MEGATHREAD 2018-2019 Store Modernization Megathread

[SigningLady]

the things you see on Tragets facebook "Community" page

My first thought on this is that their freezer is broken and had to be de-merched. But.... there's no sign up apologizing for the inconvenience and nothing looped thru the doors to keep people out.

 

[qmosqueen]

My first thought on this is that their freezer is broken and had to be de-merched. But.... there's no sign up apologizing for the inconvenience and nothing looped thru the doors to keep people out.

also the sign says "lunch meat" and i think thats a freezer door ??

 

[SigningLady]

also the sign says "lunch meat" and i think thats a freezer door ??

Oh, yeah, it is lunchmeat (I see the pegs for that Applegate stuff) so technically a cooler door.

 

[Dead and Khaki]

The "fill your fridge..." sign is a nice touch.

 

[can't touch this]

Target was gonna fill their fridge but then decided to fill their pockets instead

 

[flow4areasonuno]

Is anyone else who was on evening shift going back to early morning shifts for the new schedule? As someone who actually likes evening shifts, this bums me out

I hope it doesn't stay like this after December!

 

[countingsheep]

At least at my store yes. They are hiring cloaing seasonals and forcing current tms into earlier shifts. Those of us qith only closing availability are being bullied into changing foe the holidays :/

 

[happygoth]

Ugh I definitely do not want early morning shifts. I prefer nights but I can tolerate the occasional 9:00 am or later day shift. Anything before 8:00 am makes me want to cry.

 

[oath2order]

also the sign says "lunch meat" and i think thats a freezer door ??

My store is like this. Our cheese and lunch meat have these doors.

 

[RetailSurvivor]

Store Modernization, the reason I quit.

Okay I've been reading this thread since the beginning as being part of a pilot store that was on top of this since the start. Some background on me, I've worked the 4am flow team shift for seven years. My job was crazy simple before the following two years. Ten years, yeesh. Back then, each day the whole team would get things done together as a group. Completely finished with everything, all the time. Back then it was only 3 trucks a week unless it's December. Which was perfectly fine as a side job, it was real easy to pick up other shifts on other days if I needed it. Everyone was generally content with the job and our troubles were dumb small things.

Fast forward to 2018. Now there's 4-5 trucks a week and I'd work all of them. The beginning of store modernization. The beginning of the end. It was only rolled out to the grocery team. They got the new carts and were told of losing all the teams working in their department. They were in charge of their own signs, pricing, zoning, etc. It didn't work. The a lot of people quit in frustration. Which really shined on how bad this whole idea was, but that didn't stop them from the next step: implementing this across the whole store.

Everyone now does everything and gets new titles. Every team doesn't exist and everyone is expected to have all the things done. Every few weeks the STL would lie that everything is going fine which is why we would get new tasks to be added on top of our existing tasks each week. We could barely keep the shelves filled when randomly being called out for not doing price change or zoning or setting pogs. Because those teams don't exist anymore. This doesn't make us want to help people or even other team members when we're getting chewed out constantly for not getting the whole store operations done constantly. When everyone has this big list of impossible tasks it creates a "me first" culture where everyone is out trying to survive this mess on their own. Despite that, I tried being the one person other people could rely on during spills or backup or when a tm gets stuck on a guest question, etc etc. Because of that I've seen more breakdowns from team members and, hell, even team leads in literal tears over being chewed out "coached" over all these things they can't do.

The lucky people would have team leads who know that the tasks are impossible and ask them to do what they can. While the unlucky people were given team leads who drink the cool aid and imply to each of their TMs that the tasks are all totally possible. Basically repeating the mantra of the STL. Crap like "You just need to work faster", despite me being one of the fastest/efficient tms in the store. While my TL would take constant breaks and watch more than ever really working. On the other hand I could look across my aisle to a different section and watch as a TL for a different department breaking the rules by touching freight and bust their ass to stock like me. It's infuriating, I begged to be switched to a different department just over how crummy my TL was. It's hard to be told to work faster by a TL who follows all the rules blindly and abides by the "point and watch" rules they want them working under. Also when the TL constantly coming to me to explain basic parts of the job. It's also really really hard to respect that type of TL which corporate is trying to create/created.

We were barely getting anything done as is but the worst days were always when the district manager would roll in and destroy everything you were working towards as he points out one of the ten tasks not being done from one of the axed teams. Everyone would stop stocking and start pricing, pog or zoning. While the truck just sits back there. In the backroom until we run out of time and are kicked out having to deal with it the following truck day. Trucks were already rolling over as a new standard without without him doing this. My favorite part was when they would group us all up, then threaten us that we need to do (one of ten tasks previously done by old team) and a variation of "If you can't do these simple things, then this place isn't for you" There was just not enough hours. Ever. Which made things worse because I along a few others were always getting slightly longer shifts to just get the truck mostly done. It still was not enough, it was never enough. The days where you can leave and all the tasks were complete was a dream of a pre-modernization target.

So I quit. Done. Ten years of target to watch this sad pathetic crawl into a nearly non-functional mess. That's just a summary of modernization, there's just too many horror stories about this process. But now I have the best fake smile and fake enthusiasm honed from years of retail though. When I was able to lie to team leads as well as i could to guests. I think that's a neat skill worth having. Helps me ace interviews haha. When they asked what I used to do I can proudly say Retail Survivor.

 

[AmICrazy]

the things you see on Tragets facebook "Community" page

Looks like the picture I saw from the Stop and Shop stores in the northeast after their workers went on strike. Also reminds of the time when our coolers sent went out and we took a loss on tons of product.

 

[flow4areasonuno]

So last year, I made a pretty good amount. Between my wife and I we made enough to not qualify for EITC/EIC (whichever one it is) which meant our return wasn't delayed.

Guess how much I'm on track to make this year?

Less than half what I made last year. Black Friday week was the most days I've worked in months. This week I work 3 days and next week I'm back to 2 days a week.

Fanfreakingtastic. Modernization has been totally great!...for corporate.

 

[speedy]

I have a question regarding the scheduling of the softlines breakout and whose responsibility it is. Is this an inbound responsibility using inbound hours, or is it a Style responsibility using Style hours? It seems that there is some dispute at my store as to which hours and under what category this falls.

 

[FriedTL]

@speedy at my store, it is inbound hours.

 

[speedy]

Thank you. That's what I thought. During the majority of the year, we had 2 people breaking out softlines. For the past 3 months or so, they have 1 scheduled for a 6 hour shift, and rarely gets finished. They have not let any other inbound person help her. We do have a couple of inbound folks that can help and have offered to help, but they end up getting sent out to do GM1 or seasonal. The leaders tell the Style team that if they want the breakout done after the Inbound TM leaves, that they are responsible for it. From what I'm seeing, the Style team has enough on their plate out on the floor at this point and they are working their butts off and moving merchandise at a great pace. The Style team really does not have time to break out. So, the softlines repacks get backed up, the Flexible Fulfillment folks have to dig through the boxes and make a mess, and now we have pallets and pallets of unsorted softlines and literally no place to put them. So not only do we have a mess, we have missed sales because I know that the FF folks cannot find a lot of the things that are located in those boxes because of many items not being RFID. I just don't get it. Our Style sales this year are way up, and can actually be even better.

I guess now my next question is, why are they shorting the breakout hours and what are they doing with them?

 

[Staffwoman]

Thank you. That's what I thought. During the majority of the year, we had 2 people breaking out softlines. For the past 3 months or so, they have 1 scheduled for a 6 hour shift, and rarely gets finished. They have not let any other inbound person help her. We do have a couple of inbound folks that can help and have offered to help, but they end up getting sent out to do GM1 or seasonal. The leaders tell the Style team that if they want the breakout done after the Inbound TM leaves, that they are responsible for it. From what I'm seeing, the Style team has enough on their plate out on the floor at this point and they are working their butts off and moving merchandise at a great pace. The Style team really does not have time to break out. So, the softlines repacks get backed up, the Flexible Fulfillment folks have to dig through the boxes and make a mess, and now we have pallets and pallets of unsorted softlines and literally no place to put them. So not only do we have a mess, we have missed sales because I know that the FF folks cannot find a lot of the things that are located in those boxes because of many items not being RFID. I just don't get it. Our Style sales this year are way up, and can actually be even better.

I guess now my next question is, why are they shorting the breakout hours and what are they doing with them?

If sales are way up, then there is your reason. That's all that matters. I know it's stupid, but that's going to be the justification for a lot of things. My personal example: overhead signing sits in the back not done. But who cares if we are making sales.

 

[happygoth]

@speedy we have one Inbound TM who does Softlines breakout and two Style TMs. They aren't all scheduled for every truck, usually it's two of them at a time. Our TL often goes back there and helps as well.

 

[flow4areasonuno]

@speedy we have one Inbound TM who does Softlines breakout and two Style TMs. They aren't all scheduled for every truck, usually it's two of them at a time. Our TL often goes back there and helps as well.

We always have at least two for softlines breakout. We used to have two or three for hanging, one for mens, one for womens, and two for infants.

Things get sorted sooooooooooooooooooooo fast that if you work evenings you're told to do only repacks because the sorting takes all damn day and day people in softlines mostly do hanging and non-repacks.

 

[Tarjayy]

At my store, 2 of us can usually get it all done in a 4 hour shift. Plus we break out other stuff or help in hardlines.

 

[StyleMaven1]

We usually have 2 on SL truck with inbound hours. Very rarely there might be 3. They're scheduled 6-12 or 1pm. Most of the time they finish but if they don't it's usually shoe repacks and accessories that they roll over to the next day. If they finish early I'll give them an area to push that a dbo isn't in at the moment.

 

[Ashfromoldsite]

I have a question regarding the scheduling of the softlines breakout and whose responsibility it is. Is this an inbound responsibility using inbound hours, or is it a Style responsibility using Style hours? It seems that there is some dispute at my store as to which hours and under what category this falls.

Inbound hours but they can’t get it done so when style comes in they all unpack til it’s complete.

 

[ImRickGrimes]

After two years, I asked to be taken off the truck team and moved onto the sales floor. They emphasize a good sort and then we get bitched at when we aren't going fast enough. I got tired of it, so asked to be moved.

 

[happygoth]

I've helped sort Softlines a couple of times - definitely not for me, no thank you.

 

[flow4areasonuno]

Dear management, if you want me to move faster...keep me in one department. Writing me up for being slow will make me move faster in a department I'm familiar with, but throw me into one of the highest-traffic, worst, most stressful areas (for me anyway, dollar spot/bullseye/whatever), is not going to help matters.


Seriously, I improved and this is my punishment for doing so. Get sent to the hellhole at the front where you can barely move 2 feet without running into people and after a seven hour shift you're ready to scream. Because it doesn't matter how polite they are, the 1,000th person to get in your way and go "i'm sorry", is going to make you internally furious. I want to get more than three steps without having a guest walk in front of me and half-heartedly go "i'm sorry" or almost run into them, and...UGH.

THIS IS WHY 4AM START WAS A THING.

Mancafs, backstock, trash...navigate the disaster of a backroom to get to the baler...I can't keep up. And I know I'm going to hear about it because I didn't get as much done today as they expected.