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Truck days where I work (Medium-size Hardware store.) used to be the most entertaining days of the week for me. Difficult to explain why, to be honest. It just .. was. 
But now they're really pulling back on the freedom we have.
What we used to do:
We'd have three Palette Jacks. We'd look in the opti of stuff (Giant plastic bins with black eggcrate plastic bottoms, stuffed to the top with larger goods. Can't find an image.) and determine what department's stuff it has the most of, and ship it out to the aisle in front of that department. The aisles would get filled, but we'd get that truck done lickety split.
What we started to do some months ago:
We'd keep all of the Optis in the back stockroom, all lined up. We'd get our L-Carts over there and fill them up with the goods from the respective departments and send them out to the departments to get put away, and then they'd bring them back and fill them up again, and the cycle continues. Seasonal and Paint generally get two or three L-Boats at a time. It takes up almost as much room in the aisle anyway, except it's on wheels. >.<
What we started to do this week:
They claim that it's not a race, and
I'm sure you can see the flaws in such a limited card system. For one, what happens when we get an L-Boat filled with only three very large items? Those can be unpacked in like, five minutes, if not less if you hurry. (And damn, I leave a trail of fire everywhere I go when I am in the right mood, I tell you.) That's not in the very least fair, because the card has no way of keeping track of what kind of contents the L-Boat had. What if you get something that's overstock, and you have to spend the time making room for it? We're not allowed to keep anything in the aisle anymore, even when we're unpacking it. It makes everything terribly inefficient!!
So we're basically running around as fast as we can, challenged subliminally to be as fast and efficient as we can while juggling boxes on top of L-Boats that could topple at any moment, all while helping customers, which was one of the point of the endeavors.
Why would they time us for efficiency in doing the truck, if there's no way to take into account all of the variables of the daily operation of store work? If there weren't as many variables, I can sort of understand, ... but it's the hidden variables that really ruin it.
But now they're really pulling back on the freedom we have.What we used to do:
We'd have three Palette Jacks. We'd look in the opti of stuff (Giant plastic bins with black eggcrate plastic bottoms, stuffed to the top with larger goods. Can't find an image.) and determine what department's stuff it has the most of, and ship it out to the aisle in front of that department. The aisles would get filled, but we'd get that truck done lickety split.
What we started to do some months ago:
We'd keep all of the Optis in the back stockroom, all lined up. We'd get our L-Carts over there and fill them up with the goods from the respective departments and send them out to the departments to get put away, and then they'd bring them back and fill them up again, and the cycle continues. Seasonal and Paint generally get two or three L-Boats at a time.
It takes up almost as much room in the aisle anyway, except it's on wheels. >.<What we started to do this week:
>-= Where things get interesting =-<
It's the same as the above, except now they're conducting an experiment on us. Everyone gets a time card. The only three headers it has are "Department," "Time out," "Time In." with our name at the top. It also has an ominous line at the bottom "REMEMBER: Treat all customers like GUESTS!" Basically we take an L-Boat into the back, and they load it up. Then they write which department it's going to, and the time they're shipping us out, say, 10:40 AM, and we go and unpack the L-Boat. When we bring it back, they record the time that it came back in. 11:36 AM. They claim that it's not a race, and
I'm sure you can see the flaws in such a limited card system. For one, what happens when we get an L-Boat filled with only three very large items? Those can be unpacked in like, five minutes, if not less if you hurry. (And damn, I leave a trail of fire everywhere I go when I am in the right mood, I tell you.) That's not in the very least fair, because the card has no way of keeping track of what kind of contents the L-Boat had. What if you get something that's overstock, and you have to spend the time making room for it? We're not allowed to keep anything in the aisle anymore, even when we're unpacking it.
It makes everything terribly inefficient!!So we're basically running around as fast as we can, challenged subliminally to be as fast and efficient as we can while juggling boxes on top of L-Boats that could topple at any moment, all while helping customers, which was one of the point of the endeavors.
Why would they time us for efficiency in doing the truck, if there's no way to take into account all of the variables of the daily operation of store work? If there weren't as many variables, I can sort of understand, ... but it's the hidden variables that really ruin it.
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