MEGATHREAD 2018-2019 Store Modernization Megathread

[allnew2]

Well, on Tuesday, no one was scheduled paper. So no one pushed the product. It got pulled in the autofill by someone and sat there until Wednesday.

The gm3tl had the nerve to ask the dbo of paper on Wednesday why the area looked so bad.

Really? He told her because no one was scheduled on Tuesday. It's like idiots run the store.

No alternates?

 

[seasonaldude]

GS faces the lanes at most stores, yes? Why can't the Service Advocate observe? Advocates are supposed to own the front and know everything anyway, right (including dealing with guests: they're empowered to make it right, so that they don't have to call the SETL for every little thing)? If it gets busy, pull the Advocate at SCO and have them jump on a lane, then the SETL can watch SCO and answer help on other lanes without interrupting guests.

It just seems like Experts and Consultants are expected to do 20x the amount of work they have time for while Advocates are expected to do a bare minimum still. They're all technically supervisors now, so why do we need SETLs to hover over them? It's not an equal thing. The front struggles the least under Modernization, if at all.

It's actually quite difficult to watch the lanes from behind the service desk. For one, the desk has guests to deal with. But, it's also hard to see exactly how many people are in line with the lanes blocking your view. I don't recommend having your service advocates in charge of watching the lines.

The front does suffer greatly under modernization. But, you really just need to work up there to understand. Just like everywhere else in the store, the front isn't scheduled to have any problems. A single call out fucks us, just like it fucks GM right now. Just to give an example. A few Saturdays ago to open the front end we had one SCO person scheduled, one cashier, one service desk person and one OPU picker (me). Since one SETL is off every weekend, we only had one scheduled for the day to come in a 3pm because it was his turn in the rotation to close the store.

We could kind of sort of make that work. Maybe. But, the SCO person called off. The SD TM and I decided we could move the cashier to SCO and just roll with it until another cashier came in at 9:30. So, I went to the cashier to pull her off the lane. Unfortunately, she was one of those TMs who only works on weekends and had never been trained on SCO. Great. What now? We decide to close half our SCO lanes and pray that between the SD TM and me between picks we can help any guests over there. That went poorly because we were busy. Our 9:30 cashier came in and we sent her to SCO. It's later, so we're even busier now and drowning in guests. I can't help too much at this point because I'm busy with OPUs. Our Front of Store Attendant who was supposed to come in at 11 didn't show up until 1. Everything is a complete shitshow. We can't even send anyone to a break. The only way we made it work is by having the ETL-LOG take over behind the desk and having the Style TL act as an SETL and watch the lanes.

This is all too common under modernization at the front. I went in to do some shopping this afternoon on my offday. Our APTL was on SCO. ETL-HR was the only person behind the desk. SETL was doing OPUs. There were no carts in the cart well or in the rows in front of the store. The attendant was on a lane as were two style TMs and 3 GM TMs. The lines were still ridiculous. I had to wait about 15 minutes just to use SCO. While I can deal with that personally, it's not exactly on brand.

 

[REDcardJJ]

i'm the only SETL at my store so if you want to come up and watch the lanes i'd be more than happy to jump on. proactive speedweaving is necessary to prevent backups especially when you have a stacked checklane set up like i do. the whole point of SETLs being on mids is to be available for the guest

 

[Kalaen]

"All other duties based on business needs"

the alternative to Starbucks choosing not to support my Service and Engagement team is my Service and Engagement team not supporting Starbucks. when my Starbucks team calls for a backup, i send them a backup. that would very quickly stop if they weren't going to help my team out when we're slammed. good luck getting a response from the GM team to ring orders at Starbucks, lol.

Sure, and the guide lists Starbucks and Café service as the front's area of ownership. The guide only mentions that GM Experts might backup cashier on a typical day. It flat out states that the front end owns service at Starbucks.

not according to my job description lol

The difference between pulling GM and a Starbucks barista, is twofold. One, you're messing with another brand, and that brand will not like that the hours that are supposed to be dedicated towards their brand are being used to cashier. But also, and more importantly, Starbucks is a Food Service area. If GM doesn't get their workload done, sure, it would have an impact on the store and the Guest. But if Food Service doesn't get their workload done, someone could get seriously ill. So no, no one is taking my baristas. Not that I often have multiple in the kiosk at one time, because I don't have very many hours, either.

Also, to backup Sloth, it is the Service and Engagement team's responsibility to monitor service for Starbucks. You say this isn't defined, but we literally have our own version of 1+1--it's a little bit looser, basically saying that you shouldn't have more than 3 of anything building up. We also have a metric about how well we are not just serving our Guests, but actually engaging and connecting with them--the survey asks if the barista got to know the Guest. Literally, my ETL-SE has to sit in on part of my PPVs (Starbucks district manager visits, essentially) to speak to why or why not the service isn't being met. I'm sorry that your store isn't performing that role like they should be, but it is absolutely part of the official job description.

I understand that the front end has their own things to deal with--as does the rest of the store--so I try and call for backup as minimally as possible and be the least invasive to other workcenter's operations.

 

[greatteam]

What you don't seem to get is that sometimes it's quiet and it seems like everyone is standing around doing nothing, or it's moderately busy and the front end leaders are doing their job. Other times, it's an all out disaster and backup is desperately needed. If you are instilling in your team that tasking comes before guest service, then you're failing at your core roles. My SD would have you on paper immediately.

 

[REDcardJJ]

The difference between pulling GM and a Starbucks barista, is twofold. One, you're messing with another brand, and that brand will not like that the hours that are supposed to be dedicated towards their brand are being used to cashier. But also, and more importantly, Starbucks is a Food Service area. If GM doesn't get their workload done, sure, it would have an impact on the store and the Guest. But if Food Service doesn't get their workload done, someone could get seriously ill. So no, no one is taking my baristas. Not that I often have multiple in the kiosk at one time, because I don't have very many hours, either.

my peer over in starbucks, the starbucks team leader, work very closely together and help each other out. they get backups when they're needed, and when they have three or four baristas on (which is not uncommon after the hours change back in may) and i need a backup, a barista is coming out to help. i just don't get how you think it's okay to expect my help but not offer any in return. (and before anyone tries to call me a hypocrite, my team assists the GM team frequently even though we're not supposed to) flexing from a four barista play to a three barista play isn't a food safety issue.

You say this isn't defined

define "service". is it ringing orders? ringing orders is a very big part of starbucks customer connection, which is totally operations. what exactly IS service at starbucks? there's no way a guest advocate is going to have a better customer connection than an actual barista. it isn't defined anywhere.

also, i literally was a barista (and i'm still certified because i assist starbucks THAT much!) before becoming a SETL so i know how starbucks operates lmao

 

[sunnydays]

We could kind of sort of make that work. Maybe. But, the SCO person called off. The SD TM and I decided we could move the cashier to SCO and just roll with it until another cashier came in at 9:30. So, I went to the cashier to pull her off the lane. Unfortunately, she was one of those TMs who only works on weekends and had never been trained on SCO. Great. What now? We decide to close half our SCO lanes and pray that between the SD TM and me between picks we can help any guests over there. That went poorly because we were busy. Our 9:30 cashier came in and we sent her to SCO. It's later, so we're even busier now and drowning in guests. I can't help too much at this point because I'm busy with OPUs. Our Front of Store Attendant who was supposed to come in at 11 didn't show up until 1. Everything is a complete shitshow. We can't even send anyone to a break. The only way we made it work is by having the ETL-LOG take over behind the desk and having the Style TL act as an SETL and watch the lanes.

god this is too real

or my store where i dont actually have anyone scheduled at sco because as an setl the expectation from my etl is to watch the lanes, watch sco, watch the desk, set pogs, handle freight, handle collecting reshop and hangers from the lanes, make sure bullseye is properly zoned, support starbucks & tcafe as necessary, and oh yeah, still gotta coach and make sure we are hitting redcard goal when i barely get to say 2 words to any of my advocates because its only once in a blue moon i have more than two people scheduled concurrently at any given time

woooooo

edit: oh and i still open/close the store every week like pre-modernization so thats fun too

 

[flow4areasonuno]

Still rolling over any truck that's not <1200. Hours cuts, lots of new faces.

It's not looking good around here.

 

[unknown]

Yeah, that's the kind of thing we would likely prefer you call the SETL over to handle. Guest advocates are being trained (far too slowly) to handle that kind of thing themselves. When salesfloor backs up, we'd prefer they call for assistance. That way we can try to find the DPCI for inventory purposes. Not really that big of deal, but helping with that is what the SETL is there for.

Except that there wasn't one around. At anothe

No alternates?

I guess not that day. I've done it a few times, but I was scheduled transition for toys that day and all week.

 

[RedcardReba]

Guests come first, yes. And guests can't buy product that isn't on the floor, so stocking is putting guests first. Being on the floor to answer questions is putting guests first. Cashing guests out is only half of the equation, so it seems weird to put all of the focus on just that, don't you agree?

Besides, the entire point of Modernization, or at least the new logistics process, was to put TMs on the floor to help guests. That's why we moved to later unload times. It's why we do more mids. It's why we don't have two TLs in the morning for unload anymore. Why go through all of that just to pull those TMs off the floor? They can't stock for guests. They can't answer questions for guests. The idea that it's too much "tasking" is asinine. Putting product on the shelf is just as much of a task as scanning product on the lane is -- and both are for the benefit of the guest.

The front should be doing everything in their power to avoid calling for backup, as pulling TMs off the floor hurts the guests. Are all the SCOs working? Are SETLs line busting? Is an empty GS flagging for guests to come up?

Our ETL-SE and SETLs call for backup all day long. We have 2 SETLs. Do you know where they are? Not on the lanes. Not line busting. They're messing around at GS, getting bags (that's what the FoS Attendant is for), or merely watching the lanes -- why? I'll never know. It's more important for them to fuck around with nonsense than actually help guests, so they pull TMs from the most overworked and behind area of the store.

Brilliant, right? Our ETL-GM and ETL-SPS both jump in to physically help when the need arises -- why wouldn't they? They own their areas, so they do all that they can to make sure shit gets done. Our ETL-SE though? Nope. Doesn't cash. Doesn't work GS or SCO. Doesn't line bust. Just calls for backup.

This happened yesterday. Frontend SETL stayed in back most of the day, came out to bark a out nitpicky stuff, never got on a lane, hung out by GS, and we were slammed all day.

Color me irritated.

 

[OfCourseMorePegs]

The last few pages of this thread are entirely reflective of why Modernization is massively flawed. Being a GM TL now gives me a firsthand view of it everyday. It pits everyone against everyone else and then creates animosity between all team members over levels of importance. I’ll preface this by saying: I’ve done pretty much everything in the store at some point or another. Logistics, Front End, Pog and Pricing, SFS, Remodels.... whatever is necessary really. They all have elements that make them difficult depending on what time of year it is, how many team members you have, or what the current requirements of said jobs are.

I think the most physically demanding are easily SFS, POG, and GM roles. You have zero downtime in those areas. They are all structured within brutal timeframes. I run SFS around the holidays.... one day I racked up nearly 20 miles because I try to watch OPUs with myself and one other person, while I coordinate the regular SFS workload too. You have to watch INF, pack times, more batches dropping in, goal times, etc. It’s a beast, and if you’re not on it, it will eat you up.

POG is difficult because of the weekly timeframes and elements to huge sets. BTS and Christmas are flat out monsters. New shelving, displays, shippers, 40 page VA guides, coordinating 30-40 pallets of freight, the actual setting of the POGS, backstock, batches, EXF... and all within super tight windows. They’ve wanted Christmas set in 48 hours in the past. Any former POG TL will tell you how difficult that is.

GM is difficult now due to amount of work required in such a short time on an everyday basis. Zoning, reshop, autos, one for one batches, truck, backstock, pricing, revisions, SP’s,.... it’s a little like trying to empty an ocean.... with a bucket. There are steps you can take to make it easier ( making sure SFQ quantities match capacities and on hands are accurate), but it takes time and even if you own a section... more than one set of hands is involved there and you usually can’t trust that set of hands to be as efficient as the DBO’s might be.

Front End to me is about multitasking and the mental game. It’s essentially about knowing where to put your pieces in a half formed puzzle when said puzzle needs to be completed fast. It can be tough during heavy volume times up there and if you get call ins. I will say this: there’s a lot of standing around and talking up there for the first hour every morning in my store. The GM team members aren’t terribly happy when they see that because they get crushed everyday from the get go. That and any unnecessary backups are met with extreme irritation. Here’s the key to me: Front End is an exceptionally important facet to running a good store to me and it needs a leader who knows how to be as self sufficient as possible. Backup will always be necessary with the way corporate runs things, just be sure it really is essential when you call for it.

Bottom line here is: everything is important but corporate is making it very hard on even the best people right now by not being good at what they do. Lack of training, ridiculous workloads, inefficient equipment, changes to tasks that are inexplicably dumb, and complete befuddlement when things aren’t 100 percent in every area. The guest is the most important thing, but all processes matter. I wouldn’t go back much to a store if:

1. I could never find what I needed in store. And even if I could order it online, it’s still not convenient for any item I’d like right then and there.

2. The store was a mess and I couldn’t find anyone to help. That’s a huge part of guest experience and add on sales. Had a lady buy nearly a whole bedroom set the other day from me just because I found her a pillow case in the back and upon seeing it in person... wanted me to get her the whole Opalhouse set.

3. I waited for a long time in line because things were clearly not being run right up front. Good checkouts do matter for sure.

4. If workers just didn’t seem to care. We all wanna go to a place where we feel like our needs matter. Just human nature guys and gals.

Finally, I’ll say this: if you work hard and you work for me... I have your back all day and everyday. My track record gives me credibility in discussions with other leaders, whether they’re ETLs, SDs, or whatever else. I protect my good people because I’m not where I am without them. You go after one of them, you better have good reason. I consider myself the buffer between them and any nonsense they get about unreachable tasks. My people really are my people and their well being matters to me. Always will.

 

[Times Up]

GS faces the lanes at most stores, yes? Why can't the Service Advocate observe?

At my store they can't see over Bullseye's Playground. Otherwise that would possibly work....if there were more than 1 person scheduled at GS.

 

[No I in Team]

Anyone heard anything about phase 3?

 

[vngoghlvr]

We were told today we would be written up for not finishing our workloads now. I haven't been in my department for ages, and I'm in seasonal right now because the regular DBO is gone. Today my truck push was 5.5 hours (5 uboats) and I had 5 tubs full of autofills. I was scheduled for 8 hours, so take out lunch and breaks that leaves me with 6.75 hours to get it all done. School starts on Thursday so you can imagine how many guests I had in my area. They schedule me 8-4 so I'm constantly trying to work around guests. Add in that I need to head over to stationary to push after filling BTS and then backstock. Needless to say I got my autos and 1.5 uboats done. I'm probably getting written up tomorrow. I don't think it's fair since it's not my normal department, but they won't give a crap. I'm starting to hate going to work. I'm stressed and worried I'm going to get termed out.

 

[seasonaldude]

We're out of number 2 pencils. It's a week before school starts here, but we're out of pencils. OK, maybe we have pencils somewhere. The inventory system thinks we do. But, hell if anyone knows where they are. Maybe they're on a pallet somewhere. Who knows? I discovered a mispick today where we were supposed to have 72 pencils in a box, but there were really 12 lunchboxes in there.

In any event, did I mention we have no pencils on the shelves or located in the back? School starts next week. INFs hit 5% just from fucking pencils.This is fine though. No need to audit. The DC knows what we need, except for when it comes to fucking pencils apparently. We don't even have any of the cheap Up & Up pencils. It's all good though. It's not like pencils are on every single school list. If you really need pencils, there's a Dollar General down the block. I bet they have fucking pencils.

 

[TargetSenpai]

We're out of number 2 pencils. It's a week before school starts here, but we're out of pencils. OK, maybe we have pencils somewhere. The inventory system thinks we do. But, hell if anyone knows where they are. Maybe they're on a pallet somewhere. Who knows? I discovered a mispick today where we were supposed to have 72 pencils in a box, but there were really 12 lunchboxes in there.

In any event, did I mention we have no pencils on the shelves or located in the back? School starts next week. INFs hit 5% just from fucking pencils.This is fine though. No need to audit. The DC knows what we need, except for when it comes to fucking pencils apparently. We don't even have any of the cheap Up & Up pencils. It's all good though. It's not like pencils are on every single school list. If you really need pencils, there's a Dollar General down the block. I bet they have fucking pencils.

I almost freaked out when I got a mispick the other day with an online order. Scanned the box, opened it... description wasn't clear but also suspect that this wasn't the item needed. I needed these highlighters, not ballpoint pens urgh. And of COURSE it wasn't one of our brands to look for a DPCI on the package. And since I'm not completely used to the nuances of EPICK I knew I screwed up and locked myself into the item until I went to scan the items to bag. Luckily I did some quick thinking and cross-referenced the floor locations and LUCKILY I had to run over to stationary where these highlighters were. And yes, a full peg of them. Whew. I remembered how many they needed, took them and recovered. I didn't need any more INF's atop the few I already had...
FOR PENCILS. *facepalm* They sell waaaay too fast for online orders during BTS. I had 3 back to back orders for the same boxes of pencils for seperate guests. I was quite annoyed.

 

[seasonaldude]

We're out of number 2 pencils. It's a week before school starts here, but we're out of pencils. OK, maybe we have pencils somewhere. The inventory system thinks we do. But, hell if anyone knows where they are. Maybe they're on a pallet somewhere. Who knows? I discovered a mispick today where we were supposed to have 72 pencils in a box, but there were really 12 lunchboxes in there.

In any event, did I mention we have no pencils on the shelves or located in the back? School starts next week. INFs hit 5% just from fucking pencils.This is fine though. No need to audit. The DC knows what we need, except for when it comes to fucking pencils apparently. We don't even have any of the cheap Up & Up pencils. It's all good though. It's not like pencils are on every single school list. If you really need pencils, there's a Dollar General down the block. I bet they have fucking pencils.

Update: We found the pencils. Apparently, someone forgot about one pallet and it was never removed from the steel. It had all the pencils on it. So we have some now, which is nice.

 

[jenna]

We have several (untouched) pallets in the steel.

 

[can't touch this]

today I learned that there are people on this very planet in Anno Domini two thousand nineteen who still use pencils

 

[happygoth]

today I learned that there are people on this very planet in Anno Domini two thousand nineteen who still use pencils

Was legit thinking the same thing, cannot remember the last time I used one. But then I figured, I haven't been in school since Reagan was president, so what do I know about what students need?

 

[can't touch this]

Was legit thinking the same thing, cannot remember the last time I used one. But then I figured, I haven't been in school since Reagan was president, so what do I know about what students need?

I have like two pens laying around in case I need to jot something down but that happens maybe once a week, the last time I had to write anything long enough to require a pack of pencils and a sharpener was of course back when I was in school, where they do an excellent job of preparing you for things you will literally never do again after you graduate. Like writing down large amounts of information on paper, or mental calculus, or getting up at 5:30 in the morning five days a week for zero dollars an hour. It's weird how some schools have replaced textbooks and analog notebooks with Chromebooks and then 20 miles away there's other schools that still use PowerMacs from the 90s and pencils by the palletload

 

[vngoghlvr]

We have pencils, but we ran out of pencil boxes today with no delivery in sight.

 

[can't touch this]

BTS set was the last POG shift I worked at Spot and we still had wacofulls of crayons and pencils from BTS 2018, now let us marvel at sitting on product long enough for the Earth to spin 365 times before stocking it. Realtalk if my expectations were any lower they'd be down around my ankles

 

[Tessa120]

Whenever I'm trying to do math (budgeting, comparing purchases with two different "per unit" measurements, figuring out how long a pantry item will last or how much additional I need to buy) and it's more than just punch a few numbers into a calculator I'll use a pencil to do quick math or to figure out the equation I will need to punch into the calculator in scientific mode.

Whenever I'm on the phone and there's some information I need to jot down and it's likely changeable, I'll use a pencil. I prefer erasing to crossing out.

I'm old school, so physical paper for quick notes or figuring out a solution is just very convenient for me. At work, it's a lot easier to jot down notes in my notebook and go downstairs to talk to the managers then write down their answer than to try and remember or put a note in my phone.

 

[flow4areasonuno]

BTS set was the last POG shift I worked at Spot and we still had wacofulls of crayons and pencils from BTS 2018, now let us marvel at sitting on product long enough for the Earth to spin 365 times before stocking it. Realtalk if my expectations were any lower they'd be down around my ankles

Sorry but that's just funny, lol

The ankle part, not the rest of it. That's just sad.