Today is the 1 year anniversary of when I started at Safeway. I wasn't too sure what to expect when I first started there, afterall comming from Federated Co-op Ltd in North Battleford, I was sure it would be a little simular, and boy was I wrong. Theres a lot of differences, sure there are alot the same but there are a whole wack load of differences like deliveries. they trucks arrive between 6:00pm and 9:00pm every night instead at 5:30am at co-op. At co-op you get 1 truck and it has everything on it, dairy,produce, grocery, bakery, deli, and frozen. safeway you get 3 or 4 trucks depending on the day. On mondays and thursdays you get grocery, bread, frozen and gm/hbc. On saturday and sundays you get grocery, bread and frozen. The rest of the week you get grocery and bread. Later on in the night you get produce and dairy. I guess another major difference is that safeway has a night crew. They work from 11:30pm to 8:00am and all they do is work the grocery / frozen order when it arrives.
Another difference is that the suppliers like Coke, Pepsi, Old Dutch, Hostess and Canada Bread do NOT put their orders away, they just deliver it. We general clerks, as safeway calls us, do that during either the 9:30am - 6:00pm or 3:00pm to 11;30pm shift. You see the store I work at is open from 8:00am to 11:00pm 7 days a week. That's right 15hrs a day !!. We also during the day work dairy (liquid and eggs only ) and bread. We are also taught how to run a cash register when the store gets backed up at the front which is usually between 5:00pm and 8:00pm or as we call it the " oh damn I needed something for supper" hour. We also get a extra $1.00 a hour as clerks in charge ( aka acting manager) and a extra $1.50 after 10:00pm at night which isn't that bad considering all we do is close and lock the mall entrance and close and lock the main door at 10:55pm. When it comes to facing the store, the night crew does that once the grocery order is done which can vary from 400 pieces to as much as 1200 pieces. All we do is face the bunk ends, the pop isle and the chip isle as well as tables we have in the lobby and pallet displace in the main entrance area.
We have courtesy clerk who all they do is pack groceries, sweep the store once every 90minutes, they wrap flours,get carts and do car service. So they are quite busy at times. The other big thing is what are called Out Of Stocks. And all that is is just walking thru every..yes EVERY isle in the store ( except Meat and Produce but includes Pharmacy and part of Bakery) and scanning all the spots that are totally empty of product. At the store I am it, it takes between 45 and 60 minutes, we do after all have 14 isles not including produce ( the store covers 50,000 Sq Ft or 1.147 acres)
So your probably asking yourself do you you like it? I can say this HELL Yeah!!! its like the lines from the song "The Old Black Rum" by Great Big Sea. "Every day is different, but the nights are all the same. " You never know what your going to be doing day to day. Take today for example. I did the old dutch order, the hostess/lays order, some directs and I tore down a 24ft section off odds and ends and turned it into a 24ft section of seasonal product with pop, chips, beans, water, ice tea mixes (ice-tea here in Canada is made with crystals like tang unlike the USA where its teabags in water, which up here is called sun-tea), BBQ sauces/marinates, condiments ( ketchup, mustard, relish ). Then afterwards, I made signs and tags for it so we can order more when we need to. Does it look great, sure does, was it tough, most definitely, does the boss like it, absolutely. In fact the planogram ( schematic ), arrived today and its not suppose to be up until monday, so were 2 days ahead of the game. The last thing we do is whats caled NCC or night crew communications. And all that is, is we tell them whos working tonight, how big the order is and any other relevant information such as what we need extra of, anything upcoming visits from v.i.p.s, anybody who's called in sick. Things like that they wouldn't necessarily know about
So do I like safeway better than co-op ? Absolutely because you never ever never do the same thing to do day to day. (except when your closing and you top up the dairy, bread and eggs when you start at 3:00pm face what you usually do, and of course lock all the doors) Is the money better ? Most definitely, I can say this, at $16.65 a hr ( $14.97 US ) I clear just over between $2100 and $2500 a month (depending on the paydays in the month, we get paid EVERY week instead of bi-weekly ) after taxes. That's between $1,888.39 and $2,248.08 US a month. Not bad for putting stocking shelves huh!!!!!!
So put this all together and do the math. Then ask yourself, does he like his job with all of this going on? I think you be right in saying ohhh most defiantly.
The again, I'm now living in
/Heavy.jpg)
Megadeth's "United Abominations". What can I say Dave still has the gift. After his surgery alot of people were wondering IF he could still give 'er. Well he sure can. After seeing them in concert in march I couldnt wait for it. I have 3 favorite track. "Gears of War" "Sleepwaker" and "tout la monde". The last one may seem framilular. You see " À Tout Le Monde" was originally released on ""Youthanasia" which came out in 1994, but this version is better. It has a special guest on it. None other than Cristina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil. the video for it is really sweet. its set in a post-apocalypse new york landscape.
