Way under/over staffed?

[powerboy]

At my store, weare dead slow, maybe 2-3 customers a day, if we are lucky. But for 2 weeks straight, one of my coworkers had to work for 4 days by herself, when we had to have 2 people atleast.

[purplecat41877]

Where I work, employees are scheduled where needed. Sometimes we have employees call out or no call no show which makes the store short handed.

Sometimes, we have plenty of employees but there's very few customers in the store. If an checker isn't checking out customers, whoever is working at the service desk can give the checker something to do like cleaning their register, collecting baskets, or doing shopbacks.

[Rubystars]

Ok, I'll start a thread, sorry for hurt feelings. It wasn't a personal attack. I'm just disgusted by the whole issue at the moment.

[HYHYBT]

Six months after I started, they hired a bunch of people for a new store that was opening. The idea was that they'd have a couple of weeks to train.... but the new store got delayed and we had half again too many people for three or four months. I think it was the next year we got the manager who gave up on hiring completely, so for a few months everyone who didn't quit had 12 hour days and/or six-seven day weeks. We did at least get paid correctly for it

[ArenaBoy]

I have very few stories of when we've been overstaffed or understaffed. This is a good one but its long .

Lat summer, when our office manager went on vacation (I think I posted this story in Morons in Mangement but this one is different..) She chose one of the supervisors to be in charge, the problem was that she played favorites. Now the favorites were the ones who showed once a week or once every three weeks, she liked those people, if she didn't like you, no hours. I asked to work on these days because I knew they we're going to be hectic but I didn't get them, and guess what? On the day of those events, the department was severly understaffed that THEY had to call people for help, something of a rarity in my department. I got called and I joined wishing I could yell at the scheduler for being such an idiot. Did the supervisor learn her lesson? No. Did she get in trouble by the office manager when she found out what she did playing favorites? Yes and no. Yes, that she got suspended for a few weeks, no, when the punishment was that she should've been fired along with her friends. Thankfully she doesn't work as much anymore.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Oh have I a horror tale for you:

Gather round DGoddess, kids and ye shall hear of an understaffed grocery store on an Easter Sunday morning.

The schedule called for Yours Truly to come in at 6 and run Express (Head Cashier opened at 6 also and was settling the previous day when I came in.) Also, we were supposed to have had 3 more cashiers arriving.

The Head Cashier was allowed to make the schedule for the front end, therefore she had made sure we had enough help to cover until lunchtime. We weren't expecting to get really busy until after church services let out either.

All 3 cashiers who were scheduled to open called in for various reasons. You read this right: all 3 cashiers who were to come in after I had called out. Meaning nobody was coming in until 1 p.m.

Nobody on the floor was able to run a register. We had one person in Produce, Market and Dairy/FF as well as Deli department each. The MOD was running grocery backstock to make sure we had those specials in stock (or trying to at least.)

Meanwhile, while Head Cashier was in the office, trying to do the closing for the previous day as quick as she could, the line was backing up faster than you can say "Free beer." Customers were understandably upset about the situation, but then so was I as I was the only cashier and trying to get them checked out as quick and as best I could.

Head Cashier heard my plight as my line went into the aisle and came out to open a till. It helped somewhat, but the lines kept growing faster than both of us could get them herded out w/their purchases.

One fellow got so upset, he asked if there was any way to make the lines faster. Head Cashier snapped momentarily and told him he could go to HT down the street if he wanted the lines to move quicker. We finally got the MOD up there to help bag (he never would put out a till and open a register up to help us though.)

Finally, another cashier came in at 1 and jumped in. Took another hour before we could get yet another body on a register so I could go to lunch. Then by the time I came back (half hour later) I only had less than an hour to work.

So in this case, it wasn't so much of not scheduling enough help, but rather a freakish event of scheduling enough help and nobody showing up.

One of the cashiers was terminated over the no-show, as it was the 3rd Sunday in a row she had called out for a shift. This one claimed she was stranded at the beach and had no way to get back to Greensboro (but it was suspected that she was at another coworker's house, as she was spotted out and about in town the previous afternoon.)

[Becks]

Wow, DGoddess, that's one heck of a story.

I'm just curious, however... Was there a chance to try to call someone in (even though they were scheduled off)?

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Wow, DGoddess, that's one heck of a story.

I'm just curious, however... Was there a chance to try to call someone in (even though they were scheduled off)?

Head Cashier had tried to call in a couple of people, but nobody could/would come in. But then before she could try to call someone else, I had to call her out to help run register.

We just did what we could and let the rest slide that day.

[Becks]

Ah...

In a way, I don't blame people for not wanting to come in (the ones not scheduled), but I'm the kind of person that probably would have come in, if asked.

[Worker-Intellectual]

I know we're just cashiers, but supposedly these jobs are springboards into higher paying jobs.

That's a good one

[Dark Psion]

Today was a study in Understaffing.

First, school is starting back up, so we lost two cashiers and two warehouse guys, all of which can only work 4pm-6pm during school days.

So, that starts us off with 4 people down. Ted quit last week due to a better paying job and he was done with the Bosses. The New Guy had a death in the family and had to fly back home up north. And we had one guy off after working about 9 days straight due to others vacations.

Boss#2 (the sister) is off on Friday, Boss#1 kept disapearing and reapearing all day, but I'm guessing it was school related. And then just to make things interesting, my supervisor discovers that the closing Delta Faucet plant in a nearby town is having it's auction today and takes off in a hurry.

That leaves two of us on the floor, one office supervisor, two cashiers and one guy in the warehouse.

Oh, did I mention that my supervisor told me to re-paint part of the store this week?

It was amazing, if I was up the ladder painting primer, a dozen customers came in. I come down to wait on them, and they leave and even the crickets are silent. Back up the ladder and the store is full again.

Maybe my boss can pay me to stay up the ladder.

[Crosshair]

What is this "overstaffed" you speak of? You mean you work someplace that actualy has TOO MANY people. Crap, I'd love to work in a place like that.

[Primer]

It was amazing, if I was up the ladder painting primer, a dozen customers came in.

Aww, so my portrait is in your store now? I'm so flattered!!

[Rine]

It seems like at my store, whenever the cashier lead as a day off, a lot of cashiers decide that they have to have that day off and we get a ton of call ins and no shows.

Last Tuesday we had three cashiers closing (myself and two others) and no one giving us our dinner breaks, so I gave myself a break and then the next two. So for nearly two hours on a sorta busy night, we only had two registers open; one downstairs and one upstairs. It was a complete mess and the other managers did not help us at all. I had to make the decision to give myself my own break and make sure the other cashiers had their breaks too. Seemed like the managers had no idea of what was going on. Ugh, silly managers!

[DistantStar]

I feel bad; my department is horribly understaffed at the moment (two people simply CANNOT do all the work in a Wally World softlines department on a weekend evening!!!!!!) and yesterday I had a migraine but tried to go in anyway, and ended up leaving before I clocked in. Couldn't do it. So last night, they had two people on the floor.

Three would have been inadequate. Two is a nightmare. One of the two is somebody who has just transferred over to us (Thank Gord!). I hated leaving her in the lurch like that, but I could hardly walk, let alone work.

ETA: Turns out there was only ONE person on the floor. They got a couple of other people from around the store to help, but when I heard that I felt worse.