Archived I just want to do my job!

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Aug 9, 2013
Messages
550
It is extremely frustrating trying to get anything accomplished during my cart shifts when I end up spending half the time on the register. Why do we only have 3 freaking cashiers scheduled at a time? One at IGS, one at the normal lanes and one always seems to be on break. Every ten minutes there's a backup cashier request and I, along with other team members around the store, have to stop doing their scheduled job and ring out customers for up to 30 minutes at a time. How does anything get done in this store? There have been times when no one has been on the sales floor because they were all cashing people out. We have plenty of cashiers who would love to get more hours, all of the swap shifts are taken almost immediately. Why not schedule one or *gasp* even two more? Is Target really in such dire straights that they cannot afford giving one more poor soul minimum wage for a few hours?

Then the classic "backing up the lanes is in your job description and at the top of the list." THAT IS THE ENTIRE PROBLEM CAN'T YOU SEE THAT!

So when my shift is done I'm lucky to get half the carts into the store. I don't even touch any of the other list of things I'm supposed to be doing. And of course the next CA isn't scheduled for two more hours which means some unsuspecting male team member will be asked to stop doing his job and go grab carts. It's absolutely ridiculous.
 
Omg I'm not a cart attendant but i totally understand where you're coming from. I usually get mid day shifts which are from 2:30-6:30pm. The cart attendant doesnt come in until 6pm. So what happens? the store starts running short or completely out of carts and guess who has to bring them in? I do..Not to mention, during this time im the ONLY hard lines TM on the floor until the closing team comes in. so that leaves me answering call buttons and phone calls for all of the hard lines departments. Also i gotta do guest first at the front lines, carry outs, clean the occasional spill, cover electronics break/lunch all while keeping in mind that i have a line of pulls in the backroom :cray: And as you mentioned when back up cashiering its not a 2-5 min thing, it can sometimes take up to 15 mins or more.

The response i got for not having a cart attendant come in earlier was because "the store doesnt have enough hours" nonsense! Attempting to clear the line is always a struggle lol
 
I'm not a CA, but I haate going up for backup, too! Our cashiers don't get many hours it seems. GSA/TLs always call "I need backup, I only have 1 (or sometimes 2) cashier at the moment." I don't understand why they couldn't just hire and schedule more cashiers.

Then there are times when they're all "we need all hands on deck. Everyone trained on register needs to come up!" Then two seconds later, "I need a price check from a team member in [department]." Umm, there is no one in that department because we're all here...
 
/We have 20 pulls on the line!
/This should only take 15 minutes to complete!
/Team, who is responding for back up?
keep-calm-because-winter-is-coming-23.png
 
Last edited:
Long ago when Target was a good place to work and the stores were clean, the zone perfect and guest service more than just a buzz word back up was considered a very bad thing and when you were called up for it their was time clock by the check lanes where you would switch work centers to cashier to keep track of who was not staffing enough of them. Those days are long dead. My wife and I were in Target last night and the store was a mess and the few people working all on back up with huge lines. Lucky for us a couple different people in one line just walked out leaving their carts so we moved up quicker.
 
I'm not a CA, but I haate going up for backup, too! Our cashiers don't get many hours it seems. GSA/TLs always call "I need backup, I only have 1 (or sometimes 2) cashier at the moment." I don't understand why they couldn't just hire and schedule more cashiers.

Then there are times when they're all "we need all hands on deck. Everyone trained on register needs to come up!" Then two seconds later, "I need a price check from a team member in [department]." Umm, there is no one in that department because we're all here...

Are you sure you don't work at my store. I work close and we get that only it's more like "I'm down to only 1 (2,3) cashier (s). If you're not with a guest we need you at the register." It's crazy and then they wonder why you're behind with zone and reshop.
 
This completely grinds my gears. This happens all the time during the weekdays. I get scheduled 12-4 to do CAF pushes, and no one comes in till 4 to take over with the CAF pushes. So, I'm trying to stay on top of the CAF pushes since no one else is here to help and I don't want the next team member walking in with 10 CAFs on the line cause that looks bad on my part.

So, while I'm trying to do the CAF pushes, I'll be plucking away at them and then they need backup and no one responds because there's only one hardlines team member and one softlines team member. So if they're busy or do not respond, then you get the LOD who goes "ANYONE WHO HAS A WALKIE NEEDS TO COME UP NOW!"

Like really, I understand that if both team members are busy or are already on lane, of course I will go up and help. But, if they just aren't responding for no reason, then why should I have to come up? I 'am a CAF pusher today and I need to get these done so that when I leave and say there's so many on the line, they go up in arms like I'm not doing my job, NO REALLY? Not to mention, when I get up on lane, they forget about me and I end up having to stay on lane for about 20 minutes. A 4 hour shift is short for CAF pushes so trying to do them while backup is incredibly irritating.

Obviously if there's a call button and I'm near it or no one is there to help, I'll get it, I help guests out and what not, but this whole not having enough team members so I have to come up is a bit ridiculous.

This is probably one of my biggest pet peeves ever from working here
 
This completely grinds my gears. This happens all the time during the weekdays. I get scheduled 12-4 to do CAF pushes, and no one comes in till 4 to take over with the CAF pushes. So, I'm trying to stay on top of the CAF pushes since no one else is here to help and I don't want the next team member walking in with 10 CAFs on the line cause that looks bad on my part.

So, while I'm trying to do the CAF pushes, I'll be plucking away at them and then they need backup and no one responds because there's only one hardlines team member and one softlines team member. So if they're busy or do not respond, then you get the LOD who goes "ANYONE WHO HAS A WALKIE NEEDS TO COME UP NOW!"

Like really, I understand that if both team members are busy or are already on lane, of course I will go up and help. But, if they just aren't responding for no reason, then why should I have to come up? I 'am a CAF pusher today and I need to get these done so that when I leave and say there's so many on the line, they go up in arms like I'm not doing my job, NO REALLY? Not to mention, when I get up on lane, they forget about me and I end up having to stay on lane for about 20 minutes. A 4 hour shift is short for CAF pushes so trying to do them while backup is incredibly irritating.

Obviously if there's a call button and I'm near it or no one is there to help, I'll get it, I help guests out and what not, but this whole not having enough team members so I have to come up is a bit ridiculous.

This is probably one of my biggest pet peeves ever from working here

Our 12-4 Mid(only salesfloor)was able to work out 1 CAF from 12-2 the other day because of doing backup, call buttons and general guest service. He was not pleased with being on the lanes so much. They got mad at the Market Closer sunday who had perishables out and wouldnt back up even though his closing market shift was 2:30-7, yes 7!!! And then he wasnt able to get all of the zone done and he got bitched at some more since its obv easy zoning the entire market section, work out all the market pulls and other pfresh closing routines while only being there til 7.
 
Last edited:
When I used to close, I'd feel unaccomplished if I had a shitty zone at the end of the night because I was backing up so much. But it happens. Just get done what you can.
 
This has been the case at my store a hell of a lot lately. Makes me glad I'm a PA, we are last resort to go up at my store. There have been times I've had the LOD tell me I need to listen for call buttons/phone calls because everyone else is on check lanes. They have made the shifts for CAF pushers shorter, and some days only have one (we are a high volume store), and they spend half their day up at the lanes because HL typically has only TLs til the closers come in, and SL usually only has 2 or 3 in the morning and they don't like to respond to the registers.
 
This has been the case at my store a hell of a lot lately. Makes me glad I'm a PA, we are last resort to go up at my store. There have been times I've had the LOD tell me I need to listen for call buttons/phone calls because everyone else is on check lanes. They have made the shifts for CAF pushers shorter, and some days only have one (we are a high volume store), and they spend half their day up at the lanes because HL typically has only TLs til the closers come in, and SL usually only has 2 or 3 in the morning and they don't like to respond to the registers.

Ya I typically dont have to backup when I am on my closing shifts but one of the other market closers has told me they hound him about going up and backing up and then they get mad at him when he cant finish his zone in pfresh....:huh:
 
It is extremely frustrating trying to get anything accomplished during my cart shifts when I end up spending half the time on the register. Why do we only have 3 freaking cashiers scheduled at a time? One at IGS, one at the normal lanes and one always seems to be on break. Every ten minutes there's a backup cashier request and I, along with other team members around the store, have to stop doing their scheduled job and ring out customers for up to 30 minutes at a time. How does anything get done in this store? There have been times when no one has been on the sales floor because they were all cashing people out. We have plenty of cashiers who would love to get more hours, all of the swap shifts are taken almost immediately. Why not schedule one or *gasp* even two more? Is Target really in such dire straights that they cannot afford giving one more poor soul minimum wage for a few hours?

Then the classic "backing up the lanes is in your job description and at the top of the list." THAT IS THE ENTIRE PROBLEM CAN'T YOU SEE THAT!

So when my shift is done I'm lucky to get half the carts into the store. I don't even touch any of the other list of things I'm supposed to be doing. And of course the next CA isn't scheduled for two more hours which means some unsuspecting male team member will be asked to stop doing his job and go grab carts. It's absolutely ridiculous.

I hate having to do backup whenever I'm CA. My store is a high-volume store and we are clearly understaffed when it comes to cashiers. They've been hiring sales floor tm left and right, but they don't seem to want to budge when it comes to hiring more cashiers.

One time, I was getting bags and receipt/coupon paper for the front lanes. We got backed up and my ETL asked me to hop on a register. I was on there for about 20 minutes. Once I got off, I noticed we were low on carts so I went out to get them. While I'm out getting carts, the ETL proceeds to bitch at me that the carts are low. No s**t, Sherlock. That's why I'm trying to bring in 25 carts every trip. Meanwhile, the gsa started getting re-shop, baskets, and hangers. The ETL gets on the walkie and proceeds to tell me that I should be doing that, not the gsa. Let's ignore the fact that we're supposed to be a "team" and work together. I obviously can't leave the cart pusher in the middle of the lot to do one of my tasks that are of less urgency.
 
our*store implodes on a daily basis because they won't staff more than 3 cashiers.


Oh, we'll staff them, they just don't show up half the time! I don't think I've worked a shift with no call-outs or NCNS in weeks. Every day it's a struggle to keep our front end running.
 
I remember the days, I used to be scheduled for carts. And only doing carts.

Then there were the days, I would be opening carts. But because of low guest traffic in the morning, I would be cashiering and zoning the front until about 10-11am before the cart well started getting low.

You really should only be on the lanes whenever the inside cart well is well stocked or in between trips outside.

Just remind your GSAs/GSTLs, if you are going to be cart attendant and backing up the lanes, you need to be able to get off the lanes quick. You need to be on the lanes closest to the cart well or the doors, or express lanes. Your main roles are to keep the lot clear, help with carryouts, and restrooms (if you are responsible).
 
And one of them refuses to call for back-up unless there's an ETL or higher around. [explosion of frustration]

I'll take that over the GSTLs who call the entire salesfloor up when a single lane is backed up.

That's a situation in which back-up may not even be needed. If the guests can't be moved to other lanes, then the GSTL can jump on for a minute and call for a back-up if it gets busier.
 
And one of them refuses to call for back-up unless there's an ETL or higher around. [explosion of frustration]

I'll take that over the GSTLs who call the entire salesfloor up when a single lane is backed up.

And I'm at the back of market and by the time I get all the way up there and they say, "Oh, it's worked itself out. We don't need you anymore. But thanks for coming." It's happened more than once to me.
 
And I'm at the back of market and by the time I get all the way up there and they say, "Oh, it's worked itself out. We don't need you anymore. But thanks for coming." It's happened more than once to me.

If I'm far away enough from the lanes and I KNOW there are other people (especially in SL, my area) that can go up, I'll say, "This is SL Ninja, I'm in the backroom (or wherever I am), I'll come up if there isn't anyone closer who can respond." Sometimes that gets people moving/responding, sometimes it doesn't.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top