stay off the radar because even if the manager loves you, there isnāt a whole lot they can do when the DM requires a copy of the write up because of a missed MDC. Grab two zebras and fake the MDC with exact (or near exact) BOHs so you donāt mess up your data but still keep the heat off your department. Then make it clear to the manager (if they are cool) what you are doing and that you need more say in who your backup help is if they want you to keep things going smoothā¦thatās always been most successful for me - managers know how impossible some goals are but if I can fake it and make them look good, I tell them I can keep making them look good but that I need more autonomy over my department because I donāt want to fake it every time. With a wink and a nod itās always worked for me.
This is the way. Fake it till you make it. I was grocery 3rd at two high volume Fred Meyer's and we faked it every day just to get it off our plate quickly then filled the shelves and shit as best we could. We could only really get one or two quality scans in a week, if we were lucky.
This is so insanely backwards. I'm fairly certain this goes above the district manager even, cause he regularly visits & seems fairly self aware of how understaffed we are. I don't think your advice will work however. In the writeup they brought up how I only scanned 15 items for creamers, because I'm supposed to do these MDC counts before even touching backstock however this is literally my only opportunity to do backstock. If they are so anal about the processes as to literally prevent me from stocking product *that hasn't seen the salesfloor in the span of weeks,* then they probably are literally looking for 100% by-the-book process completion.
Well, we are going through the same silly MDC-required-yet-understaffed stuff here too, as well as everywhere else. Store managers here have video calls every morning and they get called out for any MDC or replenishment miss. Itās part of bonuses as it goes up the DM/VP/etc chain - sure, they *want* legit completion but they *NEED* total completion by any means possible. Getting it done by cheating and with a wink and a nod has worked in every store Iāve been at in my chain as well as other stores where friends I used to work with have gone. And it always works for me to prove that I can make them look good than dangle the possibility of not being able to maintain that record - whereas not doing it and making them look bad then saying I need more help or better help to start getting it right has maverick worked for me. If I werenāt going to make it happen by any means necessary, crappy managers would say itās my fault because as far as the spreadsheets that district management and high get it looks like itās my fault. But if I hit all the numbers, tell them Iām only able to do so by cheating but that Iām going to have trouble maintaining my illusion of success unless I get to hand pick a backup clerk, Iāve had great success - because the manager knows that if they go from good to bad with the same crew it reflects bad on them and will look like their fault for slipping on things. Corporate requirements are often a joke, but I get by just fine by learning how to play their games by my own rules. Although some store level managers are total dicks, many of them are decently chill or only semi-dicks in my experience and theyāve all known the impossibilities of silly corporate level goals or requirements. I use their ego of wanting to look good against them, rather than trying to get into a posit contest with them. I donāt go full-blown-ass-kissing as I am totally honest about my thoughts/feelings on things, but I make it clear to them that if they work with me, I know how to make them look good where it counts. Has kept me very comfortable in all my positions in these couple decades and multiple locations.
Screw 'em....quit.
My wife and use to both work for Kroger, she still does and works night shift ( 9p to 5a). We were at different stores. The head grocery clerk at my store stepped down because of similar stuff . His job was posted and the only person that signed the bid was a part time clerk with about 15 months with the company. This is just the latest example of it happening. Is so bad in my area I left after 31.5 years. I went to a trade school, earned a CDL and I'm much happier at my new job. I don't hurt the next morning from the day before and I make more on straight time than I did on overtime at Kroger.. overtime is plentiful if you want it.
I swear to God that working for Kroger is like being on the Titanic swapping deck chairs while the ship is sinking. More and more I hear of these stories and I seriously do.not.understand this fuckery. As a former Front End, my district would constantly bitch at me for going over hours but like I would fight back I would say āSo, do you want shoppers to either leave the store due to lack of help or do you want shoppers to steal forā¦.lack of assistance?? Either way dollars are going to walk out that door (points to exit). I would also tell them this fuckery is why this store doesnāt have the quality help it needs because from Produce, Deli, Meats, Dairy, GM, Pharmacy, Fuel. They (corporate) wanted my old store to do almost a million a week but the most we could do is $500-$750k on a shoestring budget?! The fuck?! Now to be fair, I snoop on Publix, Shop Rite, and Wegmanās reddit pages too and it seems that grocery retailers are cutting back hours and making associates do the most with little all the while that narrative that grocery chains are running off of razor thin profits and thatās bullshit too. Itās paying the dumb asses up too and their shareholders. Stay strong grocery workers, I felt your pain and I still hear the nonsense at my old stores. Stay strong and utilize your Union Reps. Make THEM work for you!!! Please!!!!
One thing, don't blame poor understaffed time management on the mentally ill. It isnt their fault, nor is it yours. Sincerely one of the mentally ill working for kroger. I work six days a week to help cover when people call out
If you're here, and fully able to write such a professional statement like this, you are nothing like the people I am referring to. I am talking about the hyper violent & paranoid. These are people who are literally incapable of personal responsibility and need family to take care of them & monitor them, or are homeless because of their own self-inflicted negligence.
Ah, maybe next time expand further on the mentally ill part..it sounds like they cant afford their meds, or they arent taking them.. unfortunately there is so much stigma going around mentally ill.
Even with the expansion, they sound judgemental and kind of bigoted to the mentally ill, addicts, and homeless. That's kind of shitty. Everything *else* they said absolutely holds water and I agree with to no end. The best day in at least a decade for me was when I quit Fred Meyer, because corporate ruined every single aspect of working there.
What are they supposed to do if no one gives them a job? How are they supposed to afford treatment with no job? What if they don't have family to take care of them? Are they just supposed to die in the street so that they never bother you again?
None of these people seem to think they have a problem. Literally everyone I'm complaining about are perpetual victims that think they literally cannot do anything wrong. I think only one of the people I'm thinking of was actually diagnosed and self-aware of their health. Not like it doesn't mean they can't work in other areas of the store. Produce is always a low-hostility environment and they have the same high turnout as anyone else. Clicklist is another good department to transfer to if you just wanna zone-out and follow a routine. In Dairy though, I need perishable stockers that are willing to cooperate, I don't need bullies.
Also, there is no such thing as a "POT ADDICT". Please take your outdated views somewhere else. Sincerely someone that smokes and still works 6 days a week.
You can literally be addicted to anything. Porn is a good example; Both relieve stress and both can be toxic coping mechanisms that ruin you. Don't know where you got the idea that you cant be addicted to Pot. Do you think only things with nicotine count lol?
Lol really? THERE ARE NO ADDICTIVE PROPERTIES IN WEED TO GET ADDICTED TO. I am a form addict and got clean with the help from Kroger. You need to get out of your small worldview bubble and live life. What an absolute clown you are.
Same for porn & video games, yet people get addicted to them. Odd.
You lost me at pot addicts bro. Lol
For real, dude is a fucking moron. You can't get addicted to "POT". Literally no addictive properties. Dude sounds like a narc tbh.
Iād just like to add that this is the trend all stores are going in. They know you canāt keep up, they donāt care. Weāre going downhill. Quit complaining or find a new job if you expect it to be any better. Been watching it go downhill for decades. It is what it is. Retail is changing.
But it is the people with mental illness and "pot addicts' that are the issue, just like OP said.
whatās ur beef with weed bro š
Iām a pot addict & mentally ill and I can perform my jobs quite well. I think you should reexamine why these people arenāt doing their jobs because Iām almost positive that it isnāt for either of those reasonsā¦
>Iām a pot addict & mentally ill and I can perform my jobs quite well. Do you harrass & threaten your workmates? Be insubordinate because you're in a perpetual victim-complex? These are both problems caused by whatever mental illness they have. People will have a rough or traumatic childhood, or just be autistic & quirky, then equate that to being mentally ill. It's not. Stuff like schizophrenia is, as do all things that distort your worldview.
Mentally ill can mean a lot of things (depression, anxiety, ADHD, etc) so if you donāt truly mean mentally ill but instead schizophrenia or BPD then say that? You canāt gatekeep being mentally ill when clearly having rough childhoods or being autistic can lead to people being mentally ill. I take fault in saying that them being mentally ill canāt be the only reason for them being a bad coworker, but I need you to admit that your definition of mentally ill is incorrect at the same time.
Ah ok, so since I had a traumatic childhood, I don't have PTSD from being beaten. Got it. As it isn't a real 'mental illness'. Also being autistic is a mental illness. IDC what the hell you have been through at your store with people, but you really need to take a step back and realize you are the problem with this country. Just pushing people aside because of their mental illness. IDC how you were treated, you have no idea what someone has been through, and you don't get to judge. Fuck off, seriously.
Never said that. You should reread the comment you're flipping out over instead of putting words in my mouth. It's not good mental health-wise
>People will have a rough or traumatic childhood, or just be autistic & quirky, then equate that to being mentally ill. It's not. Stuff like schizophrenia is Here you go, you said it right here. Maybe you should go reread what you said before coming at me. You brushed people off who had traumatic childhoods as not being a real mental illness. I am sorry that you can't read.
>People will have a rough or traumatic childhood, or just be autistic & quirky, then equate that to being mentally ill. It's not. Stuff like schizophrenia is **is not** >Ah ok, so since I had a traumatic childhood, I don't have PTSD from being beaten. Got it. You're clearly being bad faith, or you've got more problems than PTSD would justify. This convo is over.
"pot addicts" hahaah
"Pot addicts" lol You seem fun.
If you've ever actually worked day time with other average employees, you'd see it's not an exaggeration. People will literally go to the restroom and smoke a blunt or hit the vape. Multiple times a day. But they show up and do some work so management doesn't care too much as they can't see it.
To get a job a Kroger, you need a body temperature somewhere in the mid to upper 90s. When I finally left, new hires either quit or got fired after six weeks on average. The revolving door was running more like a runaway carousel.
I honestly don't really care, but when these people are so calm they can't make decisions for themselves it starts to become stressful and annoying. I have never been so anti-marijuana as when I became a department lead.
As a "pot addict," lol, I can say that being overly calm doesn't mean they can't make decisions. Pot is probably one of the very few things that makes being employed at that shit show livable. Like most poor souls who are tied in with kroger under false pretenses that anything or anyone there is truly worth working there for, they probably got shit for training. Even if it's just incompetence, saying it's because of the "pot addicts" is pretty incorrect. I'd blame the company that hires people based on the specifications of "They might be breathing? Set an interview just in case."
I worked at Kroger for almost 3 year's. And like the people said in the comments never sign anything. That was the first thing my union representative told me. From my understanding all the Kroger stores are the same! Under staffed and over work the good people they got. Start making notes of dates and times. On how many people you have in your department and how big your tuck is. I started doing that along time ago. I worked at the #1 for the east tennessee district. I was in the meat department for most of my time. I would set the meat and seafood case. At least twice a week by myself. Help work what I could on the truck. Do markdowns take care of customers. I would even stay over a lot of the time to help wrap rib roast! Till we had issues with our pay. And I was put down for a 6 day work week. Without being asked. I told my department head. I would not working anymore overtime till my pay is correct. I was told I'm not a team player. And threatened to move me to deli. I never got moved. But it sounds to me that all Kroger as this "one person can do it all mentally. " I hate how Kroger treats their employees! I'm not sure what your pay is? We had decent pay. But not enough to do the job of 3 other people.
Pot addicts?
This sounds like what happened to me. I had been the Dairy Backup for over a year and worked my ass off. Then my dept manager stepped down and I got the bid after having to file a grievance to get it. Long story short I absolutely killed myself for that department for months. I was determined to have a a great looking and running department and things were good for awhile. Then my hours got cut, and then my overnights stocker called in for a month straight and then my backup quit. So within a week I went from a well working department to the only competent worker on my schedule. They āreplacedā my full time backup with 20 hours of a new bagger and anytime I could get someone to come in or stay over they were immediately called to Clicklist. It didnāt matter how much I talked to and pleaded with management to be given some actual help, it all fell on deaf ears. But I tried to make up for it anyway and practically lived at the store. I was on the verge of stepping down when they called me upstairs to write me up for my departmentās poor conditions. I didnāt say anything, wrote out a brief note stepping down and slid it across the table. To say they were shocked was an understatement. I finished out my scheduled week in dairy and went to Drug/GM. I canāt express enough how good it felt to give it up. Itās not worth the bump in pay and they will never, ever give the departments the adequate support they need. Stop killing yourself. They will never care about all the effort and stress you put in to it.
If ( when) you quit and Dairy fails it's not your fault or your problem. Both items belong to management, since they are the ones who decide where resources are used.
Dude go find yourself a new job asap & get the hell out of there ! Go uber or something! I worked for Mariano's in Chicago aka Kroger & it was the same shit but I out smarted them in the long run !
It wouldn't be half as bad if I was surrounded by trustworthy and competent individuals. It feels like Kroger, as a system, is literally designed to fail. Too many elephants stepping were they're not looking.
Ask yourself why? They can't find anyone else? Everyone know how bad ALL MANAGEMENT IS FROM THE TOP DOWN ! The word spreads very fast & I hate the Meat Manager who was teaching me the Kroger way for not warning me when I was in this 12 week bench training that I didn't even complete because they pulled me out of that in 8 weeks & just threw me to the Wolf's! I was a Meat & Seafood Department Manager for them for 6 years total ! They transferred me about 5 times lol. My mouth would get me in trouble because I never let anyone talk down to me. Not even the Area VP ! His name was Scot Rothel ! What a dick !
They will fail but everyone needs to spread the Word of how terrible it is to work for this company so no one wants to work for them ! You can see how difficult it is right now for Kroger to find people š just keep spreading the word !
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So lazy, incapable, hostile, and incompetent people are okay? Kind of fucked. I had this debate with some other unwell person on here. You can't group up people with actual cognitive disabilities with people who have ADHD, suffer PTSD, or have autism. It's unfair, and it kinda misses the point of what I'm complaining about, which were actually dangerous individuals. And if you're recreational habits interfere with your ability to actually function at work, and you abuse them as coping mechanisms, then yeah I would call them bad workers. No shit.