Archived No time for backstock

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gun runner

Target-free
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Oct 28, 2013
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That little statement should be in quotes. It is frequently uttered/written by one BR team member in particular. This is probably something only BR TMs can relate to in regards to closing shifts. Depending on the night you close there can be a variety of other tasks to perform including price change and setting the line.

Still on all of my closing shifts I have managed to get a decent amount of backstock done especially if it is a critical area or something our TL mentioned specifically. Then again, this is the same TL who supposedly told one of our BR TMs that when he arrives in morning he can't tell who the closer was the night before. As seems to be the norm, exerting maximum effort goes unrewarded.

That leads me to the whole point of this rant. A couple weeks in a row one BR TM and I have been stuck backstocking in the freezer (two to three flats at a time). Meanwhile, the known bum of BR TMs somehow never gets to partake in this frozen adventure time.

This week however our TL specifically mentioned to the TM whose shift would overlap with the closer (bum) shift that after the 5PM CAFs they were to head into the freezer to knock out the BS. He also wrote it in our communication log we have back there.

This would have taken them maybe 30 - 45 minutes. Well, big surprise if I don't see written in the log the very next day "No time for backstock." I consider this disobeying a direct order but I guess in Target land these tasks specifically mentioned by TLs are merely suggestions.

When it comes down to it, perhaps this bum BR TM is the smart one and I'm the chump for busting my ass everyday. Guess who ended up in the freezer doing the work he decided he didn't want to? Yep, me.

/whine fest
 
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I understand your frustration.
There is often that one person on a team who thinks they are slick and can get out of doing the things everybody else has to.
I'd like to say it catches up to them but that isn't always true.
Sometimes they become TLs.

Did want to say that there is a difference between a whine and a rant.
With a rant you know perfectly well that nobody is going to do anything about it.
What you have there is a classic rant, no whining about it.
 
Wow, that sounds familiar!

Sometimes, though (which I'm sure you're aware), there really is no time for backstock. Or at least not very much. Like yesterday, our TL left us a note saying something like "you should have no trouble coming clean tonight! Please work on these other tasks after you finish the backstock blah blah." Which, yes, we did have three TMs back there. But two of them are very new seasonal guys, so they are sloooow (and one guy really can't seem to develop that mystical sense of urgency). And triggers for CAFs have gone up as of yesterday, which means bigger pulls and more backstock. So with each pull being 1.5 hours, and two TMs being slow, every pull was taking all hour. And, because we had "extra" TMs, half the store decided yesterday would be a great time to give us (read: me) extra tasks to do. After I got back from lunch after the 5's were done, I had to finish the Tune in Tuesdays, which were massive. Then price change, which was small, thankfully. Then doing the four cages of cardboard that were left for me from the morning team (who left early! THANKS GUYS). I had about 15 minutes of time to backstock. Oh, and can't forget those Flexible Fulfillment orders coming in all the time!

But I can guarantee you the morning team came in this morning, looked at the backstock, and though "Gee, StackerMistress didn't do a damn thing last night!"
 
Feel your pain, our store runs into the same exact issues....no one pays attention to the backroom until 10 minutes before we leave and then it "Why is there all of this backstock? Or Push?" when if they would stick their noses back there after the 5 o'clocks are done pulling, inquire about how much push there was, how big the price changes run (Sorry, I know the sheet says 20 minutes, but it involved 10 pallets by the time we were done)....and I know tonight I have 2 seasonal people, one is fine and doing well, the other is just on his 2nd day (and his first close)......but, we should have plenty of time to have everything done and polished before they pay attention....yeah, right.....
 
Over the past couple of weeks, my store has decided to have the BR team push the CAFs instead of the sales floor but have not allocated any hours for it. Surprisingly, there hasn't been time to finish pushing and none of the backstock has been getting done. When I asked how the hell it's supposed to get done, all I get is "Well xxx store does it this way."

"That's great and all but they are a C store and we are AA. The amount of work involved in pulling and pushing differs greatly. Not only are the pulls MUCH bigger, we are much more likely to get stopped by a guest while pushing. We are much more likely going to have to stop what we are doing to pull FF orders. Not only that, but how is their workload divided up? Are they expected to pull planogram's POGs every night? Do they pull the TnT on Mondays or do they have their electronics guy come in early Tues morning and do it?(seen both) Do they set the line for Flow? etc etc. If they do all that like we do, how many hours do they have in comparison? What % of the store's payroll does their backroom use compared to ours? Did anybody bother to look into it or did we just go 'Herp derp they do it so we can too!' without realizing that increasing a team's workload by ~30% (time spent pushing vs budgeted hours) without adding any hours isn't going to work."

/blank stare from ETL


I hate coming in to work now on the weekends now. I can always look forward to 3 audit batches, an item merge report that hasn't been touched, and a ton of salesplanner pogs that have been in the system for an indeterminate amount of time because no one can even attempt to touch them. Lately, I've been coming into day old Instocks EXFs as well (our instocks team EXFs everything to fake the % with locs because no one believes me when I tell them it's not weighted anymore).
 
SM - I hear you and it sounds like you're one of the ones that tries hard to "do it all." This guy tries not to do much at all. There was also Research in the gun from the day before that he didn't manage and I was working on it in the morning when he showed up. He gave the usual "What's up?" and I actually replied "Doing the work you didn't do." His excuse was that he was asked the night before to backstock the meat cooler which would have only been daily pull residual (30 min max at a normal pace).

B81 - I don't know what our letter rating is but I can't imagine ever having to push our own pulls. As mentioned by others, the CAFs have been rather huge lately, even at 11AM. And with Mr. Slowpoke and a new TM back there we're lucky if they finish at 55 min after the hour. That would be a straight up disaster.
 
Over the past couple of weeks, my store has decided to have the BR team push the CAFs instead of the sales floor but have not allocated any hours for it. Surprisingly, there hasn't been time to finish pushing and none of the backstock has been getting done. When I asked how the hell it's supposed to get done, all I get is "Well xxx store does it this way."

"That's great and all but they are a C store and we are AA. The amount of work involved in pulling and pushing differs greatly. Not only are the pulls MUCH bigger, we are much more likely to get stopped by a guest while pushing. We are much more likely going to have to stop what we are doing to pull FF orders. Not only that, but how is their workload divided up? Are they expected to pull planogram's POGs every night? Do they pull the TnT on Mondays or do they have their electronics guy come in early Tues morning and do it?(seen both) Do they set the line for Flow? etc etc. If they do all that like we do, how many hours do they have in comparison? What % of the store's payroll does their backroom use compared to ours? Did anybody bother to look into it or did we just go 'Herp derp they do it so we can too!' without realizing that increasing a team's workload by ~30% (time spent pushing vs budgeted hours) without adding any hours isn't going to work."

/blank stare from ETL


I hate coming in to work now on the weekends now. I can always look forward to 3 audit batches, an item merge report that hasn't been touched, and a ton of salesplanner pogs that have been in the system for an indeterminate amount of time because no one can even attempt to touch them. Lately, I've been coming into day old Instocks EXFs as well (our instocks team EXFs everything to fake the % with locs because no one believes me when I tell them it's not weighted anymore).

Welcome to my hell. This past weekend I had the entire front of our line filled up with pulls and the LOD came back at five and said, "you're gonna have time to push that right?" :angry:
 
Over the past couple of weeks, my store has decided to have the BR team push the CAFs instead of the sales floor but have not allocated any hours for it. Surprisingly, there hasn't been time to finish pushing and none of the backstock has been getting done. When I asked how the hell it's supposed to get done, all I get is "Well xxx store does it this way."

"That's great and all but they are a C store and we are AA. The amount of work involved in pulling and pushing differs greatly. Not only are the pulls MUCH bigger, we are much more likely to get stopped by a guest while pushing. We are much more likely going to have to stop what we are doing to pull FF orders. Not only that, but how is their workload divided up? Are they expected to pull planogram's POGs every night? Do they pull the TnT on Mondays or do they have their electronics guy come in early Tues morning and do it?(seen both) Do they set the line for Flow? etc etc. If they do all that like we do, how many hours do they have in comparison? What % of the store's payroll does their backroom use compared to ours? Did anybody bother to look into it or did we just go 'Herp derp they do it so we can too!' without realizing that increasing a team's workload by ~30% (time spent pushing vs budgeted hours) without adding any hours isn't going to work."

/blank stare from ETL


I hate coming in to work now on the weekends now. I can always look forward to 3 audit batches, an item merge report that hasn't been touched, and a ton of salesplanner pogs that have been in the system for an indeterminate amount of time because no one can even attempt to touch them. Lately, I've been coming into day old Instocks EXFs as well (our instocks team EXFs everything to fake the % with locs because no one believes me when I tell them it's not weighted anymore).

Welcome to my hell. This past weekend I had the entire front of our line filled up with pulls and the LOD came back at five and said, "you're gonna have time to push that right?" :angry:

LOL...that doesnt just happen in the backroom with the "your gonna have time to do additional task X right?" IDK how many times I have been asked to do Market Reshop AND Zone the paper corner when im closing Pfresh even though we are only there til 8, with little to no overlap, and have to zone ALL of Market.

I remember my first 4th quarter they asked if I wanted to do backroom for the season and I said yes to learn a new workcenter. On Xmas Eve when we closed at 6 I was working backroom with 1 other TM. We had tons of pulls on the line and barely saw any salesfloor come back to grab them even though we had a lot of people working that day. The pulls were taking forever with 40+, and sometimes almost 50 different fill groups(Bev1, Pro1, etc) on each pull. LOD comes back and tells us to start working out pulls even though we were barely pulling everything on time. I said if we have the time we will work out any pulls we can. We were both out at 6 and the LOD came back again and was super pissed there was still pulls on the line like it was OUR fault that they didnt get pushed out even though we were both busy pulling all of it to work it out. I think we worked out what we could and a SF team member grabbed another and we had to stay til 6:30 or some other garbage. It was so stupid. Ya let me just push those autofills and ignore the task list and pulls themselves.
 
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push right to the backroom and put a backstock clip on it.... there you are done the LOD / ETL / is happy you pushed the pulls and no one is the wiser....
next time just burn those pulls that happen late in the day !!!


addeded note: DAM it's fourth quarter, when oh when is the OT gonna kick in ??? We need OT to get things done and keep the guests happy.
 
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I've been on both sides. I know what can get done at night and what can't. We recently switched to no pulling at night after the CAFs except for PCs and NRs on Mondays, so I'm able to get more backstock done. Of course this means that there is more backstock at night since one person is pulling all morning, but whatever. Have the POG team come at 6 and no one to pull for them until 7.
 
push right to the backroom and put a backstock clip on it....

And trigger a pet peeve of mine. That ultimately creates much more work as you would backstock it and it would sit in the backroom until instocks scans it (the accumulator thinks it's been filled), then you have to pull it back out again to finally get stocked. This also has an adverse effect on sales because if it was out on the floor before instocks scanned it, guests were probably looking for it and decided to purchase it elsewhere (only a few of them will bother to hunt down a TM to check the back).

I viciously audit backstock for the same reason.
 
I work freezer overnights at my store, and I have no problem backstocking in there. It's quite the challenge just to get the day side team to just backstock one cart that will take them five minutes to do. Usually I end up doing it that night because they're to scared to get cold.
 
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