I got myself a new job September 11th, 2015, and even though I decided I won’t be disclosing which company I work for I’ve got several things to say. This job is something totally new to me, even though in the past I’ve been a cashier at a grocery store. This job is at night and it’s stocking shelves etc, the official job title is “Overnight Grocery Replenishment”. I guess I’ll start off by explaining what my job is, at the beginning of my shift my coworkers and I sort the different products onto different pallets. Some nights this takes us over an hour to sort, and other nights it takes us less time it really varies per shift based on how many products the supervisors order for the grocery area. Once that’s done we each get told which aisle we are going to be working in, most of us get assigned the same aisle each shift. We are considered the “grocery night crew” which means we do aisles 21 to 31 plus freezer, chips and the dairy area. After we get to our aisle it’s our job to take all the empty cardboard off the shelf, take all the garbage off the shelf, and remove anything that doesn’t belong in our aisle. Then we have to stock the product in the appropriate locations on the shelves. We rotate the product on the shelves in hopes that we can avoid having anything expired, we check the expiry date on the products and if it’s expired we take it off the shelf immediately. Before our shift ends we are expected to “face” which means we make sure all the product is facing forward, and is appealing to the eyes. Most of us go above and beyond to make our aisles look great. Unfortunately we don’t always get to all the product, it’s very hard for one person to do all the things I mentioned above. So I feel it’s important to tell people, that you should always check the expiry date on EVERYTHING you buy if you are consuming it. You will find that 9 times out of 10 you won’t find expired products, but some people don’t know that even peanut butter and canned goods do expire.
When I was younger my mom always taught me to grab a product from the back, the newer product is at the back and the older stuff is at the front. This should be true because we are told to rotate our products when they are on the shelf, but you really can’t guarantee that every single person in every single grocery store is doing their job properly.. I think it’s better to be safe than sorry. Because I work the night shift, I’m usually gone before the store opens. The customers don’t see us and acknowledge what we’ve done, chances are you probably don’t even notice the difference when you go down the aisles as you shop. It’s a “Elves and the Shoemaker” kind of situation, and I don’t really mind.
[Sorry I’m going to trail off topic…]
However I do mind when people are completely rude and they put their half drank coffee cups or half eaten cookies, etc on the shelf for us to clean up when the store closes. Please be considerate and find the nearest garbage, if you break something accidentally in the store and it spills on the shelves tell a day-shift employee don’t just walk away. Sometimes I find stuff in my aisle that doesn’t belong in it, yes it’s an annoyance but I don’t mind putting it away. I do mind however if someone takes something from the freezer aisle or even the dairy aisle and shoves it on the shelves because they no longer want it. By the time we start our shift, the stuff usually goes warm or even melts which means it’s got to go in the trash. If you don’t feel like walking back to the freezer or dairy aisle give it to your cashier, and tell them you no longer want it reduce waste!! A week or so ago I was working in the freezer area, and someone had left a 4 liter jug of milk in the freezer…it was rock hard. It’s not rocket science the difference between a fridge and freezer so I’m not sure why it was left there.
I know even myself I’m guilty of leaving items in different aisles that they don’t belong when I’m shopping at places, because I decide that I no longer want the item. I am however always courteous enough to make sure that the stuff that is from the freezer/fridge/meat etc gets put back in its proper area. If I’m being extremely lazy and I don’t feel like walking back to those areas, I give it to the cashier and tell them I’ve changed my mind. They get someone to return it to that area right away, at least this way you aren’t causing something perfectly good to go bad.
Bottom line; we all need to be more aware of what we are doing, and stop the trend of being lazy.