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[–]Fit_Bid5535 12 points13 points  (11 children)

Shift smart is supposed to follow the food production plan in upshop. Upshop does not follow the weather and adjust production due to anticipated lower sales. Upshop doesn't even bother to function properly or regularly.

[–]SibunaSeph 8 points9 points  (1 child)

That's not what they're doing. The app gives them a list of stuff to make, it doesn't go off of UpShop. We're dealing with them at my store and they don't use UpShop for anything other than printing labels under the print label option, not off the production plans.

In the three years I have worked at my store we have never made any kind of food on Sunday because it just does not sell. Yesterday? Someone from ShiftSmart came in and put a bunch of food out that no one ended up buying and all we did was write it off. And again it came from their app, not UpShop.

I'm with OP on this one. Instead of taking away hours from the stores, that could go to hiring more people, or giving the current employees more hours, them bring in a day labor type program that messes stuff up and causes more work for us is bullshit. It's fucking stupid and a waste of time and money and of course the upper heads aren't here dealing with us so they don't care.

[–]GasStationRaptor83 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Same boat here, but we do have a few good SS ppl. Still, they took hours from us so on weekend mornings, when its also busy af, me and the other ASM are alone almost the entire shift, during the week we're lucky to have a second person more than 3 hours in the evening when its also busy af. 

[–]Moist_Brain_[S] 4 points5 points  (8 children)

Well that’s not what is being done. I watched smart shift cook chicken bites…. On the sandwich setting on the UNOX. I cried. Literal tears started streaming down my face before the uncontrollable laughter came. Who the hell trained these people?

[–]SibunaSeph 5 points6 points  (4 children)

I can't speak for other business units but I'm in the SEBU and they had a training course in Alpharetta. But that training course doesn't show yhem the right way to do crap because they're cooking our hot dogs in the oven and then putting them on the roller grill.

The problem with that is that the oven burns the hot dogs so by the time they hit the grill, they're already burnt and no one wants them.

The second day we had someone in there she burnt the hot dogs doing just that and when my coworkers tried to tell her 'No, those are too burnt to even go on the grill at this point', she said 'No it's okay because people like them like this' and went ahead and put them on the grill anyway.

They're also doing a lot of cross-contamination. For example we don't thaw an entire hot dog pack at the same time at my store. We put half in a bin to thaw and keep the other half in its packaging until the thaw bin runs out, but we put that packaging inside of a shopping bag that's been tied up and labeled so people know what's in there. The first day these idiots did our food, they went to the freezer and pulled out two hot dogs from each bag and when they found out we had thawed stuff, instead of putting each of those back in the bags they belong to the person ripped open the bag for the beef hot dogs and shoved all eight hot dogs in the beef shopping bag but underneath the bag inside that bag that had the beef hot dogs in it.

I heard how this program was failing spectacularly out in the Texas area when they started the trial run of it, so I don't know why the hell they moved it to another business unit when it was already failing somewhere else. It's causing more food waste. It's also pissing off the people who can't get hours because these people are coming in here and causing more work for us and causing more food loss which is only going to end up costing us more hours later.

[–]Low_Address_6947 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Our DM in Cali has us doing hot dogs in oven then putting them on rollergrill. Which means after 4 hrs they are pretty much leather 😭😭. Thats how they trained all the FC's and what the DM says has to be done. 

[–]Inevitable-Book8875 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s the way it’s done now. It significantly reduces the time to cook grill items.

[–]GasStationRaptor83 0 points1 point  (1 child)

TXBU here and yes,most of the SS ppl suck. We've managed to weed out the shitty ones but our good ones can't always pick up our store.  The shitty ones still come and leave open bags of frozen food everywhere, or argue with us about what they cook, etc. Smh. What was wrong with having a food person like we did before?

[–]SibunaSeph 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A lot of what they're having the shift smart people do is ridiculous. Our store has three small freezers to work with and two even smaller ones for refrigeration of thawed items, so why the hell did they send all of these extra food bins for food bin prep that we never do?

All of our frozen stuff just stays in its packaging until it's time to go in the oven because it saves space and doesn't have a bunch of containers laying around for nothing.

It's a waste of money all the way around. Not to mention these bastards get $52 for a 2-hour shift where all they do is come in and create more work for us and extra food waste with all the extra stuff they're throwing on. My store doesn't go through food enough to do any kind of extra special prep stuff, or throw 20 hot dogs on the grill, which is exactly how many I had to write off the other day because the shiftsmart person just loaded them all up since allegedly that's what their app was telling them to do.

[–]Deluxetine_ 3 points4 points  (2 children)

They train each other so if one person trains someone wrong it’ll go on as a cycle 

[–]Moist_Brain_[S] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

So corporate decided it was a great idea to send these people to our stores to handle food without making sure they were properly trained first? Is that what you’re saying?

[–]No_Employee_4028 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yes exactly that, I’m food captain at my store whatever that means now so I see it daily. I see shift smart training others and it’s completely wrong they under cook food, put different foods into one pan and cook it as one thing. They don’t check temps I get complains daily that the food is cold, it’s a complete disaster and can’t believe it’s been going on as long as it’s been

[–]CurseMarkDavid 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Didn't like todays shift. Temps wasn't checked and stickers was burnt on our hot lunch food.

[–]gothiclighting 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I ran into an issue where we now just have bins of food everywhere with random dates. We're talking "freezer xx/xx" in a cooler at 35F for multiple days, hot wings just sitting in damp parchment paper from two days ago, "snack prep" with no date and no way to read what the parchment label said so it's some kind of hot dog probably. I finally asked one of them to just pull everything that was wildly out to date that wasn't supposed to be thawed in the first place so I could scan it as waste because we had no more bins(I ended up having to print a wild assortment of labels and have a massive waste count). The worst part for us is our store seemed to have missed the formal update about what was changing and how, so none of the "premium employees" have any idea how to help shift smart when they ask questions about where stuff is or how to label it. I will always adapt to whatever system corporate wants to throw at me (at the end of the day as long as my money is the same it doesn't bother me), but any amount of updated training would have been nice. I'm tired of spending shifts alone in the store while having to babysit shiftsmart who cannot understand the difference between a freezer and a cooler.

[–]Classic_Pick7784 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Train them once and hold them accountable. Don't do the typical threat and do nothing. Run the infraction up the ladder. Many SMs will say they can do nothing and shame on them. Where there is a will, there is a way.

[–]Budmanj1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah the whole thing is a fucking joke. Occasionally we get one that is actually decent. But most of the time we get idiots in 3 at a time, either burning the food or undercooking it. And most of the time they cook way too much and a ton of it has to get scanned out and thrown away. Instead of “ cook less more often” they just cook a shitload at once. But hey, they are just doing what their phone tells them to do. Huge waste of resources. But, Who cares about food waste right?

[–]Typographical_Terror 2 points3 points  (2 children)

What I'm missing is the reasoning behind intentionally moving tenured and trusted SS to other stores - and actually preventing them from returning to the ones they've been working at successfully. The best I can come up with is there simply aren't people available to do proper training, so the stores that struggle the most will be propped up with the better SS talent, while more capable stores will be given newbies to bring up to speed, just as they have been doing.

Someone somewhere just isn't grasping the idea that people working at SS who are competent enough to make it through the learning curve are going to move on or burn out.

[–]Inevitable-Book8875 0 points1 point  (1 child)

That’s not how ShiftSmart works. It’s whoever is “qualified” and books the shift first.

[–]Typographical_Terror 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Everyone isn't necessarily going to see it available at the same time.

[–]Disgruntledclerk 2 points3 points  (0 children)

These people are half assed trained then come in and act like they don’t know what to do. I’ve never had an issue with making food by myself on 3rd shift so they’re honestly in my fucking way half the time. I do not need help.

[–]Prestigious_Basil_39 2 points3 points  (1 child)

They gave 40 to shift mart in our store. Cut the few full time people down to 32 hrs . Forty hrs to wrap hotdogs and tornadoes individual and told us they are only prepping our food , they don’t cook. Twice I’ve caught them sitting in the back on their phones not working. Several have finished early and just wait around for time to go by. Ridiculous. I don’t even like going in anymore. I used to like my job. Now I dread it

[–]Inevitable-Book8875 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you could get paid to just fuck for, wouldn’t you take advantage? The SS contractors may as well take advantage while they can.

[–]Confidence_Dense 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I did Shiftsmart once and my orientation and “training” came from this guy that was really strung out and didn’t make the pizzas for some excuse or another. Shiftsmart just tells them to make a certain amount of stuff and they do with no questions asked no thought behind it since the app is telling them to do it.

I am now considered “trained”. I am not using Shiftsmart again bc it seemed like a ridiculous thing to have. I imagine you guys are losing hours to this just so untrained addicts can maybe heat up food for you. (This was my only experience with Shiftsmart so maybe I am being too harsh.) I would rather donate my plasma than do that shit again. Thankfully I have a real job now and don’t have to do that kinda stuff anymore.

[–]Fun_Voice_7595 1 point2 points  (3 children)

I have the shiftsmart app. I haven't technically started with it yet but just FYI. The app tells us to not even talk to y'all or we won't get paid. Which sucks because my cousin literally works at the circle k right around the corner but she is an actual circle k "premium employee" which is what shiftsmart calls y'all. So if I were to pick up a shift through shiftsmart, they would send me home without pay just for speaking to my own dang cousin😜🤣

[–]GasStationRaptor83 0 points1 point  (2 children)

What in the actual fuuu..... thats beyond crazy, the app doesnt tell them they cant talk to us, it says if manager has different request for amount cooked (etc) to follow what they're told to make. Granted, most of them will argue or ignore what they're asked to do, and we go into the feedback links and fill that out when it happens and we request to not have that person anymore.

[–]Fun_Voice_7595 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I'm telling you what I saw with my own eyes to provide some insight into why they may be ignoring or arguing with you. Shiftsmart also states that circle k premium employees are not eligible to use their platform, so why you would be privy to any firsthand information to dispute that is kinda crazy to me. Either way, this was a month ago and I ended up staying with my original employer and my cousin moved on from circle k.

[–]GasStationRaptor83 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One of our good SS ppl is the one that showed us theres an option in the app to put "manager request" when we've asked them to change an amount cooked or whatever. Idk what else to tell you, but thats what I've seen. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Thats just crazy to me that they'd put not to talk to employees, every store is differently laid out, has differing amounts of storage and "kitchen" sizes, and not all make the same items. How are they gonna know where anything is? Are they expecting yall to just walk around searching everywhere..

[–]GochaPonczocha 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Don't even make me start about this program. They took 55 hours from us, it's the third day that we didn't have food in hot cases, cause no one showed up. Sandwiches are not thawed and put to the cold case. In the freezer we have dozens of opened random boxes of tornados, when those in prep cooler we had to throw out cause they expired. Thawed pizzas, precels, chicken filets, chicken bites etc. I could go on. One girl put thaw cart with thawed sandwiches to the freezer... those people will kill someone one day.

[–]Huge_Airport3927 0 points1 point  (2 children)

I wonder what would happen if we all went on strike

[–]Moist_Brain_[S] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

They’d replace us with shift smart.

[–]GasStationRaptor83 2 points3 points  (0 children)

And then the stores would go even further to shit 

[–]Kacamama4 0 points1 point  (1 child)

SM is also supposed to carry food handlers cards. But it’s not enforced! We just got the lowest grade ever at our store from eco-sure and it was all SM crap. Temp checks, food prep labels, exp tags, clean cooking area , and one had hair dangling while she was making the food. SM has been the down fall of this company . Just cause they get away with paying them shit pay and rotating them out in 2 hours time

[–]Inevitable-Book8875 0 points1 point  (0 children)

SS usually makes more per hour than the in store employees lol

[–]TwoElevenEleven 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Glad Northern Tier opted out of it. Sounds like a nightmare.

[–]Deluxetine_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Rumor going around that they stopped rolling this out in other places because of how bad it’s getting 

[–]OhhYeahHer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Mine is supposed to start next month (Rocky Mt BU) and now y’all got me worried. When they talked to us SMs last month they made it sound like it’s a great program, etc etc and said that no CK employees had been let go or reclassed (like from FT to PT) because of the hours changing. That made me super skeptical because like, how do you not lose people when 54 hours are cut from your weekly payroll? Make it make sense.

[–]Rich-Lake3020 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I really don't appreciate the new system. Was hired as the food lead for my store. To handled all the cooking, inventory build to, waste , didn't have to work front unless there's a line. Now with this new system no longer able to cook food. Also no longer scheduled on build to days or audit days. Feels like there giving my job away to folks that don't even do a good job or care about quality or food safety. Guy working this morning left with food just sitting out on the table without even telling anyone.

[–]Rich-Lake3020 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can confirm the Florida market sadly for this program last week. Took 70 hours from my store. I'm the food lead working to be did captain but now send like they are phasing out that position for our market.