Archived No one in my store respects the Flow team...

[Kompa]

Seriously. When the CA calls out, the LOD calls us to get carts. When the front end needs backup, they call the flow team. When people need carry outs, they call the flow team. If the back needs help with CAF they call the flow team.

Hell, it's the only thing we don't have to do is clean bathrooms...yet.

Also when we're short, and have a large truck, it doesn't seem like the ETL's try to get some of their TM to come in help out early. But when everyone else is short, the Flow team has to help them out, so we're always behind. I'm not complaining about working, but I thought our job is make sure that the truck is fully pushed and backstocked. How does getting carts, backup, chargeback and such help that goal when we can't even work on it.

One time is actually got so bad that they needed TM from another store to help come in and push but once that stopped we were back to where we started.

And now they want use to zone and FIFO while pushing. If we did that to every product in the aisle, we'd be there all day. Things like Juice I can understand but can s that expire in 10 years? Is that necessarily?

 

[commiecorvus]

First off, welcome to The Break Room.

Now to the topic at hand, it's pretty much true in every store.
The flow team is the least respected team for a lot of reasons, they tend to pull a lot of hours, most of the other teams don't interact with them that much because of the hours, they are clannish and sometimes there is a language barrier, and there can be a conflict in priorities.
Zoning and FIFO might not seem possible when speed is important but they have always been part of the job.

I've never seen a flow team have to do backup cashiering but the rest of the stuff, sure.
It's just Spot trying to get the most out of any team.
It's no worse with any of the other teams I promise.

 

[anathema]

Talk to your ETL-Log. If they think it's appropriate for flow to be pulled so often then there's not much you can do. If he/she does have a problem, they can pretty much tell LOD to suck it unless LOD happens to be STL or ETL-AP, I guess.

Honestly, though, your ETL isn't worth dick if he's okay with not finishing trucks on time. They pulled the same stuff with us when our last ETL left and they stopped pretty quick when they saw trucks were half-done and no one wanted to stay and deal with the nonsense they were pulling.

Also, zone and FIFO is part of Target life. You shouldn't be super zoning, though, just zone the location you're stocking if necessary. Especially cheese. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, FIFO THE CHEESE.

 

[gun runner]

Doesn't happen at our store. In fact, I'm BR Day and I often finish YOUR (flow) Autofills.

 

[looseseal]

As a professional fifo-er, I can tell you that if you're a Pfresh store, fifoing is LIFE. Even if your store is just dry market, fifoing is still life, just not in capital letters. You are correct that if you rotated everything during your truck push that you would be there all day, but there are certain products that should consistently be rotated any time you're putting new product on the shelf, those being: Salad dressings & mayo, Hostess products (since they're now no longer vendor-serviced), tortillas, Archer Farms trail mixes & nuts, and Archer Farms/Simply Balanced chips... and maybe a few others that I can't think of. And like anonflow said, there's no need to do a deep zone, just to a light touch up of the area around you if needed.

 

[Punch Correction]

I'm almost certain that it's included in flow core roles to help out other teams as needed. Sometimes though flow needs help from other teams too if the truck is large or u had a bunch of call offs.

 

[GlobalJ]

It should work both ways. Flow should help other teams as needed and other teams should help flow as needed. Our flow doesn't even have cashier training and it pisses me off.

 

[mrknownothing]

If my store's flow team wasn't overnight, we'd most likely have the same problem. As far as dayside, cashing is the major payroll sink. If we don't have enough cashiers, the sales floor team is cashing. If we do have enough cashiers, then there's barely anyone on the floor. Because of the disparity, when I'm working a cashing shift and it's quiet at the lanes, I'll offer to help with re-shop and CAFs since the sales floor team helps us so much.

 

[anathema]

It should work both ways. Flow should help other teams as needed and other teams should help flow as needed. Our flow doesn't even have cashier training and it pisses me off.

To an extent, sure. People never seem to understand how effed the logistics process is if the truck isn't done. You can't scan, you can't backstock, pulls go to hell, and there isn't dick on the floor. Pulling from flow should be a last resort, it should be the entirety of the sales floor that backs up the front-end, not pulling willy-nilly from flow because they have 30 people and won't miss a few here and there.

 

[oath2order]

I would guarantee that if my flow team wasn't overnight, then they would definitely be doing dayside work.

I do agree with anonymousflowmember. The dayside team super-zones to make sure it's all in the right place, and the flow team, when pushing it out, should make sure that it goes on the shelf if it fits. And by this I mean that if you can't fit anymore of the roughly $12 paper towels on the floor, THEN DON'T FLEX IT OVER THE MUCH CHEAPER ONES.

 

[backroomdude]

Since the dayside doesn't always deal with the flow team its easy to blame them for everything and since they have to clean it up hence the no respect. My store I have a few dayside TL's that always want to call me over to certain aisles and be like, "tell your team to quit overstocking the pillows" or pretty much whatever they decide to point out. Now I scan it under item search, go into the instocks menu for the item and its "yea this item hasn't came in for about a week and its looks like it was pulled for 2pm cafs yesterday, so you need to talk to whomever was working the cafs yesterday".
Now no TL comes to me with this crap without the proof in hand that it was stocked that morning.

 

[Barcode]

I'm at a 4am store now, so I see flow a lot more. They help with guests and stuff and are reasonably helpful. I don't see them asking a whole lot from the flow team though.

 

[targeton37]

As a professional fifo-er, I can tell you that if you're a Pfresh store, fifoing is LIFE. Even if your store is just dry market, fifoing is still life, just not in capital letters. You are correct that if you rotated everything during your truck push that you would be there all day, but there are certain products that should consistently be rotated any time you're putting new product on the shelf, those being: Salad dressings & mayo, Hostess products (since they're now no longer vendor-serviced), tortillas, Archer Farms trail mixes & nuts, and Archer Farms/Simply Balanced chips... and maybe a few others that I can't think of. And like anonflow said, there's no need to do a deep zone, just to a light touch up of the area around you if needed.

Any particular reason for these? Just because their exp dates are lesser than most?

 

[victoryordeath]

I am new still, but at my store our BR and Flow teams never have to cashier or help with carts. I am a CA/Cashier and they send an Electronics TM or Male Cashier to help with carts (or the ETLs/GSTLs themselves help out) and it is normally 1 person from each of Hardlines/Softlines and sometimes Operator on backup as well as the CA. For carry outs, CA does most of them, but we have some big dudes working sales floor atm and sometimes a BR member does a carry out if CA is too busy. Store has a lot of cashiers scheduled lately though to avoid back up calls.

 

[RhettB]

Seriously. When the CA calls out, the LOD calls us to get carts. When the front end needs backup, they call the flow team. When people need carry outs, they call the flow team. If the back needs help with CAF they call the flow team.

Hell, it's the only thing we don't have to do is clean bathrooms...yet.

Also when we're short, and have a large truck, it doesn't seem like the ETL's try to get some of their TM to come in help out early. But when everyone else is short, the Flow team has to help them out, so we're always behind. I'm not complaining about working, but I thought our job is make sure that the truck is fully pushed and backstocked. How does getting carts, backup, chargeback and such help that goal when we can't even work on it.

One time is actually got so bad that they needed TM from another store to help come in and push but once that stopped we were back to where we started.

And now they want use to zone and FIFO while pushing. If we did that to every product in the aisle, we'd be there all day. Things like Juice I can understand but can s that expire in 10 years? Is that necessarily?

Everyone needs to take their turn. So, when the flow team is there, they need to take their turn. After flow leaves, its everyone else that did not do it whey flow was there taking their turn.

 

[Punch Correction]

As a professional fifo-er, I can tell you that if you're a Pfresh store, fifoing is LIFE. Even if your store is just dry market, fifoing is still life, just not in capital letters. You are correct that if you rotated everything during your truck push that you would be there all day, but there are certain products that should consistently be rotated any time you're putting new product on the shelf, those being: Salad dressings & mayo, Hostess products (since they're now no longer vendor-serviced), tortillas, Archer Farms trail mixes & nuts, and Archer Farms/Simply Balanced chips... and maybe a few others that I can't think of. And like anonflow said, there's no need to do a deep zone, just to a light touch up of the area around you if needed.

Any particular reason for these? Just because their exp dates are lesser than most?

yeah. It's tough to keep these items fresh if no one rotates. Coffee is probably the worst thing in my store. That and the nutrition bars that are over near the pharmacy aisles.

 

[buck4acanuck]

In my store I don't want to say that nobody respects our Flo team but there's certainly a level of frustration. The first thing is FIFO. Every time we do a sweep of grocery there's at least 4 or 5 carts worth of expired product. All the fresh stuff is in the front while the expired stuff is in the back. Some Flo team members deny its their team while others claim they don't have enough time. Because the majority of us don't work with the team there's a bit of a disconnection, we don't know them all that well. Therefore some of us have experienced attitude when we do have to interact with them. Things have gotten better since we got a new LOG-ETL. I'm not taking sides but simply saying what its like at our store!

 

[konk]

BR says they don't push enough. SF says they over push. Will probably always be like that. I know for a fact that they do both, but there's nothing I can do about it.

 

[pfreshdude]

BR says they don't push enough. SF says they over push. Will probably always be like that. I know for a fact that they do both, but there's nothing I can do about it.

The not pushing enough probably comes from not pushing to secondary locations I would guess.

 

[looseseal]

As a professional fifo-er, I can tell you that if you're a Pfresh store, fifoing is LIFE. Even if your store is just dry market, fifoing is still life, just not in capital letters. You are correct that if you rotated everything during your truck push that you would be there all day, but there are certain products that should consistently be rotated any time you're putting new product on the shelf, those being: Salad dressings & mayo, Hostess products (since they're now no longer vendor-serviced), tortillas, Archer Farms trail mixes & nuts, and Archer Farms/Simply Balanced chips... and maybe a few others that I can't think of. And like anonflow said, there's no need to do a deep zone, just to a light touch up of the area around you if needed.

Any particular reason for these? Just because their exp dates are lesser than most?

Oops, forgot to include that. Yes, that's the reason. The dressings and the mayo don't have particularly short shelf-lives, but they're the last things people expect to expire usually, and they come up in our SDA at least once a month. Hostess stuff and the AF/SB chips especially have short shelf lives.

 

[redeye58]

@OP: A lot of that is going to depend on your store's culture but plenty here will empathize & plenty will have the same lack of respect for their area, too.

 

[commiecorvus]

The ones people don't seem to check very often is marshmallows and marshmallow fluff.

 

[Kompa]

I wont lie, I don't FIFO the marshmallows. Everything is always so packed in there and no seems to know how much is supposed to go out and stuff. Think I would be a good ideal to hire a general zoner. Someone who just comes in and zones and fifo all day. Or at least designate a flow TM to do just that after the team goes through the isle. Expecting them to do it themselves and finishing in time is unrealistic. I personally only FIFO the Tastycakes, juice and really just anthing that's liquid if I can. There's no way I can do that with the coffee, tea, cereal and things that pushed way back or is the top shelf.

 

[paidtosmile]

It may be different at your store, But during the day the majority of our TM's are flow; at night, the majority are sales floor. Coincidentally, during the day we tend to call flow TM's to grab carts, backup cashier, team carryouts, etc. And, at night, we'll call up the sales floor team for backups, carts, carryouts, etc. It all depends on who's in the store and who's available.

In all honesty, the GSTL/GSA doesn't really care if they're pulling a flow, sales floor, etc etc to the front lanes. We're asking you to come up and help because it involves a guest (or guests) in need of additional assistance. That being said, we ARE going to grab one of the many flow-team members to help with a carryout verses the sole phone operator or electronics team member at the time.

 

[anathema]

Being pulled isn't the issue. It's doing the majority of someone else's job so often that it conflicts with finishing your own. Sacrificing the truck isn't an option, and leadership should be aware of how it's affecting the store. If flow can finish even with doing backup calls, more power to you. This isn't OP's case, however.