Archived What does your backroom do?

[Firefox]

In the 6 months or so that I've been in our backroom, I have not once been able to stand around. I can count the number of times that we've come completely clean on one hand. Especially as of late, we just get bombarded with leftover backstock from Overnight and pallet after pallet of push that didn't get to the floor, which means that we have to spend pretty much our entire day playing catchup while also trying to do our own job. This means that we are rarely able to do anything besides the bare minimum: pull CAFs, backstock, do SPUs, Guest Pulls, Price Change, and setting the line. ELAs, updating, and anything else that isn't timed or strictly necessary doesn't get done until we have a very light day or one where Overnight comes clean (which isn't often). BRLA is in the shitter, same with a fair few of our other metrics. So at my store we certainly don't have time to stand around

 

[Gororules]

Glad to see other backroom people in here letting people know that we do actually work haha. I've had people at my store make jokes about us standing around doing nothing as well. Backroom is one of those jobs you THINK might be easy till you do it. I'm constantly covered in bruises and too sore to do anything on my days off. Backroom can be hell if you actually try! Also at my store they decided to have us do the Flex Fulfillment. So on top of all that, if someone orders something to pick up in store we have to go onto the sales floor and pull their items for them. It can really mess with the flow of work when you're the only one back there and a truck just arrived to be unloaded and UPS is here for their pick up and someone is calling on the walkie for an item for a guest and they're wondering what's taking us so long since all we do is "Sit around" XD It can be frustrating.

 

[Quattro]

Backroom is the most physically demanding job in the store. Point blank period. If you have backroom TMs standing around, they're just not very good at their job. There is ALWAYS something to be done in the backroom. Pulling CAFs, pulling research/EXFs, pulling POGs, backstocking, pulling price change, pulling merchandise for the sweep, stacking pallets for the sweep, making bales, cleaning up sales floor's boxes and trash that get left near the baler, pulling FF, taking FF orders to guest services, finding space for everyone else's crap that is "staged" (aka dumped) on the truck line so that pallets can be put down for our truck...am I forgetting anything? Yes. I am. Empty location reports, item merge reports, helping the sales floor push CAFs.

 

[Kompa]

Works harder that every other workcenter bar CA who also works

 

[Mysterious]

Interesting thread.

Everyone has said what my team does. In addition, also mentioned before, is we pull O/N autofills and move them to the floor shortly before the O/N process begins. Yes, the store will still be open, but traffic is slow.

We barely have enough time to stay on top of all backstock. Those that we clean, are from the push we do. If O/N are unable to complete their process for whatever reason, that affects what the morning and mid-shift crew can do. My team are global, we are leaders, but we are not supermen/ladies.

 

[pfreshdude]

Backroom is the most physically demanding job in the store. Point blank period. If you have backroom TMs standing around, they're just not very good at their job. There is ALWAYS something to be done in the backroom. Pulling CAFs, pulling research/EXFs, pulling POGs, backstocking, pulling price change, pulling merchandise for the sweep, stacking pallets for the sweep, making bales, cleaning up sales floor's boxes and trash that get left near the baler, pulling FF, taking FF orders to guest services, finding space for everyone else's crap that is "staged" (aka dumped) on the truck line so that pallets can be put down for our truck...am I forgetting anything? Yes. I am. Empty location reports, item merge reports, helping the sales floor push CAFs.

Ya What kind of stores are you guys in where you can just do almost nothing in the backroom? Your other teams must do some of your work for you or you are clearly overspending in that workcenter if everything is getting done so easily

My backroom actually pushes ALL CAFS...morning and afternoon...so maybe thats why they dont have time to stand around lol

 

[BackroomAlpha]

We rarely have time to pull sales planners. Unless it's the LOD or STL that ask we never do them for anyone. It encourages the SF TMs to be more self sufficient. Our STL actually gets upset if we agree to pull for SF. Only instance used to be for checklanes but so we stopped backstocking CL products so they sit on a rack near the breakroom

 

[Firefox]

Ya What kind of stores are you guys in where you can just do almost nothing in the backroom? Your other teams must do some of your work for you or you are clearly overspending in that workcenter if everything is getting done so easily

My backroom actually pushes ALL CAFS...morning and afternoon...so maybe thats why they dont have time to stand around lol

I can't imagine us being able to push the CAFs. We're way too high of a volume store to be able to do that. On average, our 3 o'clock CAFs are between 3-7 hours so after they're pulled we have to get straight to setting the line/backstock until the price change drops, then it takes up the remaining 3-4 hours of our shift to backstock the 3's and whatever crap Overnight left us. If you tried to fit pushing the CAFs in there, there would be absolutely no time left for back stocking. I would estimate that during the 3 o'clock CAFs we will generate around 15+ vehicles of push, which would be really tough for one or two people to push in a timely fashion.

 

[Firefox]

As for the physically demanding part, I think Backroom ranks #2 on that list. Having worked Cart Attendant shifts in the dead of summer, very little can compare to that. Our job is definitely physically demanding, and if you've put in a ton of effort during your shift you will feel the pain the next day, but I feel like the majority of my job deals with single items or boxes that are less than 20 pounds. This obviously goes out the window when you pull almost anything from the steel, but I don't spend my entire shift doing that.

However both of these are trumped by my particular experience in SFS. When we were getting a huge amount of furniture items every day (Probably about a 60-40 split between regular and SA batches) which meant that I would be the dedicated SA puller since I was one of the stronger people on the SFS team. I would spend probably about 5-6 hours of each shift lifting and moving 60+ pound pieces of furniture, a lot of the time on the wave. That was the most physically exhausting thing I've done at Target, and I actually injured by back doing it and it still gives me problems every once in a while.

 

[BigEyedPhish]

Bitch, ceaselessly.

 

[Backroom81]

Ours has become weird as a new person in the chain of command is attempting to have our backroom do a mix of regular duties and a program that was tested at other stores that AFAIK was axed because it sucked.

There has been so many changes the past 2-3 years that I stopped being surprised when I come in and hear "So no we are going to be doing ..."

 

[mrknownothing]

We (dayside) have to do SPUs throughout the day, RTS, STS, backroom SDA, pull POGs if early AM doesn't have time, pull research and EXFs, push the instocks pulls because instocks scans until it's time to go home, pull the CAFs, push the CAFs, backstock, pull the price changes, clear and set the line before closing, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something else. On the rare occasion that we have extra time, we drop, pull, and push manual CAFs in departments with a lot of promos.

And on top of that, we're basically the auxiliary sales floor team because hardlines, softlines, and market spend more time at the lanes than on the floor.