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  • More Adventures in Tagging

    ASM just told me last night that this next week has a huge amount of tags (if it's also another reset Night Crew Lead is going to go apeshit and I don't blame him) and I'm supposed to work even though a) I requested that weekend off weeks ago and b) I have a train to catch at 7AM on Friday. Mom's going with me on this trip, so she basically has the say on when I can work (which depends on when we need to call a taxi and if she can have the driver swing by the store to pick me up). She spends a crapload of money at the store, and ASM doesn't want to annoy her (also, annoyed mom means that she won't bring ASM the extras whenever she bakes cookies).

    You'd think that the correct thing to do as a manager is to let one's only available pricing person know about a time-off blackout day as soon as you find out about it, no?

    Now, on with the countdown!

    3) A good portion of the tags I'm given aren't even dated-sale tags, but the "New Everyday Low Price" tags that I'm convinced most shoppers don't really look at. Possibly because the "New Low Price!" is the same price that's been on the shelf for a month or more, so all we're doing is drawing attention to prices that people are already used to. For added fun, a lot of these tags are 'corrections' where the only difference is one day on the "Good Through" date (which itself is pointless) I should have gotten a picture of this last night, but will try to explain.

    Item A has a "New Low Price!" tag with a good-through (why? it's not like the price goes back up after that date) date of 5/14. The "new" tag has a good-through date of 5/15. Unlike the sale tags which are black-on-white printing, these for some reason are poor-resolution white on blue and the dates aren't even noticeable unless you spend a few seconds squinting at it.

    Adding even further to the clutter, these tags often don't get taken down after their 'sell by' date (see? even associates don't pay attention to the damn things) so I have to spend time pulling those which means less time to do my job.

    2) I still can't figure out how they're organized (aside from by aisle, and even that's not a given). I hate getting to the end of an aisle only to find 2 or 3 tags that go in the other end of the store (or a different aisle altogether). Sorting by brand/vendor is only really helpful for me in Frozen, because that means I have to spend less time with my bare hands in the coolers. I have gloves, but they don't help if I have to pull off five layers of old tags that have frozen to each other and the shelf (can't do that with gloved hands).

    1) I need help. Even if I got someone that I had to train, that would be two bodies doing the tags. Before, they had three. I am getting two rookies for next week, one of whom is pretty sharp and will help train the other guy (for what it's worth, I was never trained past 'this is how you match up tags'), but I don't know if that arrangement is permanent or not. Yes, I did two overnights in a row this week--and still didn't finish--but it's not something I want to repeat (or can repeat, depending on whether my petsitting job requires me to be elsewhere--if I'm three towns over, I am not taking the bus at that hour and I am not leaving the dog alone if the owner has said I shouldn't). My 'supervisor' is apparently able to get the store done in one shift (and my predecessor actually did, but she didn't get the chance to train me); most of the other department managers are wondering why the hell I haven't been given help yet if it's clear I can't do the same. Some weeks Night Crew Lead wants me to help stock shelves but also wants me to get the tags done before I do that...

    It's not that I mind the job, it's just that they still expect me to do the entire store by myself in one shift despite clear evidence that I can't (some nights I can get more done than others, but not everything).
    Last edited by Dreamstalker; 04-27-2014, 03:57 AM.
    "I am quite confident that I do exist."
    "Excuse me, I'm making perfect sense. You're just not keeping up." The Doctor

  • #2
    I'm convinced that the people who make up the sale tags just don't think about it's done. I can be going along down an aisle everything's in order and I am in the tag zone when all of sudden there's ONE tag for something in a completely different department.

    And the sheer amount of tags is out of control. When I first started there were two kinds: monthly and weekly. Now it's up to four or five depending on the sale. End of month which is today (I'm off!) takes two days to do. And on top of all those they made some changes that adds even more tags to make it easier to understand. Yeah, people either understand the sale or they don't.
    I would have a nice day, but I have other things to do.

    Comment


    • #3
      Half the tags we get we probably don't need--about a third of what I had last night were duplicates (and not labeled as such). More time wasted. Boss only wants one tag per item, so if Item Z is in the middle of a multi-week cycle (green tag) I'm supposed to rip that one down in favor of a weekly tag. Only to replace the green tag the next week. I apparently can't center the weekly tag over the green one (all that has to be done is tear off the red tag and the green one is still there). Which, while it makes sense (SC sees both prices, refuses to read and pitches a fit), doesn't in the sense that it's one more timewaster.

      My store needs something like this. Which would make my job a hell of a lot easier...all I would have to do is make sure everything is synced and we could just have the weekly paper shelf tags (or not even those). The rest of my shift could be spent helping out the night crew who needs the extra body more often than not. Whoever we have pulling tags isn't doing a very good job; last night I found tags from February still up.
      Last edited by Dreamstalker; 04-29-2014, 01:17 PM.
      "I am quite confident that I do exist."
      "Excuse me, I'm making perfect sense. You're just not keeping up." The Doctor

      Comment


      • #4
        I think my company was looking into the electronic tag thing but as of right now the technology is just too expensive to use. But judging the way the company holds on to technology (our old registers before they upgraded three years ago were literally from 1985) I don't think we'll be seeing them anytime soon.
        I would have a nice day, but I have other things to do.

        Comment


        • #5
          Quoth Trixie View Post
          I think my company was looking into the electronic tag thing but as of right now the technology is just too expensive to use. But judging the way the company holds on to technology (our old registers before they upgraded three years ago were literally from 1985) I don't think we'll be seeing them anytime soon.
          I'm not sure they wouldn't cause more SC trouble than they are worth anyway. The SC's would likely start claiming you'd changed the shelf price since they picked the item up.
          Life: Reality TV for deities. - dalesys

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          • #6
            we had esl's at my original grocery store for pretty much everything outside of the produce and deli departments. I not sure they saved much time though since the file maintenance clerks still had to print out labels for them (they were pretty basic, the digital portion only showed the unit and per item prices), strip/hang the sale tags and walk the aisles replacing dead ones as they found em. When we changed locations, the paper tag came with it for better or worse.

            I did have one particularly obnoxious SC claim we would change the prices as he went around the store. Like a store with 6 people total working in the evening would actually have the the time to stalk him and make rolling updates to select tags as he aimlessly wandered...

            Comment


            • #7
              Quoth mhkohne View Post
              I'm not sure they wouldn't cause more SC trouble than they are worth anyway. The SC's would likely start claiming you'd changed the shelf price since they picked the item up.
              Yup. I think for that reason, any store in my state who wants to use them has to clear it with the trade board. And knowing my store, they wouldn't set up the wifi properly--as in, leave it wide open. And if idiots will tear the paper tags right off the shelf to 'prove' their claim (although, since they take just the sale price portion that does not mention the item, they really have no proof if you think about it), what's to say they won't try it with these...

              An interesting idea though.
              Last edited by Dreamstalker; 04-27-2014, 04:00 AM.
              "I am quite confident that I do exist."
              "Excuse me, I'm making perfect sense. You're just not keeping up." The Doctor

              Comment


              • #8
                As cool as the technology is for those tags I can't really see them working very well in a large store. Maybe they'd be fine in a small boutiquey type store though.
                I would have a nice day, but I have other things to do.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Quoth Dreamstalker View Post
                  And if idiots will tear the paper tags right off the shelf to 'prove' their claim (although, since they take just the sale price portion that does not mention the item, they really have no proof if you think about it), what's to say they won't try it with these...
                  And considering the fake internet coupons out there, how long before someone comes up with a rogue smartphone app to CHANGE the price on the tag they ripped off for proof? Stores will need a policy posted at the entrance (of course, nobody reads signs) that anyone removing an electronic tag from the shelf will be banned from the store WITHOUT the opportunity to buy ANYTHING that's in their cart.
                  Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    My sympathies, Dreamstalker. My wife runs a medium-box store and their tag changes seem incessant. 'course, there isn't the payroll to get all those done, so what non-hourly employee gets to do the bulk of them...?

                    Quoth mhkohne View Post
                    The SC's would likely start claiming you'd changed the shelf price since they picked the item up.
                    This rings SO true for SC logic!

                    I imagine that flipping the signs up to match the ring out price, then down to lure in the next victim, then back up in case they check on them, then down for the next custy, etc. would be a logistics nightmare, but once the gubmint implants RFID tags in everyone, it should get a lot easier.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Quoth sms001 View Post
                      My sympathies, Dreamstalker. My wife runs a medium-box store and their tag changes seem incessant. 'course, there isn't the payroll to get all those done, so what non-hourly employee gets to do the bulk of them...?
                      We probably have the payroll to give me help (according to Produce Manager, this location is a cash cow but you wouldn't know it talking to ASM), but ASM doesn't want to. He thinks I'm capable of everything all the time. Also most of my CWs don't want to do overnights or the ones who do, can't (school)...so finding someone who both wants the overnight shift (a bit of extra money and no SCs) and doesn't need me shadowing them for more than an hour or two might be difficult.

                      We'll see this week; maybe if SM sees that I get more done with help I'll get some.

                      I was thinking that the tags use a very limited range (near-field RFID or similar) rather than the storewide network that the S-it guns have. Either way, in my store securing it would be a big issue; I can guarantee that even if someone in-store could do it, they wouldn't pay them enough to not leave an exploit somewhere.
                      Last edited by Dreamstalker; 04-29-2014, 01:35 PM.
                      "I am quite confident that I do exist."
                      "Excuse me, I'm making perfect sense. You're just not keeping up." The Doctor

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Is it just me, or should this not even happen in the first place?



                        What's wrong with this picture?

                        The correct tags (the one attached to the shelf in the pic) were buried in a completely different stack marked "Duplicates" that is usually the very last to get put up--if it gets put up at all. Luckily I caught the error when working on my first pile, and wasted an hour or so sorting through all the piles to toss the wrong tags and find/insert the right ones in the right piles....but I still had to go around at the end of my shift replacing the wrong tags that P had put up (how did HE not catch it?...and he heard me and Dairy Guy talking about that very problem!). Wound up with a few hundred tags to be tossed; I know I would have finished all the grocery tags if not for that.

                        ...not only that, but I found yet more of the above tags (both versions) in a second duplicates stack interspersed with doubles and triples of the regular green tags that were to be put up if they had come off. Any bets taken on whether those bad tags will end up on the shelf?
                        "I am quite confident that I do exist."
                        "Excuse me, I'm making perfect sense. You're just not keeping up." The Doctor

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          My store has a display in HBC for new items with the Giant name prominently on it instead of S&S, as well as a department sign describing the greatness of Giant brand deli meats. They've both been up since they finished the remodel, so about 9 months or so. Good job!

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                          • #14
                            Quoth DerangedHermit View Post
                            My store has a display in HBC for new items with the Giant name prominently on it instead of S&S,
                            But if the display is in Hudson's Bay Company (frequently referred to, even in their advertising, as "The Bay"), why should the name S&S be displayed?
                            Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Quoth wolfie View Post
                              But if the display is in Hudson's Bay Company (frequently referred to, even in their advertising, as "The Bay"), why should the name S&S be displayed?
                              It's referring to the Health and Beauty Care department.

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