MEGATHREAD Flexible Fulfillment

I love the idea that all packing stations should be utilized at all times, but we have 3, and I get 2 closers. Yes, not much should drop after 8pm, but they are only scheduled until 9, so if it keeps dropping orders (it hovers at 60) they won't get it done. Yes, they are slow and not worth the payroll, but I am the closing TL, and no matter how many times I talk to their leaders, they keep insisting that they keep them on through the season.

Moral, my store will never get sort by close done unless they schedule at least the b team at night. Right now I have the 'i want to send you home because you can't find anything in style or amplified gifting team'. I'm so over this scheduling.
 
Yetive said:
We have been green across the board all week. Strategies used by our TL include:
1) Pack stations ALWAYS in use. If sort needs to be done, call someone. If break or lunch is taken, the packer must be covered.
2) 1 person per station. He found that extra people packing actually slows the process.
3) You can have extra people prepping and still be efficient there.
4) Use your team where they are best--If they suck at packing, they don't pack, regardless of how much they want to.
5) Everyone helps. From SD to Starbucks, we have all been picking, prepping, or packing at some point (I'm a great picker, but I suck at packing, lol).
6) TL is on top of everything. He knows where everyone is, where we stand, what needs done. He calls out TM stats on the walkie (good ones) which truly motivates everyone.
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Sounds like me and my team! I hope they appreciate all the work I put in for them. I just want them to not be miserable and for us to get the job done
 
flow4areasonuno said:
Ikr...no way in hell would I skip a break. I can get in trouble for not getting everything done or kill myself with stress. I know which I'd rather do.
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Staffwoman said:
Don't forget that while you are working through your breaks, the people in upper management are at home asleep benefiting from you not taking them.
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Yeah, I know...I only worked through my breaks to help my team not be screwed. I did it for them.
 
The One in Red said:
Why was yesterday worse than Black Friday & Cyber Monday combined? From stuff I'm seeing on reddit, my store wasn't alone in going red for SFS.

I walked into a total mess at 2:00, with more orders than we could handle by far. I've seen us not make goal for packing only twice before, yesterday was the first time we missed goal for picking by 4:30 as well. And we missed it by a lot, almost 500 dpcis, which is more than a regular, non Q-4 day for our store. They kept picking but meanwhile noting was prepped and the carts kept stacking up...ran out of SFS carts, almost ran out of 3-tiers too. I was scheduled to close and had two newbies scheduled who didn't show, one seasonal was scheduled but walked off the job mid-shift on Saturday, and a seasonal tm did a no call, no show...I lost most of who was actually there at 6:30 & 7:30. My tl went to lunch and said she'd be back, but never returned. She gave strict instructions to keep picking and ignore the pack. The SD later called and said stop picking, just pack. The closing tl saw the mess and asked a couple of people to stay, so we had several of us stay till 1 am and we still didn't get it done. I took my lunch, but no breaks because there was just so much work and there was absolutely nothing more I could have done. I'm sure that one ETL will say that we just didn't work hard enough *eyeroll*

I hate that the team this morning walked into a nightmare too and I can't wait to hear the fallout from this...it's demoralizing.
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My store missed, too, by over 200 units.
 
The OGs on my team often miss breaks, myself included. There were many days I was alone until my lunch and OPU wouldn't allow a break. Now with the hour pick time it's more doable, but we often skip them because we want to get stuff done. We all laugh at how the seasonals are going on their 15 right at 2 hours and always make time for the second break. Even my ETL was like "breaks? what are those?". Of course I'm on day 11 of 12 in a row, and had many 13 hour plus days the past 2 weeks. I want us to succeed.

ETA: I don't think either way is right, everybody needs to do what is best for themselves. We are legally entitled to them and my leads have never denied a break. I personally don't feel the need for them and if we are slammed they definitely fly out the window.
 
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vngoghlvr said:
The OGs on my team often miss breaks, myself included. There were many days I was alone until my lunch and OPU wouldn't allow a break. Now with the hour pick time it's more doable, but we often skip them because we want to get stuff done. We all laugh at how the seasonals are going on their 15 right at 2 hours and always make time for the second break. Even my ETL was like "breaks? what are those?". Of course I'm on day 11 of 12 in a row, and had many 13 hour plus days the past 2 weeks. I want us to succeed.

ETA: I don't think either way is right, everybody needs to do what is best for themselves. We are legally entitled to them and my leads have never denied a break. I personally don't feel the need for them and if we are slammed they definitely fly out the window.
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You laugh at other team members for taking their breaks? Why? I've been with Target over 15 years. If I didn't take my breaks .... let me do the math ... that comes to a tidy 2,015 hours I'd have worked for free. Yeah, it's JUST 15 minutes.

I always tell any new hire or teammate of mine that they DESERVE that break. Not to be laughed at.
 
Staffwoman said:
You laugh at other team members for taking their breaks? Why? I've been with Target over 15 years. If I didn't take my breaks .... let me do the math ... that comes to a tidy 2,015 hours I'd have worked for free. Yeah, it's JUST 15 minutes.

I always tell any new hire or teammate of mine that they DESERVE that break. Not to be laughed at.
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We don't laugh at them to their faces, I put that badly. But we do get frustrated that they will be in the middle of something and just drop it right at 2 hours or when they want to go to lunch. Like leaving a container unfinished, not sorting what they packed, or hiding their paused cart somewhere and not communicating with us. I will always ok a break and tell them to have a good one. But when they prioritize that over something that would take a minute or two so as not to leave a mess for the team I get annoyed. We did not get the best batch of seasonals this year, one called out on Thanksgiving. Add the fact that I have worked 12 days straight and am at 50 hours this week not including today, I'm burnt out and tired of picking up the slack.
 
vngoghlvr said:
We don't laugh at them to their faces, I put that badly. But we do get frustrated that they will be in the middle of something and just drop it right at 2 hours or when they want to go to lunch. Like leaving a container unfinished, not sorting what they packed, or hiding their paused cart somewhere and not communicating with us. I will always ok a break and tell them to have a good one. But when they prioritize that over something that would take a minute or two so as not to leave a mess for the team I get annoyed. We did not get the best batch of seasonals this year, one called out on Thanksgiving. Add the fact that I have worked 12 days straight and am at 50 hours this week not including today, I'm burnt out and tired of picking up the slack.
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The tl should be making a break schedule. If not, then work as a group to come up with one. In toys, we know everyone can't go to break or lunch at the same time, so we break it up.

If the management at your store can't manage tm's and their work, that's a management problem.

The fact you are working so many days straight is all more the reason you should be taking your breaks. Target is making bank hands over fist on your back, and you're handing free work to them. If you're burnt out, take your breaks.
 
mathprofmatt said:
Update: In addition to still being out of 454s, 280s, and 278s, we are also now out of 126s and 438s. But hey, at least we have collates again!
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Take some from my store. Please. We got 52 pallets of ship from store supplies delivered over the past 2 days and I have NOWHERE TO PUT ANY OF THIS
 
Staffwoman said:
The tl should be making a break schedule. If not, then work as a group to come up with one. In toys, we know everyone can't go to break or lunch at the same time, so we break it up.

If the management at your store can't manage tm's and their work, that's a management problem.

The fact you are working so many days straight is all more the reason you should be taking your breaks. Target is making bank hands over fist on your back, and you're handing free work to them. If you're burnt out, take your breaks.
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To her credit, when I mentioned it to my ETL the other day she was horrified and apologized. She didn't realize she scheduled me like that and I didn't complain. My husband had some short weeks so I welcomed the OT. But I am going to enjoy my weekend off!
 
Today sucked so hard. So much Christmas crap in my batches. Yeah, we probably have it...in the back somewhere. Too bad I can't read the seasonal help's minds to know which backroom aisles out of many they failed to locate it in and most likely didn't even face the pick label. Maybe one of market's aisles? I don't know, TL, I think they put some of their stuff in chem or is it just toys using that aisle now? INF! INF! INF!
 
Had that issue yesterday as well and when I tried asking the guys who were pushing the Christmas stuff, they were no help at all. Same thing with the gals in soft lines when I try to ask them about something that isn't RFIDable... like come on people, these are your usual areas!

Also, I'm tired of the attitudes of some of the soft lines girls... like, excuse me if its my JOB to pick in your area... not all of us make a mess of your newly zoned area, so telling the Closing TL to make us watch ourselves was just low.
 
Christmas is killing us. They popped up all the Christmas push into the steel so looking for it is impossible. At least when it was under the steel we still had a chance at rummaging through repacks for stuff. Also out of air bubbles, so that’s fun. We found a solution until we get our order in, but still, I miss em. Y’all ready for Green Monday?????
 
JustMeT said:
Had that issue yesterday as well and when I tried asking the guys who were pushing the Christmas stuff, they were no help at all. Same thing with the gals in soft lines when I try to ask them about something that isn't RFIDable... like come on people, these are your usual areas!
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Completely off topic, but what in softlines isn't RFID? Other than shoelaces and shoe care, I can't remember anything that didn't have wiring in the tag.
 
Yes to all of the above, I had Art Class hoodie, Art Class pants, and a blue polo that I assume was part of the Uniforms collection, all not RFIDable and no recent delivery dates, so it was a goner to my INF percentage which had been green all freaking day beforehand.
 
I don't think anything Art Class is RFID-encoded? But since the beginning of Q4, maybe half of Q3, there has been a huge dropoff wrt RFID-encoded softlines.
 
JustMeT said:
Had that issue yesterday as well and when I tried asking the guys who were pushing the Christmas stuff, they were no help at all. Same thing with the gals in soft lines when I try to ask them about something that isn't RFIDable... like come on people, these are your usual areas!

Also, I'm tired of the attitudes of some of the soft lines girls... like, excuse me if its my JOB to pick in your area... not all of us make a mess of your newly zoned area, so telling the Closing TL to make us watch ourselves was just low.
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I love helping SFS, I will not stop until I find what they need. The other day the LOG-ETL got trigger-happy with the INF, I found the item he was looking for literally right as he hit it. I told him, never give up! Grrr.
 
We've been using RFID for about 5 years now, if I remember correctly. It's saved many a-butt. I wonder how long before Target gets the hint that it's a quality feature and starts encoding other produces (like make-up or high priced merch)? The closer they get to getting RFID onto all items, the closer we move to having next-tech no scan at register. Can you imagine filling up your cart, walking out the door, and getting a digital receipt notification as you're loading your car?
 
I don't understand why they can't enable things for RFID location but not for the cycle count. They disable it if any was missed being encoded, but it'd still be very useful for SFS since most of the items were actually encoded.
 

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