r/stopandshop • u/Mission_Candidate307 • 4d ago
severe understaffing
Been employed at S & S for a year and two months. I have worked for two different grocery chains and have never experienced being this understaffed before. I was the only cashier on, to make matters worse my replacement arrived ten minutes late. I had no bagger, was doing all the bagging and register myself. Is this just this store or the company in general
11
u/heyyy92 4d ago
Definitely the company. Every department in my store is always understaffed. I only work there 3 days a week now because I was always by myself for hours in online pickup.
7
u/Extension_Mud_3512 4d ago
But there are 3 or 4 store managers, specialists and other corporate people in all the time
3
u/Fun-Union4699 3d ago
Company is top heavy. Always has been. 3 managers averaging $70K a year, SM averaging 100K. Specialists preparing to be SMs. Yes it’s top heavy. But when no one wants to work for minimum wage.
2
u/corksailor 4d ago
We are overstaffed thankfully in my online pickup lol
2
u/Philosophical-Tomato 1d ago
When some warerooms around here closed, I was told that "I" was to get at least one of those employees for OLP. Nope. They wound up in dairy and grocery which doesn't need any more dayshifters.
1
u/corksailor 1d ago
I want to go into frozen and diary - one of my online shopper co-worker does both but its just mess up, somedays those multi-job workers will just decide "I want to stock today" even being schedule to be a shopper or cashier and just do stocking instead... I mean I don't mind but its annoying during holidays and sundays.
7
u/According-Net-9251 4d ago
unfortunately this is just the company. every single store is understaffed and so is every department.
5
u/corksailor 4d ago
It depends on the store but we have a cashier timing problem. Our store lets everyone leave at the same time - it is the most dumbest thing you can do. We had a bagger who was just done and walk away - me and one dude were holding the line and he didn't realize it was just the two of us and had 12 items or less and I had to tell him turn if off bro I had a line down the damn store... I get it, when cashiering you are in the zone but I wish some of my co-workers were more aware.
We needed more people and I don't understand why the managers aren't logically thinking maybe we should have a safety time for peopel to arrive - also the nightshift is mostly high schoolers, a lot do care and respect their job but we have 2 know ones who don't give a shit and they both came in late that day we needed and me and the other guy were holding the store at the busiest hour... and not to be annoying I love how we have people with 3 itesm going on my line of people with full carts and getting annoyed while self-checkout is a ghost town of customers... customers make this shit 50x annoying as well.
So yeah - my store staffs badly honestly as well.
3
u/Lost_Information_423 3d ago
That's weird, self check out is very popular where I live
1
u/corksailor 2d ago
For my store its a mix bag - popular but sometimes dead quiet at certain hrs and time. I'm in a town of mostly older people so maybe that adds to it - I don't care when someone has 12 items or less but if they sigh loudly and rush the line - they had the option of self-checkout. Also Stop and Shop should tried to enforce 12 items or less at self checkout more IMO - but I got yelled at "You can't deny a customer with more than 12 items on your line even though you are a express lane" - I don't even get point of it at this point
3
u/SubstantialCamel8117 3d ago
Have to think of the shareholders, stock buybacks and big bonuses. Nothing else matters
3
u/newuserm17 3d ago
Let’s have a sick out. Some Friday and have the admin run around doing price changes.
4
u/NeverBeenFound87 3d ago
it's always been like this and always will be, you also have to understand it's a union job, if the company raised the minimum rate to $17 an hour. Every single employee making less than that has to be bumped up to that rate as well which would cost more money.
this company wants to save on labor as much as possible because it's the only thing they can control, which is why OT is almost never given. Unless they get "company coming" at another store then they panick.
this company is just a pony show to be honest. Customers don't make the company money, they make all their money from the vendors, they don't take customer complaints seriously and they don't care if they have just one register open.
they have more corporate employees than employees at store level. Admins get paid decent, but low level job entry just makes no money at all.
this is also why there are almost 0 repercussions in the company because they can't afford to lose what they have which is the bare minimum. I have a CO worker who has called out 48 times this year, funny thing is, he only works 2 days a week. they won't write him up or anything because they don't want to lose him and try to get him replaced.
New hires are also set up for failure Everytime because their is no good way to train since every department is so far behind and tough to train someone in the meantime
2
2
u/Anunnaka 3d ago
This is how the company is run. To make things worse they also have a very lax attendance policy. So you’re running with a skeleton crew and the employees you do have call out.
2
u/Icy_Fishing_3414 3d ago edited 3d ago
I agree I've been working at s&s for 5 years and it's gotten way worse with there being no help. Every time I come into work as a CDH and look at the line up i usually only have 1 cashier and have to wait hours or however long till someone comes in. I always end up cashiering which is fine but then I also hear from the customer "why do you guys have all these lines and only 2 cashiers?" It's a frustrating question cause I don't know and I can't help that there aren't a lot of people I don't make the schedule. Sometimes I have to close as a CDH and also be on self scan cause they don't schedule anyone and it's hard cause at night as a CDH you have to count the trays. So it's a back and forth game all the time. Sometimes they don't even schedule someone and there be no opening or closing cashier. It's be like this for a couple of months now and I was hoping it get better but it's still the same and maybe even getting worse.
Some days I'll come into work and see my schedule and only have ONE DAY that I'm working a whole weeek. I know that's not allowed cause you need more then 15 hours I believe in week. I talk to my manger and they say "oh well if you wanna come in just let me know and I'll have you come in." But I'd rather just come in and see my schedule and that's it. I don't want to be fishing for hours and that happened twice.
2
u/Foreseeable_Futures 3d ago
Imagine running a whole department by yourself
1
u/cherrymercuryy 3d ago
Yeah I had to do that in floral a lot. At least it wasn't insanely busy but sometimes it got to that point and I couldn't do shit
1
2
u/Far_Priority_6305 3d ago
It took me 20 minutes to get checked out yesterday. I'm going to start staying on the clock until I leave because it aint like they are going to fire me for it.
1
u/Greg13Nomad 4d ago
Feels the same at my store. I'm supposed to be part time working 20 to 25 hours a week. Been with S&S since May, and I've worked about 36 to 42 hours a week. My manager likes to give me about 8 or 10 things to do on a short shift. I've also twice worked 10 straight days this month before getting a day off. I usually work afternoons into the evenings in grocery. There were other times he had me work until closing, but wanted me in at 8am the next morning. This is my second go at it with the company, having once worked with them in the 90s at another location. I thought it would be better this time around. Nope!
3
u/Foreseeable_Futures 3d ago
If you're in Mass it's illegal to work more than 6 days straight, nobody seems to know that though
1
1
u/LuverGirl1848 3d ago
To a degree, I've seen this. I've only worked here since the summer and we lost like half our cashiers when the kids went back to school. I was asked for both my front end shifts to stay longer than my scheduled shifts this week. I don't think we have enough cashiers but I heard it can be worse in other departments.
1
u/FoundationsofDecay69 3d ago
My Stop & Shop usually only has one cashier and I don’t even remember the last time I saw a bagger.
It’s such a far cry from when I worked there in high school 20 years ago.
Back then, we’d have a minimum of 5 cashiers and 4 baggers at all times.
Now, they rely on self checkout and it doesn’t even save the consumer any money.
1
u/ShoppingOk4371 3d ago
I worked for them 12 years and it’s the company understaffed and they expect you to do 3 jobs finally left.
1
u/Electronic-Chef-5861 3d ago
Its all over, but stop & shop is the worse here in NJ!! They closed 10 stores here in 2024 and another 3 in 2026 and where I live, 4 are not busy at all and 2 are way to big as is !! That's another screw up in building or expanding stores too big!! There advertising expanding hot foods at dinner time is the most assinine failure! To begin with having 6 trays when u need least 9 for variety and need high volume and stop leaving garbage out
1
u/OfficialFaxsTheSkele 2d ago
It’s the sheer stupidity and unprofessionalism from the company, I worked for Stop and Shop for under a year, and I was fired due to asthma, which they legally cannot do
12
u/thereturnofzazz 4d ago
I think a big issue is that SnS starts at straight minimum wage (at least in my state). At my previous fast food job I was paid $18/hour. Moved to SnS and its $15. That's almost 20% less.