Archived I need the wave.

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As a backroom team member this is a vital piece of equipment. Our wave hasn't worked for 9 days now. All the leaders keep preaching about safety this, safety that, customer safety, team member safety, safety for everyone! But without the use of the wave I've been forced to do some pretty unsafe things like carry compact refrigerators, ottomans, and several other items with "team lift" stickers down a wobbly ladder. There's not always someone available to help you with it. During the morning autofills it's obvious that everyone is avoiding the furniture batch; even more so than the freezer batches haha. They said they ordered a new one. Who knows how long that'll take to arrive. But until then that useless piece of scrap metal is in the corner collecting dust and cardboard. End of rant.
Are there any other backroom team members here who have had to make do without a wave or crown for a period of time?
 
Yea, ours was dead for about ten days.
The only positive thing was we got a new one and they fixed the old one, so now we have two.
I have to say you have the worse end of the bargain but hanging signs without a Wave can be hazardous as well so I feel your pain.
OSHA might have something to say about it.
 
My last store made it blatantly clear that no backroom equipment shall be used unless you signed off on it by the ETL-Log or Store Safety Captain. When I started working salesfloor and Electronics, I asked ...and asked ...and asked ...and asked about getting formal training for the Wave and Pallet Lift (which I already knew how to operate). I always got, " we are in the process of arranging a group training huddle. Be patient."

I was never approved to work the equipment. Of course they still wanted me to stack hanger boxes for the Front End and pull large flat screen TV boxes off of the top for Electronics.
 
Formal training? I never had anything formal. First day on the job my trainer is like, "These buttons make it go up and down. This handle lets you go forwards and backwards, and this handle let's you go right and left. Good luck! Oh and you can beep the horn too."
 
Formal training? I never had anything formal. First day on the job my trainer is like, "These buttons make it go up and down. This handle lets you go forwards and backwards, and this handle let's you go right and left. Good luck! Oh and you can beep the horn too."

Congratulations, you've been formally trained! I think the official part of it is that after they show you which button does what, a team lead signs a piece of paper.

In response to the OP, though, our WAV has broken before but our facilities management is a genius at getting that thing up and running within a few hours. I'm not sure what I would do if I was asked to carry a mini-fridge down a ladder, but I'd definitely ***** a whole lot. Sorry to hear about your troubles. =(
 
If you are pulling furniture, or any team lift items, etc. out of the steel and down a ladder by yourself then you are stupid. Target will not pay for it if you get hurt, they will twist it around on you. They will bring up numerous huddles they had where team lifts were preached, they will pull out your learning plan showing your signature for being trained, they will have camera footage of you doing it by yourself, etc. You will be hurt (possibly dead), out of a job, and medical bills out the ass.

Oh, your TL or ETL told you to pull it? Inform them you do not feel safe doing it, ask them what would happen if you got hurt, tell them to show you how to do it safely, go to HR, call OSHA, hold a sit in, whatever. It's honestly not worth the risk.
 
Formal training? I never had anything formal. First day on the job my trainer is like, "These buttons make it go up and down. This handle lets you go forwards and backwards, and this handle let's you go right and left. Good luck! Oh and you can beep the horn too."

that's pretty much how I got trained too...except I had to chase down the backroom TL to get him to sign the paper so I could *officially* drive it. That's pretty much how I learned to pull too. "Here's how you do this, how many you need, etc, have fun!"
 
Stupid Rules has it right. There is no way I would be trying to carry those big pieces of furniture down a ladder. They would either have to be up on pallets, so I could use the stacker to get them, or they're not coming down, end of story. It's for a pull? Burn the batch. It's a guest request? Sorry, we're all out. Just thinking about lugging stuff on those ladders alone is giving me the heeby-jeebies.
 
Stupid Rules has it right. There is no way I would be trying to carry those big pieces of furniture down a ladder. They would either have to be up on pallets, so I could use the stacker to get them, or they're not coming down, end of story. It's for a pull? Burn the batch. It's a guest request? Sorry, we're all out. Just thinking about lugging stuff on those ladders alone is giving me the heeby-jeebies.

This so much. I hated trying to pull down furniture or backstock large items from the truck without help. If I couldn't get it down, I'd tell them the same thing...we're out. I'm not going to kill myself because a guest wants a humongous item that I can't get down safely. We even got new ladders that were more secure and there were still times I'd ask for help. Even getting some of the smaller TVs down in lockup was scary...if there was another TM or a TL around, I'd ask for help.

If the wave was out of commission for more than a couple days and they don't take it seriously, I'd call OSHA, just like Imerzan said. Don't compromise your safety to make Target happy. It's not worth it.
 
I was trained at my original store how to use the WAVE, powered pallet jack, and bailer. They only keyed in my WAVE training, so when I transferred and tried to pickup a backroom shift they gave me the runaround.

It took a year, but I finally had them sign off on my complete BR learning plan.
 
no wave / use the stacker. If you are putting team lift furn. and plug up high but not on a pallet then I think you might want to reconsider doing that.
 
no wave / use the stacker. If you are putting team lift furn. and plug up high but not on a pallet then I think you might want to reconsider doing that.

the backroom safety audit sheets have a check box that says "all items on top of steel racking are on pallets" or something like that so if you have refrigerators up there without its a safety violation anyway, otherwise the stacker should be able to bring it down
 
Lol 9 days. At my old store they wouldn't hand out keys to the equipment. Everything at to be checked out and returned. Well of course the only key in the store got lost. So after a week of no key or wave someone got the bright idea of shoving a screw driver in the ignition. It worked the first time but after that we needed to call Crown to have it replaced. After another week of waiting, Crown had come and gone but still we had no keys. So the genius did his screw driver trick again. And we were down a wave. Again... So to punish the backroom they got a new wave. Termed the genius but didn't allow anyone the use of the wave for 30 days. I feel your pain man.

Ps
This was all at the beginning of the 4th quarter.
 
when i was hired for flow 3 years ago, we only had ONE crown, and ONE wave, and they were both always staged in receiving, i HATE it during the day have to go pull something from the top of the steel in another stockroom, since our stockrooms are separated, i have to take the crown onto the salesfloor and make my way

around guests the whole thing took forever to do

after that i used to just go on top of the ladder and if no one was around, i would just throw it off the top of the steel depending how big it was, probably not a smart idea...but im not going to kill myself trying to bring it down a wobbly ladder that looks like a third grader made.
 
We have 2, but one was in need of repair for a couple of weeks.....of course, that was when they decided to stack the pallets of dog food and kitty litter on the top of the steel in one stockroom, and the working wave was across the store in the other room......surprised that no one dropped merchandise or fell off having to climb a ladder to get it down.....
 
...So to punish the backroom they got a new wave.

i feel like this stuff happens all the time at my store. not get a new wave - but the BR and particularly the O/N br team just absolutely destroy stuff and are never held accountable. i don't know how many PDAs i pull out of wacos every day. but they are constantly on the walkie asking for PDAs, and its like, if you would A) sign them out to begin with, and B) return them (this includes not destroying them) then you could get equipment no problem. don't even get me started on charging the powered equipment or signing in/out keys.
 
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