MEGATHREAD Hang Me (The Softlines Thread)

[sher]

We always have at least 2 designated backups for every couple of hours. They're supposed to call those people first, but if the GSA/GSTL has seen someone on the floor that they know will respond, they'll call them. I get called first outside of my designated backup time-slot all the time. If the store actually is super busy at night, the zone will just suffer a bit. It's never been a complete disaster, but if we're scheduled to leave at 11, we leave at 11. No one stays past their schedule to finish the zone. I think this is why people in my store are less inclined to respond for backup at night. We know once the store closes, that's it. What's done is done.

I go for backup often, but if you cry wolf (or "long lines" in this scenario) more than once in a night, I'm done making the voyage to the front unless you call me by name. I've realized I play favorites with certain GSA/GSTLs. I'm more likely to respond to backup calls from some over others.

 

[mxrbook]

It kinda makes me want to stand at the cash lanes and watch the floor do reshop.zone after the store closes. Oh, did you want some help? Where were you when 8 lanes were 1+6?

That NEVER happens in our store. The cashiers leave 15 minutes after closing while the closing zone team stays for another 45 to try and finish their work. If your cashiers are actually helping the floor side after closing, it makes me wanna go over there and strangle those unresponsive zone team members for you. LOL! I cannot tell you how many times I've heard from the floor how irritating the closing zone team thinks it is to go up front and spend half an hour or more helping the cashiers (and struggling to finish their assigned areas) just to watch those same cashiers walk out early while they stay behind. If the cashiers stayed behind with the zone team and helped out at night it wouldn't be so bad and what a great way to say "thanks for your help" by sending them to the zones of those who responded to "guest first".

The front end is responsible for zoning/reshop of $$ Spot, check lanes (of course), green cartwell, and cosmetics and part of H&B. I have to send cashiers off the lanes all night to complete those zones and they run back and forth as back ups occur. Then at close, we finish our zones and then go out to the floor. Nobody leaves our store until LOD says we do, including cashiers and cart attendants.

 

[babytrees]

GAHHHH!!! What a day. Temperatures over 100 degrees and everyone trying to get their summer wardrobe. I actually had people in line *waiting* to use the fitting room. Doesn't happen very often but today was the day. Then there was this bottomless cart next to my desk as a result. I couldn't get it finished for the people coming out and tossing on stuff that they didn't want. And then there were 4 carts of reshop in the back somewhere just waiting to be processed. Going to be a killer weekend ><. Hope we make sales for all this trouble.

had about 8 straight shifts of this. Tonight was the first night in a long time I felt like I got through everything at the fitting room (except the dang rewraps). It was crazy busy for a Sunday night. I think even though we are a lower volume store (lost a volume each of the last 2 years) we are shopped harder than some of the others in our district, especially in softlines. And our team is kind of lousy. I would say we have 3 good zoners/reshoppers (1 of which is on a LOA)3 okays and the rest just need to vamoose. 1 good FRO (myself, I know I am stronger back there than on the floor, our STL thought I was the fitting room tl, that made me laugh) 1 that needs to go but must have some major blackmail material because she seems to be stuck there and the rest are just sales floor taking shifts and most are also just need to vamoose. I think if I could be the one that takes over for Ms. Cushy Pants (only works m-f and only days) the fitting room would run smoothly and it would help the softlines team immensely.

 

[RightArm]

GAHHHH!!! What a day. Temperatures over 100 degrees and everyone trying to get their summer wardrobe. I actually had people in line *waiting* to use the fitting room. Doesn't happen very often but today was the day. Then there was this bottomless cart next to my desk as a result. I couldn't get it finished for the people coming out and tossing on stuff that they didn't want. And then there were 4 carts of reshop in the back somewhere just waiting to be processed. Going to be a killer weekend ><. Hope we make sales for all this trouble.

had about 8 straight shifts of this. Tonight was the first night in a long time I felt like I got through everything at the fitting room (except the dang rewraps). It was crazy busy for a Sunday night. I think even though we are a lower volume store (lost a volume each of the last 2 years) we are shopped harder than some of the others in our district, especially in softlines. And our team is kind of lousy. I would say we have 3 good zoners/reshoppers (1 of which is on a LOA)3 okays and the rest just need to vamoose. 1 good FRO (myself, I know I am stronger back there than on the floor, our STL thought I was the fitting room tl, that made me laugh) 1 that needs to go but must have some major blackmail material because she seems to be stuck there and the rest are just sales floor taking shifts and most are also just need to vamoose. I think if I could be the one that takes over for Ms. Cushy Pants (only works m-f and only days) the fitting room would run smoothly and it would help the softlines team immensely.

Our mess carried on through the weekend until today. We're not entirely caught up but we're getting there. At least there are no carts of reshop sitting in the backroom anymore. Are all of your operators trained on all processes? Can they all do repackaging and reticketing? When I first got thrown on as FRO I was given a twenty minute run down of how the phones work and how to hang things correctly and fold them as well. No one taught me that extra stuff. This little problem seemed to carry over with the lack of full training and so we only have a select few of our operators now who even knew how to deal with the stuff and if they weren't getting shifts the mess just started piling up. Today our PATL was nice enough to take time out of his busy schedule to show a couple of us lacking the training how it's done. Now maybe we can get rid of that Z-rack of clothes missing tickets. ><

 

[RightArm]

The front end is responsible for zoning/reshop of $$ Spot, check lanes (of course), green cartwell, and cosmetics and part of H&B. I have to send cashiers off the lanes all night to complete those zones and they run back and forth as back ups occur. Then at close, we finish our zones and then go out to the floor. Nobody leaves our store until LOD says we do, including cashiers and cart attendants.

Our front end is supposed to take care of check lanes and $$ spot and sometimes if we're not real busy then they do the HL go backs (reshop) that's at the service desk. They don't always get those things done, though. Sometimes the morning RTW zoner has to take care of $$ spot because they didn't (or couldn't) do it. And sometimes the midday TMs in HL have to do the HL go backs (reshop) because again they didn't (or couldn't) do it. But they always leave 15 minutes after we close the store and they never zone anything outside of those areas. If SL crashes and the LOD is desperate he or she may ask them to zone the SL dept across from the front lanes, but that is a very very rare occurrence. And so, it just seems terrible to me that your TMs at the check lanes are doing everything they do to help and staying on just as last as the sales floor TMs but not getting much in return from the floor. Apparently your sales floor TMs have no idea how good they have it.

 

[konk]

It's not always about getting something in return. Sometimes you just have to do what you are told. I have to work out the 5 o'clock pulls, but no one helps me backstock.

 

[babytrees]

GAHHHH!!! What a day. Temperatures over 100 degrees and everyone trying to get their summer wardrobe. I actually had people in line *waiting* to use the fitting room. Doesn't happen very often but today was the day. Then there was this bottomless cart next to my desk as a result. I couldn't get it finished for the people coming out and tossing on stuff that they didn't want. And then there were 4 carts of reshop in the back somewhere just waiting to be processed. Going to be a killer weekend ><. Hope we make sales for all this trouble.

had about 8 straight shifts of this. Tonight was the first night in a long time I felt like I got through everything at the fitting room (except the dang rewraps). It was crazy busy for a Sunday night. I think even though we are a lower volume store (lost a volume each of the last 2 years) we are shopped harder than some of the others in our district, especially in softlines. And our team is kind of lousy. I would say we have 3 good zoners/reshoppers (1 of which is on a LOA)3 okays and the rest just need to vamoose. 1 good FRO (myself, I know I am stronger back there than on the floor, our STL thought I was the fitting room tl, that made me laugh) 1 that needs to go but must have some major blackmail material because she seems to be stuck there and the rest are just sales floor taking shifts and most are also just need to vamoose. I think if I could be the one that takes over for Ms. Cushy Pants (only works m-f and only days) the fitting room would run smoothly and it would help the softlines team immensely.

Our mess carried on through the weekend until today. We're not entirely caught up but we're getting there. At least there are no carts of reshop sitting in the backroom anymore. Are all of your operators trained on all processes? Can they all do repackaging and reticketing? When I first got thrown on as FRO I was given a twenty minute run down of how the phones work and how to hang things correctly and fold them as well. No one taught me that extra stuff. This little problem seemed to carry over with the lack of full training and so we only have a select few of our operators now who even knew how to deal with the stuff and if they weren't getting shifts the mess just started piling up. Today our PATL was nice enough to take time out of his busy schedule to show a couple of us lacking the training how it's done. Now maybe we can get rid of that Z-rack of clothes missing tickets. ><

the ones other than Ms. Cushy Pants (and the two transers)that get full shifts have been trained by me....and I have been asked to train fitting room operators in a brand new store. I know what I am teaching and it's Target best practices. What they actually do is beyond my control. I understand being overwhelmed but part of the problem is I am on for only 6 hour shifts and the ones on for longer times are the ones who twiddle their thumbs most of the time. Prime example, Ms Cushy Pants only has any equipment when it is forced on her or when an ETL she wants to impress with her "working"

 

[RightArm]

the ones other than Ms. Cushy Pants (and the two transers)that get full shifts have been trained by me....and I have been asked to train fitting room operators in a brand new store. I know what I am teaching and it's Target best practices. What they actually do is beyond my control. I understand being overwhelmed but part of the problem is I am on for only 6 hour shifts and the ones on for longer times are the ones who twiddle their thumbs most of the time. Prime example, Ms Cushy Pants only has any equipment when it is forced on her or when an ETL she wants to impress with her "working"

That's what one of our fully trained OPs said to me - that she trained the ones she got fully and she can't be held responsible for what they forget or choose not to do. What I don't understand is why our fully trained OPs are suddenly getting less hours than the duffers who twiddle their thumbs and say no one taught them how to reticket or repackage. And if Ms Cushy Pants only has equipment when it's forced on her... how does she get the POGs done for VAs? We're always having to chase one down when it's time to set the SL depts.

As time goes on, Target seems to make less and less sense to me. ><

 

[babytrees]

the ones other than Ms. Cushy Pants (and the two transers)that get full shifts have been trained by me....and I have been asked to train fitting room operators in a brand new store. I know what I am teaching and it's Target best practices. What they actually do is beyond my control. I understand being overwhelmed but part of the problem is I am on for only 6 hour shifts and the ones on for longer times are the ones who twiddle their thumbs most of the time. Prime example, Ms Cushy Pants only has any equipment when it is forced on her or when an ETL she wants to impress with her "working"

That's what one of our fully trained OPs said to me - that she trained the ones she got fully and she can't be held responsible for what they forget or choose not to do. What I don't understand is why our fully trained OPs are suddenly getting less hours than the duffers who twiddle their thumbs and say no one taught them how to reticket or repackage. And if Ms Cushy Pants only has equipment when it's forced on her... how does she get the POGs done for VAs? We're always having to chase one down when it's time to set the SL depts.

As time goes on, Target seems to make less and less sense to me. ><

lol,lol,lol her doing POGs? that is a laugh riot. I do them when I am on the floor.

I actually take it as a personal affront that these people don't do it properly after I have trained them in best practice sometimes multiple times. Or I should say I used to, I am beyond frustrated with the fact our duffers are getting so many hours. Target gets what they deserve when they schedule like that...especially since they have been warned who keeps up on best practice.

 

[RightArm]

the ones other than Ms. Cushy Pants (and the two transers)that get full shifts have been trained by me....and I have been asked to train fitting room operators in a brand new store. I know what I am teaching and it's Target best practices. What they actually do is beyond my control. I understand being overwhelmed but part of the problem is I am on for only 6 hour shifts and the ones on for longer times are the ones who twiddle their thumbs most of the time. Prime example, Ms Cushy Pants only has any equipment when it is forced on her or when an ETL she wants to impress with her "working"

That's what one of our fully trained OPs said to me - that she trained the ones she got fully and she can't be held responsible for what they forget or choose not to do. What I don't understand is why our fully trained OPs are suddenly getting less hours than the duffers who twiddle their thumbs and say no one taught them how to reticket or repackage. And if Ms Cushy Pants only has equipment when it's forced on her... how does she get the POGs done for VAs? We're always having to chase one down when it's time to set the SL depts.

As time goes on, Target seems to make less and less sense to me. ><

lol,lol,lol her doing POGs? that is a laugh riot. I do them when I am on the floor.

I actually take it as a personal affront that these people don't do it properly after I have trained them in best practice sometimes multiple times. Or I should say I used to, I am beyond frustrated with the fact our duffers are getting so many hours. Target gets what they deserve when they schedule like that...especially since they have been warned who keeps up on best practice.

Yikes! Yes, I'd have to agree. They get what they deserve. Do you just have the one SL TL?

 

[babytrees]

right now we have two...but because we went down a level we will probably eventually lose one of them.

 

[babytrees]

I should say our tl's are great ladies...but they are not trainers. Our brand tm's aren't fully trained in every aspect of our jobs. I am not blaming them completely, the scheduling (and hours) sucks and hardly ever are the brand's on when a tl is on. And the tl's don't like each other so they don't/won't train the others brand members.

 

[RightArm]

I should say our tl's are great ladies...but they are not trainers. Our brand tm's aren't fully trained in every aspect of our jobs. I am not blaming them completely, the scheduling (and hours) sucks and hardly ever are the brand's on when a tl is on. And the tl's don't like each other so they don't/won't train the others brand members.

Our TL's took a bit of time getting used to one another. The first had experience and the second was coming from a totally unrelated job and just the bare minimum of Target TL training. It made for a shaky beginning but I'm glad to say they finally got it together. We still have issues from time to time but not like that. We only have two brand TMs on the floor (I'm one of them). Yes, the scheduling and hours suck. You do what you can with the time you have and roll it on into the next day. It's the only thing you can do.

 

[sher]

I went in tonight (technically last night) to discover mountains of reshop. Most of the floor looked zoned, but Men's looked like it hadn't been touched in days! The women and children are shopping for father's day gifts and making the biggest messes in the process! There were t-shirts unfolded and thrown all over the place. They were being unfolded as I folded. It was horrible. I didn't finish it and I was there for 3.5-ish hours (minus my break and fitting room attendant's break). There weren't many people in during the day. I'm not really sure what they're expecting to get done when they schedule so few people for the day.

 

[RightArm]

I went in tonight (technically last night) to discover mountains of reshop. Most of the floor looked zoned, but Men's looked like it hadn't been touched in days! The women and children are shopping for father's day gifts and making the biggest messes in the process! There were t-shirts unfolded and thrown all over the place. They were being unfolded as I folded. It was horrible. I didn't finish it and I was there for 3.5-ish hours (minus my break and fitting room attendant's break). There weren't many people in during the day. I'm not really sure what they're expecting to get done when they schedule so few people for the day.

If your leadership is any good and has any clue at all, they're just expecting you to do your best and make sure that from the "racetrack" it looks presentable. They're aware of how the cut hours are affecting the store but have limited control over it. Father's Day is one of the two times of year that Men's gets so abominably trashed and the other is Christmas. I asked my ETL softlines once if women shopped more than men did or were simply far more inconsiderate and messy. Wisely he said "I'm not going to touch that one." LOL!

 

[sher]

My etl-hr once told me that Target's average shopper is a mom and I think the age was late-ish 20s+. He told me after I asked why none of the shoe endcaps were men's shoes. A week ago I heard a man talking to his girlfriend saying "they don't even have a men's department here." Men's is tucked away in the back of softlines, behind a wall. They don't know it's there. Most common questions I hear are "where's the men's department?" and "do you have men's shoes?"

Days ago, someone peed in a fitting room and I guess the cleaning crew didn't clean the carpet so the smell is just getting worse and worse. On the first day, it only smelled in one stall. Now the scent is permeating throughout the entire fitting room area. It smells like a mix of pee and mildew. I hope they clean it by Monday morning since I have a FR shift.

 

[RightArm]

Our store got rid of the carpet in the fitting rooms. That helped a lot. If someone does something stupid like say urinating in one of the fitting room stalls... well... it's not exactly going to be missed. >< Before it was like they'd pee on the carpet and then it'd dry and be smelly. Why people do this sort of insane thing to begin with is beyond me. It's not like we don't have bathrooms available. :mega_shok:

Today was a rough opening. 7 carts of reshop, 1 cart of shoes, 1 cart of missing pieces, 1 kid's cart, 2 z-racks, 1 single z-rack.... and a partridge in a pear tree. :mda: Okay, maybe not that last one. In any case I srsly MISS having someone who can do go backs on ERT. :cray:

 

[researchr]

We had a code brown in the fitting room yesterday..I just don't understand these people.

 

[sher]

They shampooed the carpets this morning (we don't have overnight anymore, but eaarly morning) and it made the urine smell more apparent. It's like it came up to the surface or something. The floors still hadn't dried when I got there today at 5pm. A few guests complained because they thought they were stepping in pee (I don't blame them) so we closed the fitting room for the night. They're supposed to be re-shampooing tonight. Hopefully it's not worse. A lot of people just didn't buy things when they couldn't try them on and some people didn't care about the wet floor so I let them go in anyway. Some people just bought what they had and decided to return whatever didn't work.

I don't even like cashiering, but I'm so happy I don't have to work softlines tomorrow. The scent is just awful and they took too long to do anything so it's tough to get it out now. I don't have to go back to SL until Friday so hopefully it's better by then.

 

[HuddleCaptain]

I have a question, (and I'm sure it's been asked before but I'm having some trouble searching for it), but it's about the visual adj. Over the years I've gotten different answers from different ETL's. Can someone tell me what the proper procedure is for these things. Not how to do it, but how many people and how the hours are based. For example, if a set says it will be a 12 hour set, is that 12 hours for one person or for a few different team members? I always thought there was supposed to be a team of people for certain sets. Say RTW. If it's 36 hours, that's with say 3 or 4 people each taking a block to do. One does Swim, one does Merona, one does Plus, etc. However, what usually happens at my store is either the Team Lead or one of the Team Members does the entire set. Is that correct? And what about scheduling people? Does the team (or person) doing the set change their hours to early? Sometimes the people doing the sets in my store keep the same schedule. If they want them done by Tuesday (or Wednesday) what happens if the person doing it closes Monday and has off on Tuesday? Shouldn't their schedule be changed for the week of the set? Just curious how other stores handle this. It seems different stores do it different ways. But what is the "proper procedure?" Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[RightArm]

When VA's say they take 12 hrs.... that means that if you could clock in at 8am and work till 10pm uninterrupted, it would be done. It literally means 12 hrs of work no matter how many team members you split it between. Some stores have a good size team to handle VA's and others have to get by with one or two people doing VA's. When that happens alongside hour cuts your VA may not be finished when it's supposed to be. And I wouldn't doubt it if there are quite a few stores who aren't finished on time for that reason. Our practice is to move all the fixtures to their proper locations and do all the POGs in the transitioning dept the week before the set date on the VA. And we make sure all the S points/focals are done first (towers and billboards). Once that's all done we do all the racks in that dept. When the DTL walks your store he knows what the S points/focals are in every dept. Because stock issues are different in every store no matter how the VA says to set the dept it's not going to necessarily look like another store's, but the focals and S points should all be the same and if they're not you better be able to speak to why. That's why we're making constant notes in the VA books to explain why things are different from what they want. It's also good to note that the hours on a VA for setting are not always correct. One VA book said the Men's department would take 40 hrs to set. Let me tell you.... it didn't even take 20.

 

[HuddleCaptain]

Thanks RightArm, that's kinda what I figured. Unfortunately, with the hours cut so bad, most of our departments are jacked up, and it seems to take longer to sort out all the clothes to get the VA's done correctly. However, I do like some of the points you covered and will try them out with my sets. Moving the fixtures before hand is a great idea. Thanks for the advice.

 

[RightArm]

You're welcome. And I also keep daily notes about what I did for the day. This has reduced the pressure from our SL-ETL because I can speak to my hours no matter how long or short they are. So, if I come into 8 carts of reshop and 3 z-racks of go backs and a kid's cart that looks like a bush.... well, guess what? No VA that day. And if I have a five hour shift but have to give the FRO a lunch break plus take one myself plus give the FRO a break and take one too..... well, that really doesn't give me much time on the floor. And if the ETL-GE doesn't schedule enough cashiers or too many cashiers call off and I have to spend 40 minutes total up front during my shift doing back up cashiering? That goes in my notes too. It's a matter of saying "this is how much time you gave me" and "this is what I did with it". Plus... if I didn't keep notes and you asked me what I did last Tuesday I probably couldn't tell you. >< After awhile one day runs into the next.

 

[sher]

Our fitting room no longer smells like urine, but it took so long for the carpet to dry from the shampooing that it just smells like mildew now. It's horrible.

I had a short closing shift last night so I just zoned my whole shift, but before I left, I took a cart of infant reshop to the back only to discover another cart of infant reshop... and there's one in the fitting room. Infants is always neglected. I'm almost always assigned to that section, but I don't want it tomorrow. Last time I worked SL, I left them with less than a cart of reshop. I don't understand how every other dept has such a small amount of reshop, but infants has 3 carts. If I do have to work infants, hopefully there's actually only a few things on top of a prenatal Boppy or giant box of diapers so it only looks like it's a lot.

 

[Retail Girl]

Our softlines team is a joke. They spend more time doing nothing than they spend doing anything. The other night, the LOD got fed up with it, and decided that he would take me out of cashiering for the night and have me set the pace in softlines and keep everyone on track. The softlines crew had to rotate through cashiering to cover my shift there. And they've all been working softlines longer than I've even been at the store (and I've only worked a could of softlines shifts).

That should have put them on notice that they need to get it in gear...but I kinda doubt they were able to rub those brain cells together enough to figure that out.