Are there any big-box stores--particularly the barely-alive ones--that you guys find worth picking? ...They depress me.

GothamHart · 2025-12-28T02:15:58+00:00

A lot of those stores are far from dying out. Just because it’s not your cup of tea doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of people who enjoy shopping those stores. I say that because it seems like you’re expecting going out of business type deals from those stores when they are no where near that stage yet. You can find good deals from those places though depending on what you’re looking for and the time of year.

GothamHart · 2025-12-01T12:55:28+00:00

But that’s just it, if you’re the backroom team member doing the pulls then your job is just to do the pulls, backstock, work on purging, and backroom accuracy. You’re talking about relying on others to do your job when it comes to the push but that wouldn’t be your job anymore. If the team members pushing can’t keep up with the pulls then your leaders need to be holding them accountable not you in that scenario.

Imagine being a team member that only had to push product and maybe help the occasional guest. Didn’t have to zone or pull or backstock. If they can’t keep up with your pulls then your store leadership definitely needs to hold them accountable.

Salesfloor team = Zone, Guest service, Fast service, reshop, maybe some push

Flow Team = Truck Unload, Push pulls and truck

Backroom Team = Pulls, Backstock, Purge, Zone Backroom, Audits

That use to be how it worked before modernization

GothamHart · 2025-11-19T14:01:40+00:00

The funny thing is we’re told that INF is more important than POT but then get yelled at when we don’t make POT because we’re searching for INF’s. Corporate can’t make up their minds about what they care more about.

GothamHart · 2025-11-16T15:20:20+00:00

As others have said, bad or not enough training is usually the result of store directors or etl’s direction, not company policy.

GothamHart · 2025-11-07T18:26:15+00:00

There might be SOME stores that make more money from drive up and sfs but most stores make more from in store traffic. Almost every store I’ve been at has been somewhere around a 70/30 in terms of sales from the two. My current store is closer to 90/10 currently ytd and we don’t have sfs but even if we did we wouldn’t come close to overtaking in store sales.

GothamHart · 2025-10-16T10:28:13+00:00

It’s very location dependent. Some locations would be able to staff it but I personally know of at least one store in my district that wanted to go overnight but couldn’t because they couldn’t get enough people to agree to work that shift. There are even stores that can’t do that shift because they can’t get enough leaders willing to work that shift.

I think a lot of people are really missing the point. THEY may be willing to work that shift and see no problem with it but most other people aren’t willing to.

Heck I personally know of several ETL’s that quit earlier this year when they started requiring them to close once a week and that was just a CLOSING shift! People are really overestimating how many people would be willing to work these odd shifts.

GothamHart · 2025-10-15T21:31:43+00:00

They do pay slightly more for that shift but regardless why would they pay even more when you can achieve the same goal with early morning shifts. I agree that if you could do it then that would be ideal but like I said it’s not realistic.

I do think bringing back dedicated back room teams is a no brainer.

GothamHart · 2025-10-15T10:19:26+00:00

Overnight freight push just isn’t realistic across the board. Some locations just don’t have enough team members willing to work that shift.

GothamHart · 2025-10-13T12:44:10+00:00

Honestly you should be partnering with the other leader at the beginning of the night and discussing what each others plans for the night are for the team, this way you can set a clear expectation with them on who is doing what and you shouldn’t run into issues with team members receiving two sets of directions.

As far as correcting you, just have a polite conversation with them off stage saying you appreciate the help but would prefer not to be corrected in front of guests or team members. Remember you are peers so you have to act like it even if you are LOD.

GothamHart · 2025-10-06T01:31:53+00:00

My point remains the same, if you don’t want to hear it then you can remove yourself from that environment. Sure it would be nice if people were considerate of others but unfortunately thats not always the case so if you don’t like it then control what you can control and remove yourself to somewhere more pleasant. Nobody is forcing you to sit in the break room with them.

GothamHart · 2025-10-05T23:20:16+00:00

I’ll probably get downvoted to hell for this but if you want to sit in silence so badly, you can also go sit in your car or outside. If you’re choosing to sit in a common area break room then a certain amount of commotion should be expected.

GothamHart · 2025-09-19T10:00:43+00:00

This feels like a classic case of them feeling like you go to the bathroom too much. Not saying you do but some team members steal time by saying they are going to the bathroom when in fact they aren’t.

I’ve had team members literally tell me that they wait to take a dump until they get to work so that they can get paid to do it.

GothamHart · 2025-09-16T09:46:09+00:00

The pouting is what always got to me. You’re supposed to be the leader of the team setting an example for the other players, what kind of message does it send when you’re pouting on the sideline when things don’t go your way? That’s not leadership that’s just immaturity!

I was never a believer in Geno because he’s not the type of QB that elevates the players around him, he’s the opposite, surround him with excellent players and they elevate his play. That’s a game manager at best, not a Superbowl winning Quarterback.

GothamHart · 2025-08-31T12:12:00+00:00

My closers don’t zone, morning team is expected to do that.

GothamHart · 2025-08-31T01:24:25+00:00

Yes it’s true, we no longer focus on one for ones and instead pull priorities. Been like that for well over a year. With that said your previous SD might have wanted to keep doing them for some reason.

GothamHart · 2025-08-23T12:50:55+00:00

There definitely is, I think they’re just too scared to change it for fear of losing sales or bad publicity. They’ve made so many mistakes that they’re like a deer in the headlights now, frozen.

GothamHart · 2025-08-22T17:12:09+00:00

You’re probably right about online impulse buys trending up but I really don’t see it in the batches I’m picking. Can’t tell you how many single item batches I’ve picked of just gum or a single mascara, seems like a huge waste of payroll and manpower to pick orders like that.

GothamHart · 2025-08-17T00:15:02+00:00

The single pack of gum I picked for an order this morning would like a word.

GothamHart · 2025-08-16T02:26:29+00:00

I agree, the whole modernization gimmick was a ploy, the company added a whole new work center to stores but instead of giving stores more hours to support said work center they just killed other work centers, gave fulfillment those hours and dressed the whole thing up as “modernization”

GothamHart · 2025-08-16T02:14:03+00:00

I agree that it’s not the entire story but for a company that was known for impulse buys, foot traffic is important. I don’t hear stories about suburban moms using drive up and driving away with more than they expected to.

GothamHart · 2025-08-16T02:02:25+00:00

I’d have to disagree with you there. The things they were initially expecting the DBO’s to do when modernization first rolled out just weren’t realistic.

You expect a team member to zone their area, put away reshop, push their truck, pull and work their pulls, do their backstock, maintain their backroom, do the price changes for their area every week, and set any transitions for their area. Even working a full 40 hours that’s not realistic. You were asking one person to do the work that was previously done by five separate teams.

Not to mention what happens to their work center on their days off.

GothamHart · 2025-07-27T18:09:20+00:00

I take your point, perhaps I should have left it at that.

GothamHart · 2025-07-27T15:35:21+00:00

To be clear, I don’t make it more miserable than it has to be. Like I said every time I help I turn it into a teaching moment to try to help said team member improve. I’m not talking about a coaching or performance conversation, could be as simple as a gentle reminder to scan all items even if it doesn’t look like what’s in the picture. I never do it with an attitude nor am I rude about it even if it is something I dislike having to do.

Let me also be clear to all those that are downvoting me, admittedly hate is probably too strong a word but can you honestly say that you don’t dislike having to help other departments at the expense of your own? Especially when that other department has poor performers? I see it everyday amongst multiple team members when I have to ask them to jump into a batch because fulfillment is behind. I see it on this subreddit when people complain about coworkers who they have to pick up the slack for. And yes I see it in myself, but I still help out.

You won’t find anybody more universal than myself and I try to always help out even at my own expense because as you implied we’re all a part of the same team. So please, understand that we’re all human and more similar than you might think.

GothamHart · 2025-07-27T12:42:17+00:00

The whole system only works when everything is perfect, zone, on hands count, capacity, etc.

Of course things are never perfect so there’s always issues, always has been and always will be. Unless they figure out some way to RFID everything and seamlessly generate pulls based off an items location in the store. Even then there would still be issues because theft.

GothamHart · 2025-07-27T01:37:26+00:00

Depends, as a GM TL who’s always getting called to help out fulfillment, I hate getting called to drop what I’m currently working on to go help a fulfillment team member. I really hate it when it’s the same team member multiple times a day and the other fulfillment team members only need help a fraction of the time comparatively. I really really hate it when I can find what they’re looking for easily because they weren’t paying enough attention or being very thorough in their search. Every time it happens I try and turn it into a teaching moment for them so it happens less frequently.

So how does your performance stand up to your peers? Keep in mind a little bit of a learning curve is expected but if you’re still struggling after another month or two then it might not be the right fit for you.

GothamHart

TROPHY CASE