Is this Real Life? (A Market vent thread)

[pfreshdude]

hypothetical scenario for p fresh area

Lets say the plano team set a transition in p fresh and they didnt pull nor push any new product to the floor thus leaving a bunch of empty locations on the sales floor. To make matters worse, you knew we had the new product because you saw it located in the backroom

What would you do if you saw a bunch of out after a transition?

Also, should us in p fresh (mainly the PAs and CTLs) be responsible for pulling and filling what the plano team didnt?

We usually set the transition aside when it comes in for C+S push...that way its allready on a flat or tub and all they have to do is push it out. This process works out really well instead of having to pull it all...plus we usually dont even have enough room to backstock it for a week anyway. For this Dairy transition we just did we had 1 tub and 2 flats of product that was all transition and almost none of it had a salesfloor location because it was new product.

In NOP it will give the week its supposed to be set but it wont be tied yet usually

My Plano team usually demerches, cleans ALL the shelves, pulls and pushes all product. They usually dont backstock it though and it sits there until I get sick of it being there and do it myself...or on a C+S day with the rest of the backstock

 

[Brewhaha]

We usually set the transition aside when it comes in for C+S push...that way its allready on a flat or tub and all they have to do is push it out. This process works out really well instead of having to pull it all...plus we usually dont even have enough room to backstock it for a week anyway. For this Dairy transition we just did we had 1 tub and 2 flats of product that was all transition and almost none of it had a salesfloor location because it was new product.

In NOP it will give the week its supposed to be set but it wont be tied yet usually

My Plano team usually demerches, cleans ALL the shelves, pulls and pushes all product. They usually dont backstock it though and it sits there until I get sick of it being there and do it myself...or on a C+S day with the rest of the backstock

That is not a bad idea separating the transitions and new sales planners. But even it is located and the cooler is full, that shouldnt, in my opinion, excuse them from leaving the area blank.

Speaking of sales planners, it seems almost every time I change a sales planner in p fresh, there is always a crap ton of backstock after I pushed the product to the home locations

 

[signingminion]

We had a similar issue with our transition due to a three day c&s push. I browbeat the etl-log into a repush before backstocking it. if we have extra racks we locate all the transition on one or more so the pull can then be pushed to the floor easy.

 

[Produce Queen]

Yes Brewhaha I would have gotten the product on the shelves myself if the other option was for them to sit there empty. I used to have a BR TL who always said "the guests aren't shopping in the back room. Get it on the sales floor."

 

[Brewhaha]

Yes Brewhaha I would have gotten the product on the shelves myself if the other option was for them to sit there empty. I used to have a BR TL who always said "the guests aren't shopping in the back room. Get it on the sales floor."

I would do the same. For me, as a PA, I have been led to believe that if there any issues (product over pushed/under pushed, stuff not cleaned, end caps not full to capacity, finding expired product, bananas/eggs/milk not full all the time, many empty holes & cas not being pushed) are automatically me or my ctls fault even though we can't control everything that goes on. If i do one thing, then I'll get talked to for doing something else. Example, I'd rather fill the empty holes in dairy from the transition than fill bakery (which it didn't need to be filled right away). But stuff doesn't get done & i have to fix things in order to make p fresh look good as best I can.

 

[pfreshdude]

Yes Brewhaha I would have gotten the product on the shelves myself if the other option was for them to sit there empty. I used to have a BR TL who always said "the guests aren't shopping in the back room. Get it on the sales floor."

Ya I would unfor push what I could out too and just get the essentials done in Pfresh before doing that...

At the end of the day our goal is to sell product and make money..if there is no product out to be sold we wont make as much money

This month and Feb are going to be hell for Pfresh.

Im getting 75 or so total hours for Pfresh this week and next week it dips down to almost 70 hours total. Out of those hours 6-8 of it is helping C+S push.

Almost every day now I am told I have to pull my own morning pulls and If I dont backstock them after pushing them out it just sits there and gets all mixed up with the 12 and on CAF pulls.

Plano hours are being cut to the bone as well so this weeek I have like 6 Salesplans and 3 or so next week. Today I spent 2 hours of my 7 hour shift doing Plano stuff. Spent 30 or so minutes pulling my morning pulls.

 

[Brewhaha]

Ya I would unfor push what I could out too and just get the essentials done in Pfresh before doing that...

At the end of the day our goal is to sell product and make money..if there is no product out to be sold we wont make as much money

This month and Feb are going to be hell for Pfresh.

Im getting 75 or so total hours for Pfresh this week and next week it dips down to almost 70 hours total. Out of those hours 6-8 of it is helping C+S push.

Almost every day now I am told I have to pull my own morning pulls and If I dont backstock them after pushing them out it just sits there and gets all mixed up with the 12 and on CAF pulls.

Plano hours are being cut to the bone as well so this weeek I have like 6 Salesplans and 3 or so next week. Today I spent 2 hours of my 7 hour shift doing Plano stuff. Spent 30 or so minutes pulling my morning pulls.

I understand hours have to be cut this time of the year. What I dont understand is why perishables hours get cut. Does HQ know how much different our routines are compared to the rest of the stores (excluding food services areas). Heck, does Target even remember why they created p fresh in the 1st place?

 

[indigo25]

Did anyone else's sour cream and cottage cheese take over one of the milk doors?

Yes! I am so happy. It was annoying to see a guest go by the yogurt, somehow not notice the sign that says "Our sour cream is now located with our cheese" and come over and ask "why don't you sell sour cream anymore?"

 

[qmosqueen]

our sour cream, cottage cheese is now located in the pfresh valley between the grab and go sandwiches and the meals to go (tortillas, veggies, sauces and fajitas meats.)
Meals to go was condensed down to 1 four foot section.

Our CTL talked to plan TL and we did not flex into the milk wall due to selling too much milk per day.
We sell about 200 gallons of milk a day and we need 5 doors of MP and vendor milk and 3 doors of specialty milk.

 

[qmosqueen]

sign that says "Our sour cream is now located with our cheese"

You had a sign there wow we just got ask like 100 times a day "Where's the sour cream and then it was out, and I told them I guess we are sold out, lol it was stiing on a backstock cart not STO'd... oh well.
I am soo glad we now have a lot of room to keep it on the floor and well stocked.

 

[signingminion]

You had a sign there wow we just got ask like 100 times a day "Where's the sour cream and then it was out, and I told them I guess we are sold out, lol it was stiing on a backstock cart not STO'd... oh well.
I am soo glad we now have a lot of room to keep it on the floor and well stocked.

It was a 3x5 sign at our store. It didn't help at all. We took it down after a couple months.

 

[indigo25]

Yes, the sign didn't help at all. They would be standing right next to it with a glazed over look. Now I'm just worried most of them will now go look at it's old spot and then be confused it's gone.

 

[RetailWorld]

our sour cream, cottage cheese is now located in the pfresh valley between the grab and go sandwiches and the meals to go (tortillas, veggies, sauces and fajitas meats.)
Meals to go was condensed down to 1 four foot section.

Our CTL talked to plan TL and we did not flex into the milk wall due to selling too much milk per day.
We sell about 200 gallons of milk a day and we need 5 doors of MP and vendor milk and 3 doors of specialty milk.

The margin on the grab and go though is much higher than milk. In the end, you're going to end up losing sales. Just because you didn't want to push milk an extra time per day.

 

[Brewhaha]

The margin on the grab and go though is much higher than milk. In the end, you're going to end up losing sales. Just because you didn't want to push milk an extra time per day.

I see you point about this but depending on where their milk coolers are and where their backroom coolers are, you might not have the time to push milk an extra time per day. At my store, our milk coolers are at c50 (right in front of c1). The closest double doors is at the other end of market/seasonal (c50). Then we have to go around 2 sharp turns to get to our dairy cooler. So generally, you put 128 gallons of milk on one flat. That is basically 32 crates of milk. That means you are pushing 128 gallons of milk times roughly 8.6 pounds per gallon is about 1100 pounds (the weight of milk could be a bit off). So pushing 1100 pounds of milk around 2 sharp corners plus pushing it across the store (my store is 2 levels) takes up at lot of time we dont have. Some are lucky to have their backroom dairy cooler right behind their milk coolers on the sales floor where all they push the milk from in the cooler.

I am not saying I agree with that did but I understand why they did it.

 

[Pilly18]

Does anybody have designated pfresh backroom tms? There's 2 at my store, I'm one of them. We come in at 4am on truck days (4 days a week) pull all the pfresh batches, push just dairy and freezer, push same stuff that comes in off the truck, then back stock everything, including meat and produce. We come clean almost everyday, if we don't it's because the truck arrives after 6:30a and our CTL and PA's don't get their push finished in time. Our trucks are typically 500, 800, 1000, 1200 pieces. On a non truck day we come in for 4-5 hours just to do the batches/push/backstock. Is this just my store that does it? I always see you guys talking about jam packed coolers and freezers.

 

[Brewhaha]

Does anybody have designated pfresh backroom tms? There's 2 at my store, I'm one of them. We come in at 4am on truck days (4 days a week) pull all the pfresh batches, push just dairy and freezer, push same stuff that comes in off the truck, then back stock everything, including meat and produce. We come clean almost everyday, if we don't it's because the truck arrives after 6:30a and our CTL and PA's don't get their push finished in time. Our trucks are typically 500, 800, 1000, 1200 pieces. On a non truck day we come in for 4-5 hours just to do the batches/push/backstock. Is this just my store that does it? I always see you guys talking about jam packed coolers and freezers.

My store has had packed coolers since October. But a few days ago, my store got a visit from a bunch of extreme higher ups. When I say higher ups, I was told they were close to the highest of the high in the food chain and even some of these people come up with ideas for how we should do things in the store. Well they saw our produce cooler and our meat cooler. Our produce cooler is small and had a flat and red cart of backstock in it. Our meat cooler had a red tub and flat backstock plus a milk pallet in the cooler (our dairy cooler was so packed we couldnt put the milk in there). So I came back the next day and our coolers (not freezer) was completely clean even after a truck.


So answer your question, we usually have 3-5 flow guys on truck days to push the truck. 1-3 of those guys also backstock the truck as well. Depending on the size of the truck and when it arrives, they sometimes get clean but that is rare

 

[Produce Queen]

Yup we have a designated team for food truck too. 1, sometimes 2 TM's back stock after pushing. I can count on 1 hand the number of times we haven't come clean. It's always been made a priority that it all gets done.

 

[pfreshdude]

Yup we have a designated team for food truck too. 1, sometimes 2 TM's back stock after pushing. I can count on 1 hand the number of times we haven't come clean. It's always been made a priority that it all gets done.

This USED to be how it was at my store...until some leadership changes and a shift of priorities. I feel like Market is treated like absolute crap now at my store. For C+S push + Pfresh for the entire week this week and next week we probably have around 100 hours for all of it which includes backstocking the trucks.

Ive about had it with backroom and C+S tasks. Im a PA dangit not a freaking backroom TM and Flow TM.

I routinely have to pull my own morning pulls now and backroom doesnt care to backstock anything ever until the night so I usually have to backstock it all too, especially on truck push days so we have green racks to use. Then 3 days out of the week I am just expected to help push and be involved in the C+S process the entire time which is like 4 hours each of those days.

I understand hours are low but I feel like I help out other workcenters when asked or rather told, like being told I have to help push C+S and being told I HAVE to pull my own autofills and even going as far as being told to help push the dry market autofills. What happens when I need help or tell the backroom TL or Log ETL what they NEED to do in their own workcenter as it relates to Pfresh..NOTHING. My hours are low too. My workcenter gets 70 or so hours a week now which is nothing with all the tasks that are required. There was a green rack with the morning autofills from wednesday STILL on the same rack in the freezer this morning.....I guess it was too hard for anyone to backstock it.

This is also just how I see market now

 

[ANE]

I think the backroom backstocks the freezer and cooler once a week. Today as I was doing a pull in the freezer, there were FOUR red tubs (4 to 6 repacks each), FIVE three tiers, and a large pallet of frozen crammed in there. A pull that only had five locations to it took about twenty minutes due to having to move about half of the vehicles every time I had to move.

 

[Brewhaha]

There are 3 things I would like to bring up

1: So we had a major visit this past week from an extreme high up in the company. In preparation, we used a lot of hours to get the store ready. This included getting the entire backroom clean and getting the coolers clean. Well, on our next GM truck day, the backroom blew up. Then the following day, which is both GM and p fresh trucks, the backroom got worse and all the work to get the coolers clean when down the drain. I was told we went over hours by at least 250 (maybe even more) so they cut backroom and flow hours. When I came in at 230 Saturday, there were 2 flats of dairy, 1 tub of dairy, 2 flats of frozen, 1 meat flat and a pallet of dry produce left over. Our floor looked really light. So yay planning.......................................NOT

2: The day after our visit, they scheduled only 2 hardlines closers (4 total with one person being 8-4 and the other being 1-6). The 2 closing ETLs called me to the offices/TSC area. They start talking to me in a do me a favor voice "hey brewhaha, how are you feeling? Listen we need you to zone all of dry market in addition to p fresh." I tell them I will do the best I can. Normally we do p fresh plus c1 & c14-c20 (our aisles are 8 4 feet sections). My focus is to get a good p fresh zone in while marking sure I dont leave any expired or bad quality product on the floor. So I almost never get the freezer zone complete due to the dry zoning because with the times we are scheduled, it is almost impossible to do. To do their zoning request, I started zone an hour earlier than usual skipping the 5pm CAFs. End of the night, I get to c25. One ETL says I disappointed him on how far I got in my zone.

3: To the p fresh closers who also zone part (or all) of dry market, what is your routine to get all the zoning complete (including the freezers) plus your cleaning tasks every close? I ask because I am struggling (based on my stores added requirement to zone part of dry market) to get the zone complete. If anyone can give me a time line (our closers work 230-1030) of what I should be doing on a close, let me know. This would help me out a lot.

 

[indigo25]

3: To the p fresh closers who also zone part (or all) of dry market, what is your routine to get all the zoning complete (including the freezers) plus your cleaning tasks every close? I ask because I am struggling (based on my stores added requirement to zone part of dry market) to get the zone complete. If anyone can give me a time line (our closers work 230-1030) of what I should be doing on a close, let me know. This would help me out a lot.

At my store, the openers or a mid are supposed to try and zone freezers while closer does all of dry market (14-32, plus water wall). Problem is we won't have mids again for awhile, and the opener is way too busy to do freezers most of the time. If market isn't too trashed, I can zone it in about an hour (bare minimum zoning, but still looks okay to a guest) to two hours. I usually do night cull/QMOS around 8:30pm (our closers leave at 10pm). What really depends on when I'll get started is if I have to do a lot of dry market pushing myself. Before Christmas we would have enough people that by the time I was done with doing stuff in Pfresh, my pulls for dry were already taken care of a lot of the time. With having them to do now, it takes up a lot of zoning time on heavy days so one piece of advice is try to zone up a few four foot sections if you can while you're pushing. That way if you don't finish, at least a lot of it has been touched in most aisles.

 

[signingminion]

I haven't touched my zone since fourth quarter on closes. I have two or three hours worth of cafs sitting when I come to close. If I'm lucky I get them pushed with enough time to get the reshop pushed back out in time for our weekly 4x4.

I used to get my zone at least half complete every night. But my opener zones pfresh and the closer does dry grocery. Or he did before he cut his days. Now pfresh is zoned three days and dry grocery one. At least my tls know enough not to give me crap about not getting to it.

 

[Brewhaha]

I used to get my zone at least half complete every night. But my opener zones pfresh and the closer does dry grocery. Or he did before he cut his days. Now pfresh is zoned three days and dry grocery one. At least my tls know enough not to give me crap about not getting to it.

What is funny about this is my ETL happened to open after I closed (i was a mid). He said the zone wasnt good. I told him since we started having to zone dry on our closes, it is impossible in the time we have to get the freezers zoned. Well, he said our TL gets it done. Find a way to do it. The funny thing is my TL has said and does stay until he gets what he needs done. So whenever he closes, he stays past 1030 to get the zone done. How is that a fair comparison when I leave on time? To me, it is BS.

With having them to do now, it takes up a lot of zoning time on heavy days so one piece of advice is try to zone up a few four foot sections if you can while you're pushing. That way if you don't finish, at least a lot of it has been touched in most aisles.

I think I will do this. For me, the yogurt takes up a lot of time. This will have to do.

 

[pfreshdude]

There are 3 things I would like to bring up

1: So we had a major visit this past week from an extreme high up in the company. In preparation, we used a lot of hours to get the store ready. This included getting the entire backroom clean and getting the coolers clean. Well, on our next GM truck day, the backroom blew up. Then the following day, which is both GM and p fresh trucks, the backroom got worse and all the work to get the coolers clean when down the drain. I was told we went over hours by at least 250 (maybe even more) so they cut backroom and flow hours. When I came in at 230 Saturday, there were 2 flats of dairy, 1 tub of dairy, 2 flats of frozen, 1 meat flat and a pallet of dry produce left over. Our floor looked really light. So yay planning.......................................NOT

2: The day after our visit, they scheduled only 2 hardlines closers (4 total with one person being 8-4 and the other being 1-6). The 2 closing ETLs called me to the offices/TSC area. They start talking to me in a do me a favor voice "hey brewhaha, how are you feeling? Listen we need you to zone all of dry market in addition to p fresh." I tell them I will do the best I can. Normally we do p fresh plus c1 & c14-c20 (our aisles are 8 4 feet sections). My focus is to get a good p fresh zone in while marking sure I dont leave any expired or bad quality product on the floor. So I almost never get the freezer zone complete due to the dry zoning because with the times we are scheduled, it is almost impossible to do. To do their zoning request, I started zone an hour earlier than usual skipping the 5pm CAFs. End of the night, I get to c25. One ETL says I disappointed him on how far I got in my zone.

3: To the p fresh closers who also zone part (or all) of dry market, what is your routine to get all the zoning complete (including the freezers) plus your cleaning tasks every close? I ask because I am struggling (based on my stores added requirement to zone part of dry market) to get the zone complete. If anyone can give me a time line (our closers work 230-1030) of what I should be doing on a close, let me know. This would help me out a lot.

Zoning the entire market section is almost impossible unless the pulls are small, you dont do reshop, the zone is allready pretty good and you dont have to push out a ton of milk. Especially if your schedule is like mine..We have 70 hours total for Market this week and 3 days when we push C+S the opener has to help out with that. The closer is 4:30-8:30 and the opener leaves at 1...not sure how we can do everything we need to do with that schedule

 

[pfreshdude]

At my store, the openers or a mid are supposed to try and zone freezers while closer does all of dry market (14-32, plus water wall). Problem is we won't have mids again for awhile, and the opener is way too busy to do freezers most of the time. If market isn't too trashed, I can zone it in about an hour (bare minimum zoning, but still looks okay to a guest) to two hours. I usually do night cull/QMOS around 8:30pm (our closers leave at 10pm). What really depends on when I'll get started is if I have to do a lot of dry market pushing myself. Before Christmas we would have enough people that by the time I was done with doing stuff in Pfresh, my pulls for dry were already taken care of a lot of the time. With having them to do now, it takes up a lot of zoning time on heavy days so one piece of advice is try to zone up a few four foot sections if you can while you're pushing. That way if you don't finish, at least a lot of it has been touched in most aisles.

This is the routine I was trying to get started as I am usually the opener...just trying to zone Pfresh/Coolers/Freezers and leave dry to the closer but it usually doesnt work out too well when I help C+S from 10-2 on openings 3 days a week, or have to help set POGs or whatever other random routines there is to do, especially this week when I only work 6-1