Oh man do I have a lot to say about my job. I am a dairy clerk/backup checker at a grocery store so get ready for a sarcastic and slightly cynical guide to my job that I knew would be wall o text but is apprently an even bigger one than I thought it would be.

 

Dairy Clerk

 

 

-The dairy department is so freakishly huge that it cannot all fit into one load. The two loads are the milk load which is mostly milk which alone averages 1000 pieces and the "grocery deli" load which is yogurt, cheese, cold juices, butter, cold biscuits ect...

 

-Loads arrive in 2 day incriments with one type of load coming in one day followed by the other the next day.

 

-Milk loads are much faster and easier to break down but everything needs to be physically counted and sorted before it can be put to the shelf which is not the case with grocery deli or wall loads as I call them.

 

-A lot of stuff from the meat, service deli and bakery departments gets mixed in on grocery deli loads and sometimes my stuff gets mixed in with meat department stuff. The meat department to their credit does everything they can to get their stuff as soon as possible but getting the service deli to cooperate is like pulling teeth.

 

-Certain add items get ordered and sent to us automatically so we don't run out, these are called "plus outs" and most of those come in on Mondays.

 

-Grocery deli loads are always late when we need them the most, part of it is due to increased traffic and increased demand on certain holidays and special occasions which I understand but it is still annoying.

 

-Wednesdays can rot in hell, seriously screw you Wednesday. It is the first day of the new add and my Wednesday grocery deli load is nearly always late which means by time I have to order for tomorrow I have no idea what the hell we even have and often screw up the order for the next day (and Thursday is the only day of the week we I get both loads in on the same day).

 

-A head dairy clerk for all intents and purposes is a department manager but is not officially called one which matters because department heads are paid more. Seriously the dairy department is probably tied with Reciever (back room manager) for the 3rd most difficult department to run in the whole fraggin store with Frozen head taking 2nd and Night Crew and Meat Manager tying for 1st.

 

-Injuries are shockingly common in this industry and I am living proof. To date I have had 4 work related knee injuries and 1 semi work related knee injury that I am currently still recovering from. After the injury before my current one the district manager talked with me (I wasn't in trouble or anything) and told me about how serious this was and told me to be more careful. He said that back in 1992 there were so many workers comp claims that the company almost went under.

 

 

Backup Checker

 

 

-You can get written up for even the slightest mistake, I am not kidding. There are so many things that you can do wrong that you can get in trouble for that it is not worth it.

 

-Whoever said "the customer is always right" is full of shit. You have to pretend the customer is to keep your job but every now and then you will run into a certain policy where this is not the case a good example being certain laws regarding alcohal and tobacco sales.

 

-Knowing how to speak BS fluently is an absolute must.

 

-Due to local ordinance every retail employee above a certain rank even if they are rarely or never in the checkstand has to attend a refresher course on alcohal and tobacco sale policy called TAM (Techniques of Alcohol Management) training. Due to company policy we are paid for this time but it does tend to screw things up.

 

-You are goign to deal with a lot of people that are either so mind numingly stupid that you wonder how they are able to have enough brain cells to put on their pants, people who are complete and total jerks who will call for your head at the slightest thing or worse yet people who are both.

 

-You have to memorize a butt load of codes to ring up produce, there is a lookup menu but it dosen't have the codes to everything unfortunetely.

 

-You would be surprised how physically hard it can be to stand in place for prolonged periods of time, at least when you are moving blood is flowing throughout your body but when you are standing there it remains stagnant. It is how I got my 4th knee injury.

 

Source: Things you want everyone to know about your job.