Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Running out of co-workers

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Running out of co-workers

    The past few months at the Store have not been kind to the cashiers/grocery clerks. Out of the lot of us;

    * One has called out every day for over 2 months due to a back injury, and should be on medical LOA, but for some reason they keep scheduling him 40 hours a week (including PIC shifts) and act surprised when he doesn't show up
    * One is on medical LOA for a knee replacement
    * One has a broken arm and can't check
    * One has a torn ACL and can barely walk
    * One is having arthritic flare-ups and can't check or lift anything heavy
    * One is pregnant and can't lift anything heavy
    * One just got canned for excessive absenteeism
    * One quit to work for a competitor
    * One is getting sent to Texas to help out at a Location that's apparently screwed a lot worse than we are
    * One just went on medical LOA for mental health issues (possibly caused by all the extra workload being shunted onto him by all of this)

    In order to fully staff the grocery department, we need four people on any given day. We currently have two able-bodied people trained on grocery. One is me. The other one is on vacation right now.

    We have replaced all these losses, so I'm told, by hiring one cashier, who I've not yet seen and may not exist, because it seems like out of every ten cashiers the manager interviews, nine of them can't pass a UA. I'm getting scheduled six-day workweeks right now. I just had a day off after ten days straight on, and now I'm starting an 11-day run. I'm stuck on a 3:30-midnight shift I've repeatedly asked not to be scheduled for, because I don't have a car and the bus doesn't run that late, meaning I've got to either beg a coworker for a ride, pay $20 for Uber, or walk for two hours late at night to get home. It's even gotten to the point that they're having to give me cashier shifts and put the assistant manager on the grocery floor because there aren't enough bodies to go around. I was a cashier today, Memorial, Day - which, between my topped-out pay rate, OT, and holiday bonuses, means I was getting paid nearly five times what a newbie cashier would be getting paid to work that position, so not only are we overworking people, we're not even doing it in a way that makes good fiscal sense. Meanwhile, we're throwing cashiers who aren't trained onto the grocery floor and acting surprised when they don't get the work done, because they haven't been trained on what the job is or how to do it, and are constantly getting called to the front to check on top of it.

    I love this job and I have no intention of going anywhere, but unless we can get staffed properly, I'm going to wind up being the next one who gets worked to death and ends up on leave.

  • #2
    Old Tom. T., the Storyteller sang it: Joe, Don't Let Your ***** Kill You.
    I am not an a**hole. I am a hemorrhoid. I irritate a**holes!
    Procrastination: Forward planning to insure there is something to do tomorrow.
    Derails threads faster than a pocket nuke.

    Comment


    • #3
      Holy crap, my current job isn't at a grocery store, but you are describing the same thing that's going on here: cashiers (and other workers) are quitting like crazy, but management's response seems to be to dump their shifts on the remaining staff. It's not going well.

      We had a job fair a couple of months ago. We had some 400 people show up. I've been told they hired TWENTY, for various positions. And they can't figure out why things aren't working out ...
      Customer service: More efficient than a Dementor's kiss
      ~ Mr Hero

      Comment


      • #4
        It's not even the quitting so much as the number of walking wounded and/or short-term disabled we have, and the casualties are piling up faster than we can replace them. It doesn't help that this state says marijuana is legal, but the company still tests for it in pre-hire UAs since we've got to abide by federal law, and so a lot of the people we interview never show up for their drug test.

        We probably need to do a mass hire at this point, but even then we'll probably end up with mostly washouts. We hired 30 people in a mass hire last year and only two of them are still around.

        Comment


        • #5
          Quoth Smapti View Post
          The past few months at the Store have not been kind to the cashiers/grocery clerks. Out of the lot of us;

          * One has called out every day for over 2 months due to a back injury, and should be on medical LOA, but for some reason they keep scheduling him 40 hours a week (including PIC shifts) and act surprised when he doesn't show up
          * One is on medical LOA for a knee replacement
          * One has a broken arm and can't check
          ...
          ...
          That reminds me of the poem Ten Little Indians.

          Now rewritten for your pleasure:

          Ten cashiers standin' in a line,
          One had a back injury and then there were nine;

          Nine cashiers swingin' on a gate,
          One had a knee replacement and then there were eight.

          Eight cashiers gayest under heav'n.
          One broke his arm and then there were seven;

          Seven cashiers cuttin' up their tricks,
          One tore his ACL and then there were six.

          Six cashiers all alive,
          One had arthritic flare-ups and then there were five;

          Five cashiers on a cellar door,
          One got pregnant and then there were four.

          Four cashiers up on a spree,
          One had excessive absenteeism and then there were three;

          Three cashiers out on a canoe,
          One quit to work for a competitor and then there were two

          Two cashiers foolin' with a gun,
          One got sent to Texas and then there was one;

          One cashier livin' all alone,
          He had mental health issues and then there were none.
          Last edited by EricKei; 05-29-2019, 09:23 PM. Reason: snipped the snip
          "I don't have to be petty. The Universe does that for me."

          Comment


          • #6
            Quoth Smapti View Post
            It's not even the quitting so much as the number of walking wounded and/or short-term disabled we have, and the casualties are piling up faster than we can replace them. It doesn't help that this state says marijuana is legal, but the company still tests for it in pre-hire UAs since we've got to abide by federal law, and so a lot of the people we interview never show up for their drug test.
            .
            Jesus christ can't people stop smoking long enough to get hired at a job? Is weed THAT important? There are more people than jobs, you'd think this wouldn't be so damn difficult!
            https://www.youtube.com/user/HedgeTV
            Great YouTube channel check it out!

            Comment


            • #7
              Sadly, for them, weed stays detectable for about 30 days. A whole month going without, just to get some job... dude, not worth the hassle, man.
              Or, they forget that they were trying to pass something or... whoa, Twinkies...

              Yeah, those that wind up stuck on the stuff, I really don't want working around me. I happen to like having all my parts still attached to me. And that's provided that this specimen isn't one of the nod-out types that require constant supervision to stay barely functional.

              Comment


              • #8
                Quoth telecom_goddess View Post
                Jesus christ can't people stop smoking long enough to get hired at a job? Is weed THAT important? There are more people than jobs, you'd think this wouldn't be so damn difficult!
                It's actually worse than Buzzard thinks: The cheap test used for most employment screening can detect traces a good six months after someone's quit. It's meant to be used for early screening, with a follow-up test to make sure... but that doesn't account for human psychology or social stigma, where even a bad test can stigmatize people, and nobody bothers with "making sure".

                Comment


                • #9
                  Quoth telecom_goddess View Post
                  Jesus christ can't people stop smoking long enough to get hired at a job? Is weed THAT important?
                  Given the current political push to legalize it everywhere, I guess it is that important.

                  I can't wait for the people who already bring it into the workplace to feel even more empowered to bring it into the workplace because "it's legal now!" It's not like I work around forklifts, superheated water under pressure and steel plate injection molds weighing a ton or more hanging in the air as they're being installed into a press, or anything.
                  Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Be evil.

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

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Wow, the cheap tests have gotten much better in the years since I looked into it.

                    Back in the Age of Dinosaurs, there were tests that could still detect marijuana several years after last use. But they were very expensive, and no business was going to pay that much for a pre-employment screening. The standard cheap test was only good out to about two weeks.

                    Yes, I had roommates who kept track...
                    “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged.
                    One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.
                    The other, of course, involves orcs." -- John Rogers

                    Comment

                    Working...
                    X