Training starts on Moday!

[Dreamstalker]

On Monday, I get sent to another store for two weeks to be trained on the curbside pickup service...the official rollout at my store is slated for June 26th Our hiring manager had better get some more people for this...and nobody knows where we're going to find the room in our parking lot for the designated spaces.

I would have preferred to get sent to my old manager's store, but at least it's happening! There may be a promotion to FT in it for me as well once things get rolling.

[EricKei]

Crossing my fingers for ya and hoping for the best!

[Dreamstalker]

Welp, I think I've got the basics down, but there were some hiccups in order picking (mostly relating to the fact that this store is twice the size, the layout is drastically different and my trainer needs to switch to decaf). At one point she split an order without telling me, so I was picking items from a list and not having the corresponding bag labels to go with. I spent a decent amount of time backtracking looking for unfamiliar items before I realized that there is an option on the product screen of the handheld that will tell you all the items in that same aisle ...that's very useful to know for when I start training people at my store. The overgrown smartphones we're going to be using have a wrist mount...which is useless for me as it's too large even at its smallest adjustment. So I wasted a good amount of time readjusting the damn thing as it kept flipping around.

The full-store reset today didn't help; I was not only on a time crunch but had to navigate around vendors, reset teams, stock on the floor and customers demanding help (I cannot help you because I do not work here in this store; I'm ditching my nametag for the rest of my time there). Wound up being kept an hour late because the 3PM person was way late.

I do have an idea of what I'll be working with once it goes live, so will be able to devise a plan that works for me and the store.

[EricKei]

Forgive me, as I can no longer resist at this point...

Sounds like you had a manic Monday!

...DS.

Put down the register, DS.

...Shit *runs*

[Dreamstalker]

I can't lift a register, but here, have some paper towels *thwap*

Better than the Shitshow Sunday that was yesterday (training for 4hrs, then back here for my usual shift)...our freezers died last night, and this other store was having serious problems with the same today.

I did get shuffled onto SCO for an hour, got a crash course in the new system that we're supposedly (maybe, hopefully) getting. While I do like the fact that each register is covered by a camera, not sure I'm thrilled with the bag scale platforms. It's so sensitive that it flags empty bags, so I was constantly resetting them...also the usual kids playing on them, SCs thinking that's where they unload the cart before scanning, etc.

[EricKei]

Ahh, yes, the retail days of the week:
Shitshow Sunday
Manic Monday
Terrible Tuesday
Whatthefuck Wednesday
Terrifying Thursday
Fuckthisi'mout Friday
Stupidity Saturday

[Dreamstalker]

How true, how true.

I did stop in my store after finishing up down there because I wasn't sure if they had anyone for my shift...but they're taking this opportunity to train a part-timer--who I get along very well with--on SCO. If needed I can easily shuffle between online pickup and SCO.

The new space just needs the computer, all the fridges/freezers (two of each) are in and working...and now I see exactly how cramped it's gonna be. Yikes (literally no room to move if both the carts are staged there at the same time). At least we got the smaller carts. I do want to know if this refrigeration equipment is on the same supply as the main frozen aisle, since those tend to fail regularly in the summer.

And...my promotion to FT has been approved! Maybe now I'll be able to pay off my credit cards and we can get a kitty!

I'm off completely on Saturday and I plan to work on typing up my notes; what I'd like to tweak and how to do it, etc. Also kinda come up with a 'training manual' of my own once everything's up and running and I can talk with management about expectations vs. what actually works for this store and clientele. I'm not expecting them to approve/allow everything I come up with, but there must be ways to streamline stuff.

[EricKei]

Hoody hoo! Gratz!
Of course, having the opportunity to get a kitty is like having the opportunity to pet a dragon: If you can do it safely (i.e., affordably), get the kitty.

[Kristev]

Accepting a feline master is always a blessing.

[Dreamstalker]

We've been wanting to do so for a few years, the important thing was having it okayed by the landlord (this building is definitely pet-friendly).

So today I was asked to train someone whilst I myself am still being trained...an order that would have taken me no more than 20 minutes to pick took nearly an hour. Part of that was the newbie not quite picking up how I was showing her to pick orders (the "by aisle" button, and shopping the store by working across the store from Frozen toward the pickup area...we had to backtrack quite a bit). She also hit "Start Pick" when we left the staging area...so the timer was running before we even got any items

I was stuck up front when the customer showed up, so was my trainer and she told me to field the call...by the time I got back to the online staging area where the phone was she had grabbed the call at the service desk. Apparently the timer for running an order out starts when the customer calls...how the system knows this I don't know but it seems like that would be better served by texting to either our handhelds (if they have that capability) or a company-provided device.

[EricKei]

This is retail we're talking about, here. No need to bring logic into this.

[Dreamstalker]

Yup. My trainer worked for WF instore pickup before coming to this company, she told me that workers were able to communicate with customers via text (using company-provided devices). Much faster, all the customer had to do was text "Hi I'm picking up an order for $name at $time, I'm parked in $space." They don't want to hear an entire spiel about the very service that they are already using. An additional advantage to that is that a shopper already had the device on them and didn't need to run all the way to a phone.

I brought this up to my manager and was told "we can't do that because of privacy concerns"...the same "privacy concerns" that don't let us look up a customer's card if they didn't link a phone number. Every other entity that we've done curbside pickup with (or even just a waitlist) uses texting.