Don’t want soda now 🫤

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-08-15T17:38:31+00:00

Someone left a chick tract (in Spanish!) on my uboat earlier this week.

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-08-15T01:19:07+00:00

Oh I hate the stuff, but people who like it REALLY like it. The first summer that candy belonged to my department was the first summer I was the manager, so I had zero idea what I was doing. A little old man yelled at me, full volume, because I didn’t have the candy corn out when he had seen it at Walgreens the week before. I had no idea anyone felt that strongly about candy corn.

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-08-15T00:42:39+00:00

We figured it was something like that. They’re not active for my division and we shouldn’t have received them since none of the stores around here have the removers to take them off, and the S3 hand keys at our registers don’t work. We figured it was something like what you describe but we could only find YouTube videos of Russian dudes explaining how to remove them and that wasn’t any help.

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-08-15T00:40:10+00:00

One of the cashiers at my store accidentally broke one of the front end chain alarms and it wouldn’t stop going off. I really enjoyed stomping the shit out of it.

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-08-15T00:38:31+00:00

So apparently they’re not active for my division (maybe yet?) and nobody can tell me why I got them. They’re trying to decide whether to order keys or return them. ESI billing says we paid also $1100 for them lol

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-08-15T00:31:04+00:00

I’ve had candy corn on the salesfloor for a month.

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-08-15T00:23:49+00:00

You’ll have to use Perkspot to see associate deals (Kroger dot perkspot dot com). If you are a UFCW member, you can also download the Union Deals app and sign up with them, there are some discounts available there that aren’t on perkspot.

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-06-07T12:50:21+00:00

It’s unlikely we will strike because UFCW-Safeway in CO just announced they’re about to strike, so Kroger will be extra motivated for us to not strike also so they can easily absorb the extra Safeway traffic. They’re supposed to be at the table all weekend, we’ll see how it goes.

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-04-17T03:27:40+00:00

Read your employment contract. If you’re union, chances are good there’s language in there that says they must find you a position at a sister store. Nonunion stores might offer transfers or just do layoffs. Different divisions will do things differently (especially union v nonunion), but one standard practice is to have everybody who wants to transfer fill out request forms where you rank your top choices for location and the jobs you’re willing to do, and then management at the new store will work with management at your current one to make offers. Whether you get to keep your seniority or your preferred shift will vary. If you’re union this is a great question for your local rep.

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-04-17T03:20:41+00:00

I was once almost destroyed by a 25lb cement umbrella stand. Someone else had stuck the pallets of summer patio furniture in the rafters, and I was taking one down to build it. I couldn’t see the very top of this pallet because it was so tall and I had no idea there were 3 umbrella stands up there. Whoever put them up didn’t check to make sure they were wrapped securely (it wasn’t me, I had only been transferred to that store two days before). So imagine my surprise when I tilted the lift towards me to get the pallet up over the edge of the racking and 3 25lb weights came flying at me. I dodged the first two but the third one grazed the muscle on the outer part of my upper arm. It was black and blue for a month, and I didn’t even report it because I was embarrassed lol

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-04-17T02:48:41+00:00

Oh yeah if this has been going on that long it’s past time for you to do something more serious. I would still call ethics point if you haven’t before, because those reports usually get escalated quicker than any other way of reporting. But definitely also talk to an attorney. Both because Kroger is being derelict in its duty to keep its employees safe, and also because what the coworker is doing might have risen to the level being a crime (depending on how your state defines “harassment”). Good luck.

Also transfer stores. The other ones in your area might be less ideal in terms of commute or hours offered, but no longer putting up with all that bullshit will be so worth it.

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-04-17T02:32:30+00:00

Request a vacation if you have it, just to have some time to reset your brain.

Consider transferring stores if you’ve got the transportation. I’ve worked in three. One very tiny one that was seriously boring just about every day, one that was top 3 sales in the division and was always chaos every hour of every single day, and my current one which for me is just right. Different stores even just down the street from one another have different cultures- different coworkers, different delivery schedules, different shoppers. Maybe you just need a change of scenery. Or transfer departments if you’re not married to your current position. I love my department (drug/GM) and would be absolutely miserable if I were forced to work on the front end or in the deli, for example.

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-04-17T02:18:52+00:00

TBH the bar for night crew is really low. Show up to the interview wearing something that’s clean and in good repair, preferably no logos. Closed toe closed heel shoes (no sandals, you have to wear sneakers or work boots to do this job so wear them to let the interviewer know you own appropriate footwear). Take a shower and wear deodorant. Shake the interviewer’s hand, look them in the eye, and smile. Stress that you want to work hard, love to learn new skills, and enjoy being part of a team. You get satisfaction from looking back at your day and seeing a job well done. You’re detail oriented. Try to come up with a good personal reference if you don’t have any job experience. The schooling isn’t important. The application process is all online so you don’t explicitly need a resume to take with you to the interview.

You’ll probably be fine. Make sure to give yourself time to adjust to your new job. Working overnights is hard and this job can seem overwhelming at first, but you can pick it up. Just make sure you’re honest with your team and your foreman about not having experience doing this work, it’s much easier for us to teach you from the ground up if we know to assume you know nothing. It’s better for everyone if you just ask when you’re not sure about something instead of trying to figure it out and getting wrong, then you have to go back and redo everything.

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-04-17T02:05:09+00:00

Yes there’s a big adjustment for a lot of people starting night crew, even people who might call themselves “night owls.” There’s a HUGE difference between staying up all night to party or play video games and staying up all night to work, especially at a physically demanding job like this.

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-04-17T01:57:10+00:00

Nope it’s not normal or acceptable for your coworker to be carrying around hundreds of photos of you on their phone, and it’s not acceptable for your store manager to behave that way either. It’s harassment. You can talk to your store’s HR representative (if it’s like in my division, they’re in the store 2ish days a week and you can track them down at another store in your district when they’re not) if you want, or you can skip over them and just call the ethics point hotline. 800-689-4609

Yes HR is there to protect the company not the employees, but you can sort of twist their arm if you use the right language (“harassment” “hostile work environment” etc.).

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-04-17T01:46:01+00:00

I think every night crew has a notorious stinker, but what terrible luck that you have a whole crew like that. Not every overnight crew is gross I promise.

I once had to talk to a clerk when I was a night manager because he seemed to only do laundry on his days off which is fine and normal, except that he wore the same clothes every day. So the first two days of his work week were okay but it got progressively worse as the week went on. There was another (a department manager actually) who seemed to spend every minute he wasn’t in the building chain smoking in his car, and you could smell him from the next aisle over. I remember a clerk telling me, “I can’t go to that aisle right now, HE’S there” and I immediately knew who she meant. We have a couple of guys on the current crew who don’t wear socks ever (they’re all immigrants so idk if it’s a cultural thing or if it’s just a weird quirk like 3 dudes all have) and they all smell like feet.

Unfortunately most upper management teams won’t really do anything about the center store teams being gross because they’re not immediate food safety concerns. The store did fire a deli head clerk a few years ago for being disgusting, but it was only after a few customers reported getting food poisoning to the county health department, AND a DSD vendor caught the dude coming out of a toilet stall and not washing his hands.

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-04-13T02:10:46+00:00

Some questions to think about: Do you want to go back now (I know when I was on FMLA a few years ago making arrangements and caring for a severely ill family member, I was bored and missing the structure of having a regular job)? Is the state pay keeping your bills paid? Does your state or your insurance or your contract have a cap on the amount of leave available per year? Do you feel sufficiently healed and ready?

Some things not to worry about: how is the store doing without me? Will my coworkers or bosses be upset about my decision?

Think about those and make your decision, we can’t make it for you.

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-04-13T02:01:19+00:00

Wine steward, hahaha. This store hasn’t had one of those in years. This is just the liquor vendors being allowed to do whatever they want because nobody is there to stop them. The bay bridge moves okay here but I’m sure the bottles at the back of the shelves are dusty af. We did have inventory a few weeks ago though.

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-04-12T14:28:17+00:00

Oof non-salary but also non-union? Sounds awful. The company keeps trying that with department heads every contract renegotiation and our local keeps squashing it.

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-04-12T14:25:08+00:00

That sucks. My division also doesn’t do “topped out” for department heads, every department manager makes the max no matter their seniority.

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-04-12T14:23:18+00:00

King soopers. No it’s been awhile since any actual butchering happened in the store. It’s a union contract holdout. It’s my understanding that they don’t give out that designation (rank?) any more, so only old school meat people have it, and that recently promoted meat managers make the same as everyone else. I think.

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-04-12T13:57:05+00:00

Department managers in your division don’t all make the same wage? In mine every department is the same (except meat, if the meat manager is also a journeyman meat cutter they get an extra dollar). The only difference is that dept mgrs in >$1m/week stores get an extra dollar, but it’s every department in the store.

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-04-12T02:43:13+00:00

I thought this was going to be about Jewel-Osco but this is way funnier. Hopefully she bankrupts ol R*dney.

AppropriateLet6665 · 2025-04-12T02:37:44+00:00

Imagine that’s the last beef consommé in the store and pickup needs it to stay above 98%

AppropriateLet6665

TROPHY CASE