Archived Question regarding the Ambient Room.

[Obeast]

Today, one of the PFresh (or P-Fresh?) TLs asked me to weigh and put away some frozen spare ribs that she had in the ambient room since she was about to go home. I was asked because I was supposed to be in Consumables, but the early LOD told me to be on the sales floor since we have a ton of go-backs/re-shops/whatever they're called for the main parts of the store and I was the only person really available to work on those. She had a couple boxes already weighed, so I weighed a couple more boxes and got them out since my shift was almost over. I asked one of the backroom guys who I'm pretty good friends with what to do with the rest of the ribs, and he said just leave them in the ambient room and they should be fine until tomorrow. But, when I was in there, it didn't feel that cold to me (to be fair, I thought the ribs were in the freezer and I went in there a couple times to find them, so maybe my body was used to the freezer's temperature :/). So, I'm hoping that either the room does get cold enough to keep them okay until tomorrow, someone else goes and weighs/stocks what's left later in the day, or someone takes them and puts them in the meat fridge/freezer tomorrow. The rest of the boxes were on what to me looked like a motorized flatbed, and since I'm not trained on working any of the backroom's mechanical equipment, I didn't bother trying to move it.

I'm just wondering, will I get into trouble for leaving the ribs there? One of my fellow TMs (who was hired at the same time as me) was in PFresh for a while, but left because one of the PFresh TLs (not the one I talked to today) and ETLs weren't communicating well, and he got into trouble a few times due to the lack of communication to the point where he almost quit until they put him back in Electronics.

 

[Cel]

The ambient room is only like 66 degrees F I think. Those ribs should've been moved either back into the freezer or into the meat cooler. Doubt you'll get in trouble for that though being as the LOD called you away, although they may not have realized the situation. Now if somebody puts them on the floor once they're out of temp...They're not supposed to be outside of the proper temperature zone for >30 mins. So they should probably be QMOSed although with a frozen product that defrosts in our care that's a little trickier. Odds are though at ambient temps they'll be out of temperature range fairly quickly.

 

[Obeast]

The ambient room is only like 66 degrees F I think. Those ribs should've been moved either back into the freezer or into the meat cooler. Doubt you'll get in trouble for that though being as the LOD called you away, although they may not have realized the situation. Now if somebody puts them on the floor once they're out of temp...They're not supposed to be outside of the proper temperature zone for >30 mins. So they should probably be QMOSed although with a frozen product that defrosts in our care that's a little trickier. Odds are though at ambient temps they'll be out of temperature range fairly quickly.

Gotcha... Actually, it was the PFresh/Consumables TL who called me to take care of the ribs, but I'm sure she cleared it with the main LOD at the time. She also mentioned not to worry about getting them all out, but she told me what to do so fast since she was about to go home that I'm hoping that she didn't ask me to put them back in the freezer and I just didn't hear it. Great, now I'm kinda nervous about going to work tomorrow.

 

[dash11]

Lots of things went wrong with the way the ribs were handled...Ribs came in frozen, then moved to the ambient room for weighing and thawing then moved to freezer(I hope not) how long did they sit in the ambient room? The way it should be done is from freezer to meat cooler to sales floor. You have to be able to account for the way the ribs travel to get to the sales floor. Its fine to take the ribs from the freezer, to the ambient room for weighing then set on Michigan carts and allowed to thaw in the meat cooler..

 

[Obeast]

Lots of things went wrong with the way the ribs were handled...Ribs came in frozen, then moved to the ambient room for weighing and thawing then moved to freezer(I hope not) how long did they sit in the ambient room? The way it should be done is from freezer to meat cooler to sales floor. You have to be able to account for the way the ribs travel to get to the sales floor. Its fine to take the ribs from the freezer, to the ambient room for weighing then set on Michigan carts and allowed to thaw in the meat cooler..

I dunno how long they were in the ambient room for before I was asked to put them out (they were still frozen when I stocked/weighed them, so I assume it wasn't very long). From what I remember, she pretty much said, "take the boxes of ribs from the ambient room, weigh as many as you can, and put them out with the rest of the ribs and try to fill up the spots where they're supposed to go". Like I said in my last post, she gave me the instructions kinda fast since she was in a hurry, so I'm hoping that I didn't screw up by not taking them back to the meat fridge/freezer.

 

[sigma7]

We put the ribs frozen on the floor most of the time and let them thaw out there. When we have big rib sales, we will pull a case or two from the freezer, weigh them in the ambient room, and then put them in the meat cooler to thaw and fill the salesfloor from the meat cooler until that supply is depleted.

Bottom line, the ribs need to be QMOSed tomorrow if they sat in the ambient room all night. Also, once any frozen stuff gets pulled from the freezer that we thaw or slack (bakery, deli, meat), it has to be dated from the day it got pulled from the freezer. So if you have to reweigh ribs after a sale ends, you need to make sure that you change the use by date on the scale to match the date on the current label. By default it will print a use by dateYou should also change the accumulator option to "relabel" so you're not creating more units in the system.

 

[Cel]

Lot of good info here, but ya basically it comes down to, if they were in the ambient room overnight they need to be QMOSed. If they were taken from the freezer and weighed and returned in <30 minutes I believe that's still ok, but >30 minutes they'd need to be in place in the meat cooler and appropriately dated, otherwise 30 minutes outside of freezer or properly dated in the cooler = QMOS as Out of Temp.

 

[Obeast]

We put the ribs frozen on the floor most of the time and let them thaw out there. When we have big rib sales, we will pull a case or two from the freezer, weigh them in the ambient room, and then put them in the meat cooler to thaw and fill the salesfloor from the meat cooler until that supply is depleted.

Bottom line, the ribs need to be QMOSed tomorrow if they sat in the ambient room all night. Also, once any frozen stuff gets pulled from the freezer that we thaw or slack (bakery, deli, meat), it has to be dated from the day it got pulled from the freezer. So if you have to reweigh ribs after a sale ends, you need to make sure that you change the use by date on the scale to match the date on the current label. By default it will print a use by dateYou should also change the accumulator option to "relabel" so you're not creating more units in the system.

Lot of good info here, but ya basically it comes down to, if they were in the ambient room overnight they need to be QMOSed. If they were taken from the freezer and weighed and returned in <30 minutes I believe that's still ok, but >30 minutes they'd need to be in place in the meat cooler and appropriately dated, otherwise 30 minutes outside of freezer or properly dated in the cooler = QMOS as Out of Temp.

Gotcha... All of the stuff that happened occurred between shortly before 3 and 3:30 PM today. So, I'm really hoping that someone in the backroom saw the boxes, checked to see if their state, and got them into where they're supposed to be and hopefully not QMOS'd out. I didn't check to see if they were properly dated since this was my first time doing something like this, and all I was told to do was weigh and stock.

I'm just hoping that this doesn't get me or the PFresh TL (who I'm pretty cool with) in trouble... I haven't gotten any phone calls saying that I've been fired or anything, so hopefully that's a good or good-ish sign. :/

 

[glo]

We put the ribs frozen on the floor most of the time and let them thaw out there. When we have big rib sales, we will pull a case or two from the freezer, weigh them in the ambient room, and then put them in the meat cooler to thaw and fill the salesfloor from the meat cooler until that supply is depleted.

Bottom line, the ribs need to be QMOSed tomorrow if they sat in the ambient room all night. Also, once any frozen stuff gets pulled from the freezer that we thaw or slack (bakery, deli, meat), it has to be dated from the day it got pulled from the freezer. So if you have to reweigh ribs after a sale ends, you need to make sure that you change the use by date on the scale to match the date on the current label. By default it will print a use by dateYou should also change the accumulator option to "relabel" so you're not creating more units in the system.

Lot of good info here, but ya basically it comes down to, if they were in the ambient room overnight they need to be QMOSed. If they were taken from the freezer and weighed and returned in <30 minutes I believe that's still ok, but >30 minutes they'd need to be in place in the meat cooler and appropriately dated, otherwise 30 minutes outside of freezer or properly dated in the cooler = QMOS as Out of Temp.

Gotcha... All of the stuff that happened occurred between shortly before 3 and 3:30 PM today. So, I'm really hoping that someone in the backroom saw the boxes, checked to see if their state, and got them into where they're supposed to be and hopefully not QMOS'd out. I didn't check to see if they were properly dated since this was my first time doing something like this, and all I was told to do was weigh and stock.

I'm just hoping that this doesn't get me or the PFresh TL (who I'm pretty cool with) in trouble... I haven't gotten any phone calls saying that I've been fired or anything, so hopefully that's a good or good-ish sign. :/

Its not really a huge deal. I wouldn't worry about it. You may get pulled aside and told what to do if you're in that same situation again, but I can't see them taking and real action against you.

At the end of the day, a case of those spare ribs (which I'm assuming you're talking about) is only about $150 gross, maybe. Not really a huge loss when you look at the rest of the QMOS log.

 

[Cel]

I'd guess the worst you'll get is a seek to understand conversation (which is basically nothing other than what glo said, getting pulled aside and talked to about it) unless someone's out to get you or they've got their head shoved up their ass.

 

[Obeast]

We put the ribs frozen on the floor most of the time and let them thaw out there. When we have big rib sales, we will pull a case or two from the freezer, weigh them in the ambient room, and then put them in the meat cooler to thaw and fill the salesfloor from the meat cooler until that supply is depleted.

Bottom line, the ribs need to be QMOSed tomorrow if they sat in the ambient room all night. Also, once any frozen stuff gets pulled from the freezer that we thaw or slack (bakery, deli, meat), it has to be dated from the day it got pulled from the freezer. So if you have to reweigh ribs after a sale ends, you need to make sure that you change the use by date on the scale to match the date on the current label. By default it will print a use by dateYou should also change the accumulator option to "relabel" so you're not creating more units in the system.

Lot of good info here, but ya basically it comes down to, if they were in the ambient room overnight they need to be QMOSed. If they were taken from the freezer and weighed and returned in <30 minutes I believe that's still ok, but >30 minutes they'd need to be in place in the meat cooler and appropriately dated, otherwise 30 minutes outside of freezer or properly dated in the cooler = QMOS as Out of Temp.

Gotcha... All of the stuff that happened occurred between shortly before 3 and 3:30 PM today. So, I'm really hoping that someone in the backroom saw the boxes, checked to see if their state, and got them into where they're supposed to be and hopefully not QMOS'd out. I didn't check to see if they were properly dated since this was my first time doing something like this, and all I was told to do was weigh and stock.

I'm just hoping that this doesn't get me or the PFresh TL (who I'm pretty cool with) in trouble... I haven't gotten any phone calls saying that I've been fired or anything, so hopefully that's a good or good-ish sign. :/

Its not really a huge deal. I wouldn't worry about it. You may get pulled aside and told what to do if you're in that same situation again, but I can't see them taking and real action against you.

At the end of the day, a case of those spare ribs (which I'm assuming you're talking about) is only about $150 gross, maybe. Not really a huge loss when you look at the rest of the QMOS log.

That's what I'm hoping happens at the worst... I've never done much in terms of PFresh, so assuming the batch has to be QMOS'd, I hope that they see it was just a mistake. Although, I've messed up a few times before, but all of those times aside from one no call no show (due to me writing down my schedule wrong) were mistakes that were made because I got into a situation I wasn't familiar with and the TLs/LODs at my store pretty much told me what to do if/when similar circumstances occur again.

I'd guess the worst you'll get is a seek to understand conversation (which is basically nothing other than what glo said, getting pulled aside and talked to about it) unless someone's out to get you or they've got their head shoved up their ass.

I don't think anyone's out to get me... I feel like I get along with everyone (including the girl who tasked me with the ribs), although given a lot of high school-style gossip I hear from my fellow TMs about other TMs and even TLs when they're not around, I guess I shouldn't be surprised if there's at least one person who doesn't like me.

 

[Producer]

We put the ribs frozen on the floor most of the time and let them thaw out there. When we have big rib sales, we will pull a case or two from the freezer, weigh them in the ambient room, and then put them in the meat cooler to thaw and fill the salesfloor from the meat cooler until that supply is depleted.

Bottom line, the ribs need to be QMOSed tomorrow if they sat in the ambient room all night. Also, once any frozen stuff gets pulled from the freezer that we thaw or slack (bakery, deli, meat), it has to be dated from the day it got pulled from the freezer. So if you have to reweigh ribs after a sale ends, you need to make sure that you change the use by date on the scale to match the date on the current label. By default it will print a use by dateYou should also change the accumulator option to "relabel" so you're not creating more units in the system.

Lot of good info here, but ya basically it comes down to, if they were in the ambient room overnight they need to be QMOSed. If they were taken from the freezer and weighed and returned in <30 minutes I believe that's still ok, but >30 minutes they'd need to be in place in the meat cooler and appropriately dated, otherwise 30 minutes outside of freezer or properly dated in the cooler = QMOS as Out of Temp.

Gotcha... All of the stuff that happened occurred between shortly before 3 and 3:30 PM today. So, I'm really hoping that someone in the backroom saw the boxes, checked to see if their state, and got them into where they're supposed to be and hopefully not QMOS'd out. I didn't check to see if they were properly dated since this was my first time doing something like this, and all I was told to do was weigh and stock.

I'm just hoping that this doesn't get me or the PFresh TL (who I'm pretty cool with) in trouble... I haven't gotten any phone calls saying that I've been fired or anything, so hopefully that's a good or good-ish sign. :/

Its not really a huge deal. I wouldn't worry about it. You may get pulled aside and told what to do if you're in that same situation again, but I can't see them taking and real action against you.

At the end of the day, a case of those spare ribs (which I'm assuming you're talking about) is only about $150 gross, maybe. Not really a huge loss when you look at the rest of the QMOS log.

Exactly. On an average closing night, I will usually QMOS $500 - $750 of produce alone. A few boxes aren't the end of the world. Now if Steritech were to come early in the morning and find the ribs in the ambient room, that might be a bigger problem.

 

[Barcode]

Heck I don't even work consumables and from just the few backroom shifts I've had pulling stuff in the ambient room/freezers, I know that leaving them in the Ambient room is WAYYY out of temp for meat. Lol.

Oh well, you probably won't get in trouble over it anyways, since its just a small amount of QMOS.

 

[Obeast]

So... Tonight I went to work and absolutely nothing happened regarding the ribs. I just kept my mouth shut about the subject, did my job, and went home relieved. Even the LODs treated me normally, so I'm sure that everything ended up being okay in the end.

I wanna thank you guys for re-assuring me that I wouldn't lose my job over this and I apologize for freaking out about it.

Exactly. On an average closing night, I will usually QMOS $500 - $750 of produce alone. A few boxes aren't the end of the world. Now if Steritech were to come early in the morning and find the ribs in the ambient room, that might be a bigger problem.

Oh wow, I didn't know that amount of produce can get QMOS'd in a day... But, given that I do tend to find at least a few perishable food items every week (mostly either half-eaten produce or bottles of juice or other liquids that has to be refrigerated even if it's unopened), so between that and the expired stuff, I guess it's not that surprising..

 

[Cel]

Most have stores have had to QMOS entire pallets or more because someone made a stupid. A case of ribs is just a drop in the bucket.

 

[doxie71]

I once had to QMOS an entire metro of dairy because someone had shoved it in the freezer on truck day. ETL LOG looked at me and said "Well can't we just let it thaw out?" I was tempted to throw a frozen chunk of cheese at them.

 

[Retail Girl]

We've had to QMOS entire carts of dairy before when presentation decided to leave their carts on the floor and go take their lunch. I know they got in trouble for that.

 

[redeye58]

We had to QMOS an entire 3 tier (not much but a LOT for us) of sandwiches & salads after they were left out in our back area. Someone was supposed to push them into the walk-in fridge & apparently forgot.

 

[pfreshdude]

I once had to QMOS an entire metro of dairy because someone had shoved it in the freezer on truck day. ETL LOG looked at me and said "Well can't we just let it thaw out?" I was tempted to throw a frozen chunk of cheese at them.

lol.....I remember when C+S came in on a day I wasnt there and the next day for push I was in for either market or C+S and a freezer pallet had been put in the dairy cooler...I was more than pissed at finding that out and then they were like well it might still be good blah blah blah...no...no its not...its been unfrozen for almost a day

 

[looseseal]

My ETL-LOG was notorious for leaving ribs in the Ambient Room for a while. He thought that was how they had to thaw, which is an honest mistake. When we first became Pfresh and started our truck process, the team would leave meat or produce pallets sitting in the ambient room too. They learned pretty quick after I came running for their heads...

 

[konk]

I once had to QMOS an entire metro of dairy because someone had shoved it in the freezer on truck day. ETL LOG looked at me and said "Well can't we just let it thaw out?" I was tempted to throw a frozen chunk of cheese at them.

lol.....I remember when C+S came in on a day I wasnt there and the next day for push I was in for either market or C+S and a freezer pallet had been put in the dairy cooler...I was more than pissed at finding that out and then they were like well it might still be good blah blah blah...no...no its not...its been unfrozen for almost a day

Same thing happened at my store! They pushed the frozen dairy though.

 

[Producer]

I know of a store in my area that accidentally ordered 200+ boxes of bananas (usually order 15-20). Imagine how many bananas a low volume store can sell, and compare that to five whole pallets of bananas in the back. Needless to say, that was a lot of QMOS.

 

[Barcode]

I suppose they price cut bananas that week eh?

 

[Bosch]

Ours was entire flatbed of meat someone left in receiving and forgot to tell the opening day side that it still needed to be pushed to the floor and freezer/cooler since they were still shuffling stuff around from coolers/freezers.. Someone finally noticed it about 1 in the afternoon it had been there since 5am or abouts. Yeah that sucked and we all heard about it as a "What not to do"