Archived I've been working dairy/frozen for a month and I still feel lost. Help?

[Solaire]

(WARNING: LONG POST) Alright, firstly, I do know how to do the basic requirements of my job, which is stocking dairy and frozen products, but then there's things like doing backstock with the mydevice, what the numbers mean on the labels, what carts I can and can't use, and generally when and what to do sometimes.

When I started, I was trained by a guy who only worked in my area for three months. He quit two weeks ago and left a big ass mess and I was left to blame, which really killed my morale. Anyway, he taught me the basics like checking the expiration date, what some numbers like W40, W27/W28 mean, how to downstack, and that's pretty much it. After the initial week of training (if you could even call it that, I was only instructed for two or three days tops, and kinda just played follow the leader up until this point), I wasn't taught anything else, so I just followed my coworker around and helped him.

After he quit, I was left to myself in dairy with a new TM. We both didn't know what to do, so ME, a new guy with completely no experience before that has worked only 4 weeks, has to teach the new guy what to do. I taught him the things I wasn't taught, like what the little numbers mean, how to work the baler, how to get a mydevice, things like that, and to say that week didn't go well was an understatement.

4 pallets were left undone, leaving a clusterfuck for my other TMs. I felt personally responsible because I spent the first few days getting to know the new guy and training him. It made me pretty depressed for a couple days, I felt like I wasn't good enough or worth anything because I was constantly berated for not knowing things even though I was never taught, just expected to. I feel like I'm constantly letting down my LOD and TMs. A few coworkers have told me I'm doing fine and that it takes a while to learn these things, but it doesn't make me feel any better. If any of you could give me some advice, it'd be really appreciated.

TLDR: I suck at my job and it hasn't been particularly great around my store. Would love some advice.

 

[DoWork]

All stores are not the same, but here's what I would do: define your own system. Working without much leadership can be a blessing in disguise(no micro managing)

With dairy, I've always separated products as I down stack. Cheese, yogurt, juice. This saves steps and time.

Frozen, same thing. Once you know what goes where, you're able to easily sort things to make your job easier.

Are you responsible for date checking?

If your coworkers aren't complaining, you are doing fine. they're right that it does take time to learn everything. After a while, you can quickly tell if an item or not is backstock, giving you more speed boosts.

Back stocking with a mydevice is easy. There should be a training video or guide on the computer. Ask your LOD or TL.

Scan item, scan location, enter quantity, place that quantity of item in location. Maybe you could talk to the backroom after you've done it for a while and make sure there aren't many errors they're finding.

You should ask questions like what you are now to your coworkers and your bosses. It's better to ask 100 questions than it is to not try to learn the answers.

 

[Solaire]

Thanks man! The thing is, we never have enough carts to separate like that. I usually separate as you stated, but there's usually only two carts I can use, and a pallet for juice.

 

[mrknownothing]

Does your team bowl at all? When we work the FDC truck push, dairy is divided into sections based on similar items (all yogurt together, all juice together, etc.) and frozen is bowled out by aisle. Produce and meat are pushed directly from their respective pallets.

 

[Jiminy]

Damn, sounds like you're initial training didn't go that well (I'm afraid this might happen to me too... my training starts in a couple of days). Why can't you ask the LOD or even HR to request some more training or just to clarify procedures? Is this something people just don't do?

The HR person at my store is super friendly and always says that if we need anything that we should just talk to them. Even our ETL and STL has an "open door policy" - are people just afraid of saying that they're struggling?

 

[BigEyedPhish]

Ask your PA, (pretty much the TL of PFresh/Fresh Grocery) these days, questions. I know I LOVE IT when I train someone who seems enthused and asks questions, etc.

To work in Market and be good you have to be very self motivated, with an eye for detail unmatched by probably any other work center in the store. Other than that if you can learn to run circles around PFresh you could probably be successful damn near anywhere in the store.

 

[LogisticsFox]

Carts: Not guest carts (using guest carts with perishables is a food safety issue and a Steritech nono). Two-tiers work great for small things like yogurt and cheese. It really depends on how much backstock you end up with. If your store has the metro or green wire racks on wheels, I highly recommend using those. Repacks aren't considered food-safe but my team still uses them.

Backstocking with a mydevice: Scan an item and scan a backroom label. Tell it how many you want to stow.
To subtract, scan the item and tap the description to get to the 'other info screen'. Tap 'take' and scan the backroom location you're taking it from. On a note, mydevices can be unreliable in freezers and if they get too cold, they will shut down. Use a PDA when possible. :3

Hopefully you're a FDC fed store and your picklables look like this:

TXXXX is your store number
W##(#)#-#-# Is the shelf location
###-##-#### is the DPCI
The top barcode is the FDC barcode for the carton (we don't use it at the store level)
The small barcode is the UPC for the product
CSPK QTY # Is the number of items in a case, in this case 6 (sorry, pun)
REC'V is approximately when it came in
EXP: is approximately when it expires (sometimes off by a day or two)
60P is the custom block. Depending on your breakout, you will probably never use this.

Let me know if you want me to go into detail about any of these or if your carton labels don't look like this.
Or if you have specific questions, feel free to ask as well!

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Carts: Not guest carts (using guest carts with perishables is a food safety issue and a Steritech nono). Two-tiers work great for small things like yogurt and cheese. It really depends on how much backstock you end up with. If your store has the metro or green wire racks on wheels, I highly recommend using those. Repacks aren't considered food-safe but my team still uses them.

Backstocking with a mydevice: Scan an item and scan a backroom label. Tell it how many you want to stow.
To subtract, scan the item and tap the description to get to the 'other info screen'. Tap 'take' and scan the backroom location you're taking it from. On a note, mydevices can be unreliable in freezers and if they get too cold, they will shut down. Use a PDA when possible. :3

Hopefully you're a FDC fed store and your picklables look like this:

TXXXX is your store number
W##(#)#-#-# Is the shelf location
###-##-#### is the DPCI
The top barcode is the FDC barcode for the carton (we don't use it at the store level)
The small barcode is the UPC for the product
CSPK QTY # Is the number of items in a case, in this case 6 (sorry, pun)
REC'V is approximately when it came in
EXP: is approximately when it expires (sometimes off by a day or two)
60P is the custom block. Depending on your breakout, you will probably never use this.

Let me know if you want me to go into detail about any of these or if your carton labels don't look like this.
Or if you have specific questions, feel free to ask as well!

Great info, @LogisticsFox !