May 1, 2015 - FackDisBaus
Living the Backroom life.
I’ve been working here for over a year now, and I work a number of positions, including Flow. (The people who come in at 4am to do the freight/truck process and stock the shelves before the store opens. Whilst I have a plethora of unkind truths to share about the Flow team process (Example: Witnessing the Flow TL yell at a Flow TM for being slow, and telling him to keep his personal business at home when his best friend committed suicide less than a day ago.), I will focus on “Day side Backroom”. Specifically, having to pull cavs. (A list of items that need to be taken from the backroom, and pushed onto the floor to keep the floor stocked. To the best of my knowledge, these lists are populated based on what is selling.. in theory. These lists repopulate hourly.)
Before I start on my observations/list of grievances, I’d like to state that my store gets rather large trucks. There are some stores who consider an 18 piece (1,800 boxes) to be a very large truck. My store averages 25 piece trucks. We’ve done as much as a 53 piece truck (actually two trucks) in one morning. Yet I have never seen the Flow team above 66% population of what we should be.
Needless to say, with a freight that large, our volume, and therefor the volume of day side’s work is inflated from your usual store.
The average dayside shift sees me arrive at 11am, and leave around 7pm or so. The first seven hours of my shift, I have to do cavs. Usually solo. This entails running around the backroom, and coolers varying from 35 to -10 degrees Fahrenheit, trying my damndest to complete the cavs within the hour time frame. All the meanwhile, I must be ever conscious of Flexible Fulfillment, those fucking ninja orders that slip into the system quietly and slit the throats of unaware or too busy team members. If a Fulfillment isn’t completed before its time is up, you get in trouble. In order to avoid missing any of my ever changing time tables, I am forced to literally run in the backroom, and engage in dangerous behaviors to meet the blatantly unreal expectations of the management. What do I mean by engage in dangerous behaviors? I mean shit like shouldering 40-100lbs boxes, then climbing a 12′ aluminium ladder that wobbles SO HARD that if I shift my weight between my feet, the ladder MOVES FORWARD 2″ AT A TIME. If I fall? My skull will fall a total of 18′ onto solid concrete, with a 40-100lbs box crushing it. Result? Very likely death. If I’m “lucky”? Coma/Permanent Brain Damage.
To contrast this job, to say, Planogram/Presentation team, I am literally worth 2.5 Planogram members. How did I calculate this? Every major holiday set up, I get stolen by Planogram to help them. I usually get assigned a partner, and we are assigned a cumulative 16 hour chunk of work for us both to complete that day. Every time, less than an hour in, my partner is stolen for something else. Leaving me to do 16 hours of work, in one shift. I complete that work with 3 hours to spare, almost every time, and my push looks better than a Japanese convenient store. Meaning? I was still taking my time to make it look fucking gorgeous.
If I am capable of doing 16 hours of work, in five hours, then consider that I am literally running in the backroom for seven hours straight, putting so much stress on my body that I LITERALLY had to be ambulanced to the ER for severe heart pain. How old am I? In my early twenties. What shape am I in? Toned like a Greek God. How much do I earn? $9.25/hr
Now, let’s talk about rolling on cavs. This means that you were unable to complete the fucking ridiculous amount of work involved in your hourly cavs, and so you missed X amount of batches. These batches get rolled over into the next hour’s cavs. This is a huge fucking no-no. You will be yelled at. So, we are told to ask for help. Yet every time I am forced to ask for help with cavs, I am always treated like a child. Told that I should be able to do it by myself. Because it’s my job. Usually it’s the GE-ETL saying this, some lazy panzy who’s literally paid for his smile, and has the mental capability of a toddler.
I am yelled at if I roll on cavs. I am yelled at if I ask for help. I am yelled at if I miss a Fulfillment. I am yelled at if I can not complete a Fulfillment because we DON’T have that item in the store.
Flexible Fulfillments are FIRST priority. Says the GSTL/GE-ETL. However, cavs are FIRST Priority says the Backroom TL/Logistics ETL/LOD/STL.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S STILL MORE. C & S. Fuck C&S. C&S is the food truck. It is a series of usually 6-8 pallets of time sensitive frozen/refrigerated goods that takes a half hour from my cavs, every day that I am forced to deal with this bullshit. Given that this is time sensitive, this is FIRST priority.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE. Guest request that requires you to take 15 minutes to get the fucking pallet down from 20′ off the ground? That’s FIRST priority. Says everyone.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE. I still have to pull batches for Instock, Planogram, LOD/ETL team, AND I have to do backstock, and ensure that the Bailer is always compacted, and ensure that both my stockrooms are swept and kept tidy.
If this is not done, what happens? You guessed it. I get yelled at.
Dear Target,
If everything is first priority, nothing is. My life is in danger every single shift. To say that I am properly compensated for the quality and quantity of my work is to say that the War Veterans are taken care of in our society. I suffer your nearly daily emotional and physical abuses. I have lost more blood in service to you, than I have at any other job. Have you fucking seen the knots in my back? You should be legally required to provide weekly professional massages for Flow and Backroom. I work up to 100/hrs a week during busy periods. I literally sleep in my car between shifts. You are the single worst employer I have ever had. I have had jobs where I worked 14.5 hour days, without any sort of breaks for $7.25/hr. I would rather have that fucking job, than deal with your stress.
Sincerely,
Go fuck yourself.
PS: You can “Vibe” my dick. Oh, and you know those expensive bags of Lindt candies? Occasionally nick one of them from the bags without breaking the seals as a personal revenge, and it is so sweet.
Dear Team Members, curious as to how I do this? If you look at the bottom of the bag/sack, you’ll see that there are seals there like any paper bag. On the sides, you can push in the seal to access the insides to the bag. Grab the corner of a wrapper, and jostle the bag to liberate your own personal revenge. Be very careful not to tear the bag, or break a seal. When you’ve gotten your prize, set the bag upright, give it a good shake, and the entirety of the bag should go back to looking normal.
(50)Dislikes
(12)Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I feel your pain man, I did that same shit for three years and I almost wrecked my back. I especially loved it when I asked for help from a lead and instead of helping, they go and check the "pull time" for that batch smfh!! I eventually gave up back room and went back to flow, now I'm proud to say that I only have two more weeks in this horrible ass place, best of luck to you, and fuck target with a rusty pole!!!!!!
I feel your pain. I was usually 4am backroom, but whenever I did day side I had to run all over the damn place just to get through the pulls. One FA, PDA freeze, item lookup (before everyone on the floor had a myDevice), or other distraction and they'd roll. Fuck this place!
Call out on a day that you know the batches are large and do it like 15min before your shift and that puts the presure on the ETL's. They will be pissed no doubt, they will only yell at you. Sounds like you are used to that. Worked for me in the past. Took 3 ETL to complete the job and of course I said "thought it only took one guy". Hahahahahah. Try to find a way to fuck with them back. Call the hot line, tell them they are harassing you. They may retaliate, so then keep calling. Puts them on blast with DFM.
Been there for three years and I thought I was the only one haha. Also, the liability of working dayside is horrible. Being the last person of the day who knows anything about the backroom sucks ass. Even if there is a ton of backstock and batches in the gun when you walk in and in no way can complete everything, it's still your fault for not getting it done. You get regular worker pay, but have the liability and responsibility of a team lead or an ETL minus the computer stuff and paperwork. Can you believe I had to show my STL AND one of my ELT's how to do a fucking bale? Its not like I have anything better to do than to show a couple of incompetent managers how to do their job while I have calfs in the gun.