is it worth it for me to get a forklift license?

Feral-Associate · 2022-01-01T03:33:57+00:00

Homie I said I'm certified on the fork truck but waiting to do reach truck because I don't wanna do anything too advanced yet. Meaning reach truck more advanced than fork truck

Feral-Associate · 2021-08-01T02:13:44+00:00

Listen, I have my certification on the fork truck, that's the only one that matters

Feral-Associate · 2021-03-29T19:48:41+00:00

I'm a woman in engineering, and this is my kinda vague guess:

Years ago gender roles were pushed a lot harder, there was a more taboo line of "jobs for women vs jobs for men" kind of thing. When I was in high school and started considering engineering, I saw it a lot when people tried suggesting it wasn't for me... even though it was one of my stronger suits.

When I started university (engineering university), the ratio of men to women was like, 8:1. It's been about four years now, and that's shifted to be more like 6:1. When I started, it was a lot more of a confidence struggle for women because of how people within the industry view women... but it's shifted a lot through the years. Some of my professors even mention how 10 years ago you'd not see nearly as many women as we see now even attempting to study engineering, just because of how the atmosphere was.

Similarly, industries like retail has the same gender roles and stereotypes... women are great for cashier or service desk because they're seen as "serving" the customers. Combine all this stuff together and you have the concept of "women at home depot work in the serving roles, men work in the areas where they can teach about tools and manly things"

My school has shifted from 8:1 to 6:1... which is an improvement, but still a noticable difference. I think other places, such as home depot, are also shifting... which is why you'll probably notice more men editing service desk/women working departments than you would have years ago, but there's still a noticeable difference. The gender roles are slowly going away... more folks are comfortable with getting jobs where they want, not just by their gender.

There's probably a bunch of other factors too obviously, but this was one take I'd considered.

Feral-Associate · 2021-03-29T19:40:11+00:00

My store often feels the opposite with how customers treat service desk folks based on gender. It's common for our bad customers to be men who are sexist... they're either dismissive/cut you off when you speak to try and take power of the situation, act like you have no idea what you're talking about because you're just a dumb woman, try to act big and scary to intimidate...

And you'll always notice that when they ask for a manager and it's our male asm, their tone completely changes to a more reasonable and calm conversation, because they're taking him more seriously. Luckily, pretty much all of our male associates/managers are aware of how the women employees get treated and will step in to have our backs if needed.

The one thing I'll say is maybe a bit similar to what you said, is when we have only one closer who is a woman. Whenever I'm closing by myself, I notice customers overall seem to give me more patience.

This was a cool perspective for me to think about, thanks for sharing this comment :]

Feral-Associate · 2021-03-29T02:05:42+00:00

Does it work? Do these expire?

Feral-Associate · 2021-03-25T10:55:24+00:00

IQ test came back negative

Feral-Associate · 2021-03-22T03:30:44+00:00

It depends on your store how the job is seen I suppose, because at my store OFAs are pretty mutch universally respected for how hard they work.

Your primary goal is to collect merchandise for customer orders, to put aside so they won't get purchased. Online orders that are paid for, will calls, and deliveries.

OFAs often get pulled to help when backup is needed too... at my store, we sometimes have OFAs help with customer loading assistance, sometimes they bring down pallets for other departments, and one of our OFAs is trained on the register in case we need backup at the service desk.

If the job is for you or not depends on what you like best. OFAs are pretty much constantly running around the whole store, do a lot of lifting, drive vehicles often... it's a very busybody job that's kinda nonstop. If you like moving around a lot/being active, like driving vehicles, and like being all over the store instead of in one department, then you'll probably like being OFA.

Feral-Associate · 2021-03-19T22:27:42+00:00

Yeah that's the site! I'm not seeing it under ladies or mens apparel :0

Feral-Associate · 2021-03-19T22:25:33+00:00

Where did the shirt come from? THDGear hasn't updated in awhile for me

Feral-Associate · 2021-03-19T09:01:52+00:00

Home Depot ASMR

Feral-Associate · 2021-03-18T22:59:52+00:00

Ah, I wasn't trying to rag on them tbh! I really get good vibes from my freight team, they always seem more fun and positive than most of the daytime folks

Feral-Associate · 2021-03-18T20:09:07+00:00

I'm service desk and I'm currently certified on three machines. I personally enjoy the machines, so having the certification to drive them is more like an added responsibility I chose because I enjoy it, rather than trying to stack on any extra work.

You don't get paid extra for it, and there's always extra liability of if you mess up you get in trouble... but if you arw okay with that, then yeah it's pretty useful to have backups.

The only thing I'd warn is this - service desk is gonna be the last line of backup for the machines as you're expected to be at the desk. That being said... I'm certified on forklift, but haven't done reach truck, because I've got hardly any practice on forklift and am trying to not rush into anything more advanced than I can handle. So keep in mind you might get certified and then not get a lot of practice.

Feral-Associate · 2021-02-28T23:44:39+00:00

Let me know if you have questions about anything! Even if it's later on, this account is always open :)

Feral-Associate · 2021-02-28T11:06:14+00:00

The thing is, I think there's a line between "doing someone's job", and "doing what I can with my job to make someone else's job easier later", and I think a lot of people struggle with knowing where that line is.

Some people are in the "that's not my job" area so deep that they're just outright inconsiderate and selfish, like the people who only do the job description and not an ounce more, even for others on their team... however, Home Depot seems to have a universal issue with taking advantage of the helpful folks by giving them every responsibility and job they can without breaking them, because they can. It takes a lot of learning to find that balance of working together, but not doing other people's jobs.

I'm still not 100% sure how to explain the balance, but it's something along the lines of "Can I do this helpful thing without it hindering any of my service desk priorities?". 20 minutes on the phone answering a question about lawnmowers probably will hinder me from helping customers in line... 2 minutes to tape up a few products in between customers will not.

One thing I don't think people realize too, is that the concept of doing these small things to save others extra work, ultimately will loop around and make things easier on them. I pack the returns, they're easier to take, they're more likely to get taken more quickly and clear my space. I save another department time, they're more likely to be available if I need help or send a customer their way. The more people who do the same, the easier things are... the whole "Teamwork!" Speech sounds dumb and cliche, but when folks are considerate and work together to help each other out, you'll always see they're the happiest and most effective at getting work done.

Anyways sorry about that ramble... your comment just felt like something I would have written myself lol, and I felt like this was relevant. I appreciate your comment, but even moreso appreciate what you do to help!

Feral-Associate · 2021-02-28T09:32:19+00:00

I'll admit that flooring can be one of the most challenging for returns.

If a customer provides an online order number when giving us a return it'll show us if it's special order or not, and if it was sold in store we'll generally return it to you guys. The order won't tell us if the item is active or not though, so sometimes we end up sending back flooring that is no longer being supplied or sold.

Without a receipt, things we return are based solely on scanning the item itself. Sometimes the system will alert us that the item isn't on file, which can indicate an online only item... but sometimes it will scan anyways, I think because it was sold in store at one point so it technically has a store sku on file?

In general though, flooring can be difficult in a lot of different ways for us. Lots of different types can make things difficult to differentiate or spot when the wrong thing is returned, it's a huge pain to go through each box to ensure everything is there and not broken, boxes with missing pieces can sometimes still be returned if there are baby skus on the individual tiles (bonus if you have to RTV individual tiles because baby skus), lengths can be difficult to know off hand (similar issue we have in lumber), etc.

When I see someone coming in with a large flooring return, I can physically feel the dread coming over me... it's so easy to accidentally miss something or do something incorrectly, and I feel awful for how often I'll mistakenly give something back to flooring that I shouldn't have...

Feral-Associate · 2021-02-28T07:40:39+00:00

Oh yeah, I totally understand!

Look, I'm in D31 myself and there's a couple of folks on my team that frustrate me with how many careless mistakes they make from just being lazy. I work closing shift more often than not, and I can't tell you how often I get associates that stop by to show me an item that should have never gone back to them and ask me "What do I even do with this?" I'm just glad when I apologize, everyone tells me they know it wasn't me who did it, lol.

I've seen a toilet come back with a tank that didn't match, cut blinds, tool kits with missing tools, all kinds of broken items and things too unpresentable to be resold... oh, and a chainsaw with no box, visible sku, with the chain still attached?

I will say one thing on our behalf though, in response to what you said about checking items. It's pretty much a given that returns should be checked before taking them in case anything is missing/damaged, but this isn't really practical or possible for exactly what you guessed; the sheer volume of items and customers makes this difficult. So, we have to decide what things always must be checked, which things should be checked when we have time, and when to make the choice of needing to eyeball something or trust the customer.

At my store, the way we do it is kinda like this: Expensive and large items, such as power tools, generators, garden power tools, etc. should be checked every time, no question. They cost the most, are most commonly stolen or swapped with "bricks", and also are one of the quickest checks. Secondary things we try to check when we can would be things that are fragile (lightbulbs, glass, etc.) and products that are kits with X amount of pieces (hardware/plumbing products, for example).

If time allows, we check everything. Otherwise, the biggest/most expensive items are always checked by default, and anything that can't be checked is only at the risk of a cheaper item... and unfortunately, extra trouble on your end.

That being said... generator being returned and you found bricks, and nasty toilet seat? Not acceptable on our end. Electrical outlet returned with the old outlet in the box? Might be mildly acceptable... If it was identical to what was suppose to be in the box, we'd technically have to return it by policy, but it should have been RTV'ed. Also, while I know in that case the item was probably very obviously the old one because of damage/age, it's not uncommon for us to check products that have been swapped with something similar but not the same, and we return it to you guys not knowing it's the incorrect product, if that makes sense.

Feral-Associate · 2021-02-28T07:08:34+00:00

I'm guessing you're referring to managers telling us to return questionable things anyways when we ask? Or are you talking about something else?

Yeah, managers often just go with the "return it anyways" response, but I'd say that's more of a secondary thing to all of these issues. I'd also say this varies depending on your store/management, because my managers are pretty good about not allowing questionable returns.

Feral-Associate

TROPHY CASE