MEGATHREAD Signing Tips, Tricks and Quips (along with howls of despair)
- Thread starter commiecorvus
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Store mail. It's just adhesive that you stick on the bottom of the low focals so that it doesn't come off.
Is that it? Seriously
You're telling me we put a massive project on hold for adhesive? Really?
Should have gone with my gut instinct and kept going with it. What a waste of payroll.
Wave Ballerino
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Got the flu from an ETL and have doc orders not to go to work until Wednesday.. the ISM pallet comes on Monday for us.. any idea what I should expect off the ISM pallet? Huge/small/etc?
Also, when signing up for benefits last week or so, I noticed something called short-term disability that I was signed up for by default and didn't cost me anything. Could the flu apply, you think?
Also, does anyone know the terms/rules by which vacation accrues? I haven't accrued any vacation hours since taking the signing position 6mos ago, but would accrue it just fine when working flow =/
Also, when signing up for benefits last week or so, I noticed something called short-term disability that I was signed up for by default and didn't cost me anything. Could the flu apply, you think?
Also, does anyone know the terms/rules by which vacation accrues? I haven't accrued any vacation hours since taking the signing position 6mos ago, but would accrue it just fine when working flow =/
sigma7
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Talk to HR about vacation accrual. Short term disability should cover being out with the flu for a few days, but with most companies you have to use up all your sick leave and submit the proper forms. I'm not sure what Target's official policy is. Check your state laws regarding short term disability and check with your HR.
I have a question, does anyone else have to setup displays or backtrack what the pog team does? I mean they haven't screwed in a display in months, they disregard new fixtures and rarely even put up backer paper. I even group everything together for them. I'm getting like eight signing hours a week, this cannot be my responsibility
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sigma7
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I've never understood POG teams that don't do their own signing, displays, and display price point/item signing. It's part of setting the aisle. Those things are so much easier as you're setting it than it is for the signing tm to find the planogram and go back through it figuring out where everything goes and making signs for displays. PTLs that have the signing tms follow the POG team setting signs must head up the store's department of redundancy department.
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we put up signing and displays as we go in my store.. the signing tm has enough to do without going behind us. my etl wanted me to try to do it that way but i talked him out of it
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Pretty sure you have to be on a medical leave of absence to get short term disability payments. I was out for three months or so after an operation and it paid half my average hours until I came back.
Wave Ballerino
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I often get saddled with the task of doing displays, and usually most of the signs. I even put all of the appropriate boxes in a tub and push it out to the area they're setting, and it gets pushed back to my signing storage area with most of the boxes not even opened.. except for backer paper and headers usually. I've worked it out with my ETL to let me come in on Saturday mornings when none of the POG people are around so I can do signing things uninterrupted by hey-where-is-this-fixture and such matters. I get around 24 hours per week and am still often behind, and now especially with this CSE business? Eek!
Yes, there's a certain number of days consecutively that you have to be out, and there's a bunch of paperwork that has to be filled out, which can be expensive depending on the doctor - some charge per page that has to be filled out. I can't recall what the number of days is. Sick Leave (if you're in a state that has it) is what you are supposed to use if you're out sick.
Definitely talk to HR or they will tell you to contact TMSC about vacation accrual. The same thing happened to me when I promoted into the signing position.
@zachman and @Wave Ballerino, I'm in the same position as you. I prep everything, take it out to them, the only thing that gets touched is the backer paper boxes. Forget shelf liner...even when I tell them that there's shelf liner. Always fun to take everything off just to put shelf liner on.
I've been training them to read the planogram because they've been forced to go back and fix their mistakes, for the most part. Or I get sent to go do it.
As for how I get it done, I jump right in with them in their aisles, do what I can at that moment, and then come back and throw up displays and 3x5s. The newer team members, I have to do it for them, where the veterans, it becomes a part of their workload, or because I've taught them how to do it, and the expectation is that they will do it.
It all depends on how your PTL, ETL, and STL allocate hours. I get hours from the monthly signing update, plus hours for maintenance, and then the signing hours from the adjacency calendar...give or take. 8 hours a week is not enough for a signing TM unless the POG team takes full responsibility for setting the aisle from start to finish.
You need to have a conversation with them. I told them the minimum number of hours I would need in order to accomplish what they expected me to do, and communicate with them when I see upcoming projects that I know I will need hours to do prep work for, and they usually give me the hours.
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Thanks for your input! 
In my situation I have communicated these problems to the TL and ETLs and the ETLs don't care, today was my only signing day until next Sunday (to put up the ad), see at my store the hours are going to Sr. TLs and a TLs and signing is the furthest thing from their mind, I on the other hand am being scheduled in various work centers where there is no wiggle room to accomplish other things
Like I said before, I am not stressing about it, the mess is accumulating and when everything hits the fan I know I did what I could
In my situation I have communicated these problems to the TL and ETLs and the ETLs don't care, today was my only signing day until next Sunday (to put up the ad), see at my store the hours are going to Sr. TLs and a TLs and signing is the furthest thing from their mind, I on the other hand am being scheduled in various work centers where there is no wiggle room to accomplish other things
Like I said before, I am not stressing about it, the mess is accumulating and when everything hits the fan I know I did what I could
Thanks for your input!
In my situation I have communicated these problems to the TL and ETLs and the ETLs don't care, today was my only signing day until next Sunday (to put up the ad), see at my store the hours are going to Sr. TLs and a TLs and signing is the furthest thing from their mind, I on the other hand am being scheduled in various work centers where there is no wiggle room to accomplish other things
Like I said before, I am not stressing about it, the mess is accumulating and when everything hits the fan I know I did what I could
In this case, for your protection, I will tell you right now to document, document, document. If you can print out your schedule, showing the number of hours you were scheduled per week for signing, and the number of hours per week the workload is...that way you don't get screwed over in the end.
does anyone else's pog team just absolutely give no shit about signing? like i literally have to hand deliver to them their signing or else they won't even bother looking or caring. i can't trust to put it all in the area they are setting because they won't look through that. it's ridiculous. i can't ever get anything done cause i'm always back pedaling and fixing what they already set.
that's basically what I was saying lol, I guess there is comfort in knowing that I am not the only put in this situation, communicating to various channels is the only way to fix it, with me it didn't work but it might work for you
@NOP, I've documented since January, I know it only takes one DTL visit before everyone is ready to burn you at the stake
@NOP, I've documented since January, I know it only takes one DTL visit before everyone is ready to burn you at the stake
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I am missing even more items for my CSE signing. I ran out of the center brackets for the low wall signing and a few other elements needed to finish the cse signing. Also, the last set of cse signing in Hardlines was put up with normal 3" hooks, not the adjustable...my cse looks awful and to order all the adjustable hooks I need for hardlines is almost 100 bucks!.
Try calling some neighboring stores and see if they have any adjustable hooks that you can have. If not, just order it - really $100 is nothing - order it and put a RUSH on it.
Yes. Despite trying to change the culture on the POG team for years to relieve the need for me literally hover over them just waiting for the moment when they get to where the signs can go up. Heaven forbid I come over near the end when they push and flex merchandise into the hole where the sign goes or like someone else mentioned with shelflliner that you have to demerch a whole shelf and backtrack.
Really the ones on my team that force me to do this are the vets. Luckily we have been getting some new and energized TMs on the team, and I have been taking a lot of "teaching" time to show them how to actually read a POG and looks for signs and displays and fixtures who will eventually (hopefully) when they are comfortable in their roles can do all of their signs and displays on their own if need be. Really the ones that keep me constantly having to backtrack and hover are the vet pog tms and my own tl. they are so stressed out by the ETLs they freak out and say they don't have time for it without even looking at what it is. Everytime I ask to see the line listing its as if i am asking for some odd and remote request.
Same goes for putting fixtures away, etc. little do people realize if they would just handle their (basic) signs/displays/headers, and cleanup - I could be freed up to you know, help them set and get their overall workload done instead of spending the majority of my day checking their work, waiting for everyone to be at the right spot to help, etc. Not only do I do all that I am the sole person in the whole store doing any brand maintenance (TLs do zero within their depts) I do all the trouble-shooting in the store, fix all the computers/printers/pdas, am basically the only person doing SAP for the whole building, and cleaning the fixture room which was absolutely trashed by not only the regular suspects store teams, but also our exasperated ETLs who dumped carts and carts and tubs of mixed fixtures in there.
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You are entitled to short term disability. Talk to your etl-hr without delay. Have your paperwork ready.
Wave Ballerino
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Called the hotline about vacation, they said it is a benefit that is dependent on the yearly 20+hr/wk average and I should start accruing vacay again come April.
I think one aspect of getting POG to open signing boxes that pertain to them is if the people who box them originally would actually put a helpful label description, or put all of the appropriate stuff in the same box instead of spreading it out over several. "Laundry TRNS" Really? Couldn't be more specific than that, especially given there is just ONE SIGN inside? =P I guess "It's just those wood grain headers that are up already" wouldn't fit.
My latest problem is people putting labels over existing labels, or the sign pallet stackers putting tape around the boxes directly over the label so when I pull the tape up it takes precisely the readable portion of the label I need along with it =P Giant box, plenty of room to put a label elsewhere, gotta put it directly over the label that has the information I need to read off of, and just so that when I pull the second label up the bottom label comes with it. WHEATON
I think one aspect of getting POG to open signing boxes that pertain to them is if the people who box them originally would actually put a helpful label description, or put all of the appropriate stuff in the same box instead of spreading it out over several. "Laundry TRNS" Really? Couldn't be more specific than that, especially given there is just ONE SIGN inside? =P I guess "It's just those wood grain headers that are up already" wouldn't fit.
My latest problem is people putting labels over existing labels, or the sign pallet stackers putting tape around the boxes directly over the label so when I pull the tape up it takes precisely the readable portion of the label I need along with it =P Giant box, plenty of room to put a label elsewhere, gotta put it directly over the label that has the information I need to read off of, and just so that when I pull the second label up the bottom label comes with it. WHEATON
