If you are manager,do you manage your hours for your staff?

What timme is your store open till at night?

OK. Here is my point of view and it works for me over the years.

1.Meat cutter and wrapper in at 6am.

2.Meat Manager in at 7am

3.training in at 8.00am

4. Meatcutter in at 9am.

Counter must be in by 9am no excuses.

Manager should be doing front end work,cutting only if needed.

Other wrappers have them in different hours that work for you.

Once your holes on in then concentrate on filling specials of the day.

By 3pm start cutting for the next day mainly on specials.

Last guy out makes grinds.

Do you have a clean up guy till the store closes or a cutter.

 We make our last grinds usally about 4 and we clean up about 7 our store closes at 9pm.

These are just a few things.Do you have a good second man that runs the back end for ya./

welcome to the world of being a market manager. it sounds like you are understaffed. can you go to your store manager and ask for a little help during truck times. most managers I've seen will help out some. after all it's just going to be a few months, if they going to spend money to remodel, they have plans for more help.

as for the small cutting room, I been there, I use to take meat racks, put pans upside down every 4 rail, I would put these outside my market door filled with trays, etc that I needed that day.

If you are having to mark your lunch meat, try to mark it ahead of time so all you have to do is fill, same for freezer items or smoke items

MOST of all, remember you are a market manager, your company had faith in you or you wouldn't have the job, Don't let yourself get rattled, PLAN your day before you get there. YOU CAN DO IT !  GOOD LUCK !

-- Edited by littlebit_of_pleasure on Tuesday 5th of April 2011 02:22:27 AM

Tia wrote:

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ok, as stated, I am new at this manager...there is only me and a wrapper, and now an apprentice..and we are schedualled by the store director for 7- 330 for the wrapper and apprentice and me till 4 30...store opens at 7 closes at 9......no clean up crew....I am the Lead cutter/manager.....

Todays problem...on monday we have 3 different trucks come in, all which have to be hand counted...I have 4 orders going out, which 2  cant be done till 2 of the trucks come in and are accounted for....and its monday, we have price changes of sale items, and since we dont have anyone in the meat dept on sunday, we have an empty case to fill.....all this with only 3 workers...poor patty today put away 78 cases of lunchmeats, and got over whelmed from us cutting and grinding, but what can we do with only this amount of help?  I just filled my case at 5 pm!!!!  I did not leave till 6 30 tonight... H E L P

The cutting room is not organized at all, and its constantly running around looking for trays, soaker pads, and such.  and its a really small cutting room...I have moved things around, but i have no shelves to put trays up on, or anything....the whole dept will be shut down in a few months to remodel and expand the meat dept.. but for now, this really sucks ass...

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 I misunderstood.thought u had 2 cutters.note to self don't read when tired.

Your store should give you at least a clean up person.Show your sales to managament a explain why you need this so you can do better for them.see if it works.Wish I could just come there a help.

 

 

Why no one on Sundays?

Woww... things haven't changed in 40 years, have they?! Been there, done that... just when you feel confident you can leave within an hour or less on time someone cuts off a knuckle or something..!
I was a go-getter and faithfully worked off-the-clock to 'get ahead', made district supervisor in 5 years even tho i was there from 4 am to 8 pm most days, half a day on my day off and took inventory Sunday night so I didn't have to do it Mon. mornings. It just was a way of life for us; my family knew i was 'at work' and not messing around; they'd come in and witness it daily.
When my wife was diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma and given 6 weeks to live, 100% chance she would never see her next birthday, I re-evaluated my work ethic very quickly and regretted every single minute I was at work and not at home enjoying her company. The powers that be granted me a miracle and she survived the cancer, and now 17 years later has survived a second one, and now I'm having strokes from my work ethic/stress led lifestyle (off right now for one I had - at work mind you - two weeks ago!).
Keep work life and family life in balance. The best advice I can give is what the VP of Meat Merchandising gave me privately one time and I've held it true ever since:

"Like your job and love your family - never ever get the two mixed up!"

So Tia, it's November now, are things looking better? I wish I could come and give you a hand!

I agree with all the above comments, I just want to add that planning ahead and quality staff really do make all the difference.
Sometimes you have to prove to your boss how much you need more staff by making a detailed sales and sales per employee hour report to show how more staff hours will benefit the department by increasing sales and profit margin. Also, the less your running around like a chicken with your head cut off, (been there) the more time you have to plan ordering, merchandising etc which will also benefit the whole store.
My stepdad first told me this gem and it's so true when you think about it.

"people do the best with what they've got, and everyone is good at something"

hang in there and good luck