Ethics violation?

[holythrowaway2]

Team members and team leads are being threatened by ETLs and the SD with corrective actions for not "coming completely clean" in their area. At the same time, no one is allowed to extend shifts or work overtime. Is this an ethics violation? This would be understandable with different circumstances, but there is a clearly impossible amount of work to finish. I had 13 total boats of pulls and freight in a 6 hour shift today, and technically 14 more pallets sitting in another trailer. Plus zone, reshop, OPU help, etc. Obviously not doable.

 

[NCweatherguy]

Ask at the beginning of your shift what your push goal is and document your workload if you think it is unrealistic by taking pictures.

 

[holythrowaway2]

Ask at the beginning of your shift what your push goal is and document your workload if you think it is unrealistic by taking pictures.

The push goal is, of course, "it all needs to be done", and my team lead actually suggested I start doing this today. Thank you!

 

[allnew2]

They are on crack you can tell them that . And as it was suggested take pictures of your workload , add an other 30 minutes for zone . If you help opu time yourself and take pictures of that as well.
6 h just for zone and push 14 vehicles of toys is duo-able, 14 vehicle of stationary not so much .
But again they are on crack and might as well document everything .

 

[Powerwalker]

I love threats. It's so in the spirit of Target. Work somewhere you live. Gosh, who likes being threatened?

 

[Captain Orca]

"YOU show me how to do it faster, asshole."

 

[Dead and Khaki]

It's a violation of logic and reason, that's for sure. But these ETLs are fresh out of universities where logic and reason are denounced as constructs of the oppressor or something.

 

[smarthuddle]

I love asking them “can you do it in that amount of time? show me how’s it’s done and then you can hold me accountable for it”. I don’t care how long or little the computer says it takes

 

[holythrowaway2]

Wonderful responses everyone haha. Oh they would never say these things directly to me anymore because I've stood up for myself (which equals bad attitude, by the way). I'm in market at a relatively large store (the big one in a big college's town). It's not uncommon for there to be like 2 people in dry (not even 8 hr shifts), and 2 people in fresh stuff (all of dairy, meat, frozen, produce). Sometimes 1 or none for the day though! Hopefully, there is someone scheduled to do something in market from like 5 to close.

This is fairly typical of the whole store though. Absolutely miserable grids and so much freight. I'm also leaving out all of the containers of pallets of freight they're hiding to pretend it doesn't exist that they're gonna yell at us for later.

The current micromanagement is truly incredible. They started counting boxes on each of our boats and you better hope you don't have to do an OPU or help a guest or something during that boat, no excuses for not hitting the time they say. Because, ya know, being slow is our problem

 

[holythrowaway2]

I love asking them “can you do it in that amount of time? show me how’s it’s done and then you can hold me accountable for it”. I don’t care how long or little the computer says it takes

Oh I LOVE that you said this. So when shelves are empty (from no one being scheduled to push anything) the ETL's and SD jump in to tell us it can be done in these ridiculous times.

Congrats, you hit the time when no guests stopped you because you made us help them instead, and shelves were literally empty so you didn't have to rotate product or backstock. Also for your pay, I too cold absolutely bust a** in whatever area you want like one day a month. I'm not impressed.

Also, keep doing that for a few more years for 1/4 of your current salary and penny raises while we tell you you're not good enough but also how much we appreciate you.

I am very salty 😂

 

[Captain Orca]

Not as salty as the miserable yet articulate old Captain.

 

[gsa4lyfe]

Unrealistic? Absolutely. Ethic violations? No….

 

[versionDefect]

But these ETLs are fresh out of universities where logic

mine doesn't have 1 hour of college experience. Shes also anti-vax but that's a diff story for a diff time.

 

[holythrowaway2]

Unrealistic? Absolutely. Ethic violations? No…

i figured, but it was worth a shot. No biggie, i have them on plenty more illegal/unethical stuff that's actually easily verifiable

 

[Captain Orca]

Sweat, good work ethic, decency, understanding and a desire to do the job correctly is the key, a degree in anything from anywhere teaches the youngsters nothing about the retail world.

 

[Powerwalker]

Not giving any leader an excuse, but it must suck being lower level management. However, you wanted the job leading and the responsibilities.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

to your etl,
please help me, spider wrap some big tv's & hard case the phone cases. Wait, there is a guest who needs help with a phone activation.

 

[holythrowaway2]

Not giving any leader an excuse, but it must suck being lower level management. However, you wanted the job leading and the responsibilities.

Basically at least triple regular TM expectations, and that's what team leads are expected now. I'm sure it goes up the ladder like that but yeah, you're above just a team lead and make far too much money to be behaving how they are now. I genuinely think one ETL just likes messing with leads. Know about a big grocery related visit? Make sure the grocery TL doesn't get told until right before they show up! Weirdly high school level petty things that make people lose their mind and the store overall worse.

Our SD also takes an impressive amount of vacations (7-12 days usually) while not even working that much regularly so at this point I can't say I care about what they have to say

 

[Planosss]

They are on crack you can tell them that . And as it was suggested take pictures of your workload , add an other 30 minutes for zone . If you help opu time yourself and take pictures of that as well.
6 h just for zone and push 14 vehicles of toys is duo-able, 14 vehicle of stationary not so much .
But again they are on crack and might as well document everything .

30 minutes zones are a joke , like what are you accomplishing in 30 minutes 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

[allnew2]

30 minutes zones are a joke , like what are you accomplishing in 30 minutes 🤷🏻‍♂️

depends which area because paper takes less than that . But I guess it all comes down to if your closing team is doing their jobs .

 

[holythrowaway2]

depends which area because paper takes less than that . But I guess it all comes down to if your closing team is doing their jobs .

Yeah i mean sometimes if it's not too bad 30 mins is reasonable for just zoning in my area. If I walk into a zoned area, ever, I will freak out lol. Closing team does not zone unless for some reason there is NOTHING else for them to do.

For a long time I walked into an absolutely trashed area (10 aisles usually), with minimum 2 full, very disorganized reshop carts at guest service. Probably had to do one opu right away too when i got in and they're pissy I'm not halfway through my first boat of freight an hour into the shift 😂

 

[lucidtm]

Our ETL's are doing something similar but only to certain departments. And to TM's that do chat a lot, but they do also get A TON of work done and are excellent employees overall.

This is the advice I gave to those TM's (who are not my TM's, but they asked what they could do):

1. As they're listing what you're to be doing for the day, visibly write it down. By visibly I mean get a little notebook, write it down as they're talking. Let them see you're taking notes and being attentive to their requests. DO NOT use your phone.

2. After they're done listing, THANK THEM (I know, but seriously they'll love it) ask which tasks are the priority. Lately it's been ZONE first, reshop, then push. Even if it's repetitive, ask it.

3. Throughout your day, do the tasks. Say it took 30 minutes to zone, 20 to push reshop, then you pushed for an hour before your 15. Write all that down. At 2pm you got pulled to do 2 SFS carts? Write that down and also how long it took you. Take a pic of MPM stats when you're done. You had to backup at the lanes for 20 minutes at 4pm? Write that down.

Truly anything and everything you can think of to speak to your own personal volume of work and accomplishments. Keep the log so that if you do get pulled aside again by anyone, you have it and know exactly what you did. If they're still on you, go to the SD with your info. If all of the store's TM's are doing this and you're doing what you can, you're establishing a pattern to the SD that you're all doing what you can and then the SD can go to the ETL about why they're not supporting you.

As a TL in a store with a lot of new upper management, I do all of this too. Cover your butt always.

KEEP IN MIND. They can access reports for everything you're doing. Don't fudge the number like how long you had to look for items or how long you were at the lanes. While they can't coach from the cameras, they will likely check them.

 

[allnew2]

While they can't coach from the cameras, they will likely check the

True . However they still Can coach you by looking at the cameras and only use different wording such as “you’ve been observed doing this and not that “

 

[Powerwalker]

True . However they still Can coach you by looking at the cameras and only use different wording such as “you’ve been observed doing this and not that “

Why even make that rule then? Someone somewhere sometime made this rule for a reason. And it's still there. So to circumvent it with word play is no better than retaliation and is am ethics violation. I'd caution any leader to not do this.

 

[allnew2]

Why even make that rule then? Someone somewhere sometime made this rule for a reason. And it's still there. So to circumvent it with word play is no better than retaliation and is am ethics violation. I'd caution any leader to not do this.

I agree . I’m only saying that just because is said that they can’t coach off the camera if they want to come after you they will, and that will be the wording that they would use and it can’t be proved otherwise .