Is this Real Life? (A Market vent thread)

[BRguy]

Our gm trucks come M,T,Th,F,Sat, and FDC trucks come in T, Th, and Sunday. Tuesdays after 8, Thursdays around 5-9, and Sunday right around 4:30am. We are a 4am store.

 

[doxie71]

Nice @Pfreshbackroomguy !! Wish my store could maintain coming clean on backstock. *sigh* I should just be happy we got through all but a pallet and a half of produce yesterday. Truck was about 10 pallets I believe.

 

[looseseal]

Do any of your instocks teams put up rainchecks and/or ad-sub signs in produce and meat? I'm trying to figure out what best practice is involving store-ordered stuff. I always thought they weren't supposed to because there's never a 100% guarantee that store-ordered stuff will get replenished because things can get cut from the order, drop off of pogs because of supplier issues, or get sent to the wrong stores without warning.

 

[BRguy]

That is a pretty large truck! Slightly bigger than the smallest gm truck I've seen. You guys did well!

 

[doxie71]

@looseseal Our instocks team rarely even goes through the P-fresh area. But when they do, they tend to just do dairy.

Awesome job with the truck @Pfreshbackroomguy, our Saturday trucks usually run about 13 pallets, and we usually leave at least that much or more. Our trucks during the week are usually about 9-10 pallets and we can barely even get through those. *sigh*

 

[Cel]

My store's dairy and produce coolers looked like pfreshbackroomguy's before pictures when I came in today. CTL is on a sudden LOA and there are only 2-3 of us qualified to do anything in pfresh other than zone, and our hours are cut to the bone. Backroom is supposed to be pushing perishable CAFs but hasn't been...walked into the dairy cooler to push milk this afternoon and nearly had a heart attack....full metro, full tub, full 3 tiers everywhere, even a stepstool with OJ casepacks on the steps...

I called up the LOD who I happen to get along with very well (Sr. TL who was my TL in hardlines, did my 90 day, helped me get interviewed for GSA, etc.) and said let's take a walk. He pretty much mimicked my reaction and then said to hell with zoning, push what I could after cleaning up the QMOS/cardboard/trash/blankets/empty pallets from the FDC truck we managed to squeeze in somehow (our food trucks are normally pushed the morning after being recieved).

I have a clopen tonight/tomorrow so I'm hoping once I finish my morning routines and the ~5 or so peeps we have finish up pushing the pallets we can get some time to attack the vehicles.

 

[pfreshdude]

I think the best job at Target is the backroom by far.

I think so to, ESPECIALLY Dayside Backroom.

 

[pfreshdude]

So the county and area around my store got at least a foot (up to 16 inches in some spots) of snow this past Thursday. On Wednesday, people bought up all the bread and most of the Market Pantry milk. I come in Thursday night to close. Luckily, my neighborhood was plowed before I left for work. I was the only market team member tht day. Our Thursday truck got moved to Friday and our Saturday truck got moved to Sunday. We didnt get everything on Friday.

So Saturday, i see on workbench under "trailer unload deliveries" that our truck will be around 1200 pieces (12-13 pallets). I told my ETL this information. He told me that C & S told him via phone that we would only get frozen.

low and behold, we got 13 pallets yesterday. I know some of you might think that this isnt a lot. It is for us. We usually get between 6 and 8 pallets (9 on rare occasions). To make things even more fun, the truck arrived at 11am instead of 4am. I was told they didnt have a driver at that time to deliver it to us. We had a flow team of 5 people ready for the truck but they had to go home. Luckily, my ETL was on his game. He got permission from our new STL to bring new people in and keep people who wanted to stay. We had at least 5 people pushing, one person breaking down pallets, one person b-code/push and 2 people backstock. I b-coded some stuff that didnt get b-coded. I also organized the backstock for our BR team to make it easier for them to backstock.

It was tough but we got through 11 of the 13 pallets. They were all pushed and backstocked.

Damn thats alot. We usually get 6 or so Pallets on a busy day. Usually around 550-600 pieces.

 

[BRguy]

Here is a question for everyone. When you guys get your food trucks how ever many times a week, does each truck come with a consistent count? My store for example: Food trucks Sun, Tues, and Thursday. Sunday 500-600 pieces. Tuesday 300-500 pieces. Thursday 700-900 pieces.

 

[sigma7]

Mine are usually about the same size each day week to week unless the FDC cuts a truck due to weather.

 

[salesfloor10]

Our FDC trucks (with frozen) are usually between 300-400 and on fresh only days they are 200-250. We push trucks same day, and
backstock gets done same day sometimes, but is usually completed day after the truck. (Our trucks are Sun/Weds/Fri with regular trucks Mon/Weds/Fri).

 

[doxie71]

Our FDC trucks are Tues/Thurs/Sat
Tues/Thurs we range from 900-1100 pieces.
Saturday is typically at least 1300.

Sometimes it can be higher though. Today's truck was probably somewhere around 1200.

We are going to be transitioning from C&S to an actual FDC here soon, the new one in Ohio will be servicing us. We joked earlier that C&S is just gonna send us a pallet of yogurt and call it a day. Sad part is I wouldn't be surprised if that's what happened.

 

[doxie71]

@Pfreshbackroomguy My CTL told me. We have a breakdown of the 3 transition weeks. Week 1 a large percent of everything will still come from C&S. 2nd week will be about evenly split. 3rd week is entirely FDC. At least I think it was just 3 weeks. It may be 4. Don't remember all that well. I would check with CTL or ETL for HL or LOG. They should know.

 

[doxie71]

@Pfreshbackroomguy My CTL told me. We have a breakdown of the 3 transition weeks. Week 1 a large percent of everything will still come from C&S. 2nd week will be about evenly split. 3rd week is entirely FDC. At least I think it was just 3 weeks. It may be 4. Don't remember all that well. I would check with CTL or ETL for HL or LOG. They should know.

When I see my new STL, I will ask her about it. Since she our STL and a former ETL LOG, I she would know about this transition.

My store is a 4am store. For whatever reason, C&S has us listed as a 6am delivery time on workbench. I know that more will get done if the truck arrives at 4am instead of around 6am. I hope if we switch to FDC, trucks will come at 4am instead of around 6am.

My store is a 4 am GM store but C&S usually comes anywhere between 5:30 and 7:30 on a good day. We've had them show up at 11:30 before on days they were running late. I've already heard our FDC trucks will be arriving at 6 am.

 

[pfreshdude]

To, it makes sense for Target to be on food distributors asses on arrives at set times. If they arrive at set times (unless weather, traffic, or others occur), the store can schedule people accordingly. Stores wont waste hours having flow sit around waiting for the p fresh truck to arrive.

Its part of why we made our C+S push opposite flow days and we have a few flow members who dont mind working 2 C+S shifts a week.

 

[doxie71]

Gonna be an interesting morning. Starting our transition to the new FDC today. As of last night there were over 20 carts of mainly back stock in the freezer. You almost can't even walk in there at this point. No clue where freezer pallets are going to go.

 

[BigEyedPhish]

Worst weekend ever... to sum it up... I am a PA in an A volume level store... was the ONLY person scheduled in market (I had to "train") everyone else[for the whole weekend]. by Train I mean just throwing info in my team members face as i legit had barely anytime to properly train anyone... Had Ad-set sunday which was about twice as big as a thought, was asked to do a sign audit (which i never got to because I was more worried about the HLs team members working market for their first shift ever and food safety rules), do the order because I was the only one scheduled who knew how to do it. clear all Qmos from the previous day because the closer the night before has called off 5 times in a row, as well as my own from Culls/SDA as i opened all weekend...

I don't know how much more I can take of this.. Target is literally killing itself. I have a bachelor's degree, but graduated right at the beginning of the recession, hard times, but I enjoyed working my ass off at target. Now I am wondering if I am making a huge life mistake...

 

[looseseal]

Now I am wondering if I am making a huge life mistake...

 

[Unreturnable]

Knowing I am still a student closing in on my degree and non-Target future...that's what gets my by every day. Sigh. Here's my experience:

Target FDC transition:

Switching from C&S to FDC sucked because we had double-orders arriving for almost a month. C&S seemed to have more company-employed drivers - the ones who could move their own pallets on/off the truck, handle their own business. 9/10 times with TFDC the drivers can't touch anything, and need a seal removed/replaced when they arrive and leave. More work for us, yaaaaaay....

Pick labels on the merchandise is *amazing* and so is all the merchandise being palletized by floor location at the DC. I mean, all the yogurt...gets put...with the other yogurt...we get a yogurt pallet, it's fucking unreal, and it's so easy to push a yogurt pallet, as opposed to pulling yogurt off of 5 different pallets like we did with C&S.

Hitches include:
-Sometimes we don't receive pallets. Scheduled for a bananas today, invoice said we had a bananas, we didn't get one.
-Invoice off. Last delivery said we had 4 pallets of cooler, we received 5. Still waiting on final resolution on that problem.
-Pretty much no FDC drivers, all third-party, so my store has to move all the pallets on, off, shuffle them in the truck, and then shuffle them back.

Up-Side is:
-TFDC almost always arrives early. Sometimes it's 5am, sometimes 5:45, sometimes 6 or later, but C&S used to pull in around 11am on some days. By that time most of the food team was gone, so having early deliveries is excellent.
-Even though the drivers are third-party, they all are better than the ones C&S was hiring. C&S drivers used to stand outside in the parking lot smoking cigarettes and bullshitting, at least these guys pay attention to their load because they know Spot is watching and Spot can be a bitch if you do your job wrong.

 

[Unreturnable]

So an addendum to my previous post on Target FDC transition. This info may or may not be helpful for anyone, it's mostly whoever receives/acknowledges the truck.

-Target FDC is received as a DCI. The DCI number will be on the carbon-copy yellow/blue paper, key it in under "RF Apps/Acknowledge DCI" just like the general merchandise trailer. After that, toggle to the "Push" web app and open/close the trailer. Trailer # will again be on the carbon-copy papers. Unlike the regular truck, no labels need to be scanned, it just gets entered into the system with "Push" and then closed out.

-The drivers have been 99% third-party at my store, or else that one guy didn't know what he was doing, heh. So they will have paperwork to fill out the arriving seal, which you cut off the trailer lock, the arrival time when you acknowledge the DCI, the actual pallet count, temperature readings, returned pallets (FDC has their own unique black pallets that the order arrives on and you return on the next truck...they're very easy to differentiate, you'll see) - and then the out-going seal you record the number on and tie onto the lock. Also there is an organic/produce checklist to acknowledge that everything as far as produce pallets was acceptable, that was a new one for me.

-The few weeks of deliveries didn't have this, the most recent one did: Each pallet will have a label on it with a number somewhere on the sticker. The driver had a sheet with our store number and the pallets for our store, we were supposed to initial next to each pallet as we moved it off the truck. I wasn't able to find the number on the label and initial because we had a major problem with the driver and paperwork wasn't completed. I'd love to give an update on the situation but I feel like I'm in too small of a pool to give the gritty details, I'll be sure to post them at a later date along with how to find the pallet number, if this is an ongoing trend.

-The FDC trucks have a cooler/frozen/cooler layout with two sets of dividers and the frozen in the middle. They keep the temp much better than our previous food orders except the bananas tend to be colder. Most frozen is close to -10, dairy around 32.5, bananas 57.

-Truck arrives very promtply or even ahead of schedule; for overnight stores they will deliver at 2 or 3am, for others they will arrive within a 2-hour-before/2-hour-after window.

So far, seems to be a good thing! Strange to say at my job, as things generally trend downwards, but a change is always nice.

 

[Cel]

Another green steritech visit yesterday, this time with me as the TM opening market. Got to go on a 3 hour ETL-sanctioned scavenger hunt for outdates...Found some candy that was best by January 2013! Ended up with a full cart, full 3-tier, and heaping full QMOS processing tub at the end >.>. 95.something.

 

[looseseal]

Has anyone had issues with the FDC cross-contaminating product on pallets? The past 3 deliveries we've had to QMOS a substantial amount of produce because they put it either under or on top of meat on the same pallet. Today was my last day working a truck day as this is my last week with the company (hooray!) so I don't really care too much now, I just wonder if anyone else has had the same or similar issues. We had produce strewn throughout our dairy pallets too, but nothing that had to be tossed.

I also didn't know those fancy pallets had to be returned... We may or may not have used a couple for when the food bank comes... oh well!

 

[Anonymous]

We haven't had too much cross contamination. No worse that C&S anyway. We have had other issues. We order 20 cases of bananas, we get 11. For some reason we also got an entire pallet of ONE kind of ground meat. No idea why.

We've been getting truck done lately thanks to having the whole store come over & push. But now we get stuck with mountains of backstock. Our meat cooler has lunchmeat & such from over a week ago that was never backstocked. Our DTL apparently showed up yesterday & had a fit & said the PA's "need to be more involved & should be in there backstocking" apparently the HL ETL told him no way because our hours have been cut & they've already added enough extra duties that we can barely accomplish. So at least there is that.

Also found out that when we lose our one PA in a few months they aren't being replaced. Now right now we do have 4 but still. Someone is closing in market tonight that I'm not sure has ever had any market training. (schedule this week is all screwed up due to inventory). UGH.

 

[looseseal]

If a DTL ever told me I needed to be "more involved" in my section, I'd laugh in his face.

 

[pfreshdude]

So the newest schedule used mytime. Market hours are now 6am to 10pm at my store!!!! AND we get a mid on saturday. Seems we got like 20-30 more hours!!! I dont know what I am going to do with myself when I am closing til 10. I usually get the zone done by 8. I guess I can get in a good super zone on some aisles finally