Still sticky after all these years

[SixFortyK]

About 3 years ago, some smarty decided to put a soda bottle in one of the store freezers. It froze and burst, getting sticky soda all over the product and the freezer shelves. We tossed about 50 bucks of product. But the real problem has been the sticky shelves. We don't have time to properly remove them and clean them. So, over the years, product on these shelves start to stick to the soda residue. The packaging sticks and tears and the product gets tossed.
Over the years, I figure many hundreds of dollars worth of product has been tossed because some bozo customer decided to ditch his soda in the freezer three years ago. I placed some cardboard on the sticky parts and that solved the problem for a while. Well, the reset crew came in and reset the section. They tossed the cardboard. Now, all the new product is stuck to the shelves, the packaging tears and it gets tossed. I've told the bosses about the problem but they won't give us an extra hour to fix the problem. So we just keep throwing more product away.

Hard to believe that the actions of a stupid customer from 3 years ago is still producing shrink today.

[Seanette]

I'm seriously questioning the competence of your management, based on this and your other story (the 30 cases of a candy that doesn't sell). Is there someone above your PHB that you can take this to and show how much the store is losing?

[Draykoja]

Hmmm...I also question management in this case. 3 Years is a long time to leave a known mess to sit and create issues. Take charge, commandeer a couple coworkers and get it fixed.

[SixFortyK]

I'm seriously questioning the competence of your management, based on this and your other story (the 30 cases of a candy that doesn't sell). Is there someone above your PHB that you can take this to and show how much the store is losing?

With regard to the freezers, in the next month I'll probably find time to lay some cardboard on the problem shelves. That should last until the next reset.

About the candy, have taken concerns to CWs. Most advise me to lay low and wait the boss out (he will be rotated into a different store eventually). I just document each instance and photograph the notes and invoices to protect myself.

Last summer, he requested 80 cases of store brand potato chips (10 cases each, 8 flavors). Told his messenger, my CW, we only sell 2 units a week/per flavor on that product line, and ordering that much would probably be about 40 cases of shrink, depending on the expiration. She said, "It's what he wants." Luckily, the warehouse was out of 3 flavors, so we only got 50 cases instead of 80. We ended up shrinking around 20 cases even after marking the stuff down to 99 cents.

After that, I started taking lots of pictures, documenting, and photocopying invoices. I don't want to be blamed for any of this. Can't wait for him to leave.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

If manager doesn't want to spend the time needed to clean the shelves, I'd put in an order for replacement shelves.

But then I'm just fireable like that.

[Seanette]

I still think dolt's higher-ups would be interested in knowing just how much he's costing them. Wouldn't surprise me to find out that lower profits also mean lower bonuses for them, so they'd like to find out just why the store isn't as profitable as it could be.

[Android Kaeli]

In regards to throwing stuff out/donating it, the actions of this manager sounds similar to mine. We went from being busy as anything and needing ten boxes of everything [muffins, cookies, whatever] during Christmas to needing maybe that much every two to three weeks. January through March is the slow season so, naturally, we should be going down on what we bake and prep, right?

Ha ha, no. The last three weeks I've been closing I've had to donate and/or throw away at least two pallets of stuff that hasn't sold.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

This happens to us every year with Halloween candy.

In addition to the stuff we get specially for Halloween, we get pallets full of the same Snickers, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups fun-sized bags we sell the whole year round.

Halloween comes and goes and we sell some of that candy, but not enough to really make a dent in it. So it gets shoved in the backroom and carried over.

A month before it's set to expire, we may or may not be able to mark it down and display it someplace, but only if we have the room on the salesfloor to do it.

When it expires, we have to scan each bag one by one (no scanning one bag and entering a quantity) and toss them all in the compactor.

The person who does our grocery ordering really needs to be beaten with a scanner until they are smart or dead, whichever comes first.

[Ironclad Alibi]

The person who does our grocery ordering really needs to be beaten with a scanner until they are smart or dead, whichever comes first.

If they are as dense as them seem, it would probably destroy the scanner first.

[Chromatix]

Sounds like a good reason to keep an old IBM scanner around.

[Mr Hero]

Sticky after all this time?
Always

[Ironclad Alibi]

Anyone else think of "Get Sticky With Mickey"?

[wolfie]

I've told the bosses about the problem but they won't give us an extra hour to fix the problem. So we just keep throwing more product away.

PHBs only listen to money. I'd approach them with "It will take 1 hour of labour, at a cost of $X, to fix the problem. If this isn't done, based on past history, $Y of product will be damaged and need to be thrown out."

[Minflick]

"Ohhh, Still Crazy, After All These Years...."

Paul Simon version

[DGoddessChardonnay]

The person who does our grocery ordering really needs to be beaten with a scanner until they are smart or dead, whichever comes first.

And if the Swamp orders their candy like the Litter Box does, it's sent it by corporate and supposedly based on the previous year's sales (or similar smelling BS.)

Meaning, if we only sold two cases of Halloween Snickers, for example, they'll send out FOUR cases the next year.

And who is the unlucky one who gets to scan all that crap out when it's finally pulled because it ran out of date after being stored on the bunker in the hallway for almost two years in milk crates?

Luckily it wasn't me this time (still filling in for the scan person, who is set to return March 7th) but I'm sure I'll make up for it this fall.