I picked the vocation because my best friends dad was a meatcutter and at 16 I thought that was pretty good money and I hated school and something I could do with my hands was going to be my thing... So thats what I picked and I must say Ive tried to get out of it but always end up back in it! At the end of the day I like my job and what I do and its a more creative and artistic job than most people think. :)
i was 21 i needed a job, my girlfriends mom was a cashier manager at save alot and said their meat cutter needed help. I didn't know i was going to like it so much. now i can't see myself doing anything else. I am proud of what i do. never had much trouble getting another job as a cutter when i needed to leave a store for any reason. even though the ecomony is bad and jobs are not there i always seem to find the job i know and get hired. i guess my good references help and the employee of the month certificates don't hurt.
I fell into my job so to speak. My ex was a logger and I was a working mum. Things kinda went sideways in my marriage and I was looking for ways to be on my own affordably. I was in the local Legion and the owner of the Pemberton Valley Supermarket asked if I could wrap meat.
You don't want to know what went thru my head when he asked. Being in a bar etc. I barely knew the man!
After 2 weeks of wrapping the Meat Dept Manager asked if I wanted to learn how to cut. I said" does it pay more than a wrapper?" He says...Oh yes it does!
Show me the knife I said! I've barely looked back :)
I loved some thing professionally done by hands and i found meat too cheap and costless being a school vacationist so consulted a friend who was a butcher and he welcomed into the study and now i am a meat cutter and enjoying the job .
i started at iga in edmonton alberta i went out there for 5 month to train at a greco wrestling camp.......i met some chick who was a cashier i needed a job.....i was a buggy boy for a day then they put me in the chicken room then the meat room.........didnt think i would be doing it for ever i looked at it it was great money while i went to university.......and when i was done school.....i just never stopped cutting meat..lol.......i wouldnt wanna do anything else
My first 'official' job was at a steakhouse washing dishes and helping the cooks. I hated it--almost quit on the 2nd day. I stuck with it because I liked having my own money. Eventually the owner couldn't keep a meat cutter to save his life, and he hated cutting meat, so with the help of the store manager, he taught me. When I left for college, my girlfriend bled my bank account dry, so I got a job at a grocery store (market of course). Started as a clerk and helped the night guy cut when it was slow. He enjoyed the help and I enjoyed learning. Got promoted to clean up boy and got to come in early on weekends. Proved myself there and it was all downhill from there. I graduated from college, couldn't find job I wanted to do, got promoted to assistant, then to market manager. The store closed, I moved, and still couldn't find a job (I tried this time). Yep, I'm still cutting meat.
I think the reason I still do this stuff is because of the freedom from being micromanaged. No one ever complains that I come in 10 minutes late every day or come back late from lunch because I'm taking a nap, but then again I never call in and always seem to leave 20 minutes late every day. That doesn't happen in the corporate world. I hate HR and their policies. I'm self managed, don't do stupid stuff, and help make the company money. The bosses like it and keep money in my pocket. It's a win-win.
I started Cutting meat in 1984 at a hotel. I did 5000 airline breasts a week for banquets and broke hind quarters. My dad's friend owned a Piggly Wiggly and his breaker quit and they had no one to break He approached me while I was shopping one day and offered to pay me cash to come in anytime I had free to break I worked the hotel 6-2 and then at the store from 4-11. At 11 the meat manager, who lived across the alley from the store, would come in with a 6 pack and tell me it was quitting time I then got a job as a Chef and stayed there for 15 years and then come back to Meat cutting 12 years ago between the hotel and the markets I have been doing this for 27 years and love every minute of it
__________________
Joe Parajecki
Operations Manager/ Partner
Kettle Range Meat Company, Milwaukee WI
Member Meat Cutter Hall of Fame and The Butcher's Guild
To start with,I love to grill and eat various kinds of meat,I started cleaning a market part-time at a Shop Rite after alot of my other great ideas had failed or lead me in wrong directions.After a couple of cutters came and went I got my shot at cutting and I was told I was a natural at it. I enjoyed it and have stuck with the trade now for about 10yrs.Being a manager is alot different from just cutting but my family needed the money and they needed a manager and the rest is history.I still enjoy my job and I like passing on the trade to these younger guys coming up.People told me 10yrs ago it was a dying art but I dont believe prepack will ever take completely over,so I'm here to stay
STeer Fry...I like he fact that you want to teach others the trade. I wish we had more training time at our store for doing that. We have a kid with the potential to learn and desire and no time to let him back with me. Sadly I need him to be a wrapper right now. Im loving evryones stories its been great hearing how everyone started out.
I grew up on a farm...we raised our own meat/ eggs/ and milked the cows and goats....so at age 5 I butchered my first rabbits by myself... I loved it!!! we butchered at home, so I was really used to it, and would jump in any chance I got...by kindergarden I would get off the schoolbus at my moms job and I would place all the meat stickers on the packages I knew all my meat cuts by that age, but also knew to run out the back door when the inspectors come in...so for me, I choose meatcutting because I had seen it done so much, and I liked the challenge of being in a mans world so to speak...I have been told in the past I should stop cutting meat and give the job back to a man....HA NEVER!!!
Growing up in Northern saskatachewan, My family cut wild meat on the kitchen table.That is where I started to like this sort of thing call meat cutting.When I was 14 help out in the local store in the meat dept cleaning up and unloading frieght.Then when I was about 17 I went to a meat cutting school and didn't learn alot.When I started in a store for my first job,then I relize this was for me and never look back.Still love it and coming up with new ideas.Train a lot of younger cutters,and it feels good to pass it on to those who want to learn.
I was on my way to the West Coast to look for a job as an advertising copywriter. I ran out of money in Arizona. Walked into a grocery store in Sedona that had a help wanted sign on the door and never walked!
I like living in s small town and I like the "action." I don't like that fact that they're paying us less and cutting our benefits.
................................. I don't like that fact that they're paying us less and cutting our benefits.
I think we should keep this thread postive and on topic, but I do want to reply to the above:
That's one reason why I'm perplexed about cutters (including myself sometimes) always getting excited about when your dept has a higher sales volume than this day last year, or this week or month is better than last, or your gross is getting better, etc. I don't, think the store owner has ever said "wow, this is great! I paid Jack $600.00 this week instead of $510.00. I'm so happy! Hopefully next week, I can give him $620.00. I wonder what I can do to keep paying him $620.00 or better?"
Instead, it's "we need to cut labor, benefits, vacation, sick leave". Some of us free time. The worst is managers wanting to go along with the cutting of labor and getting mostly clerks instead of cutters which will kill the trade (as a career), and all that time some of us just can't stop worrying about how much money the poor company owner is making.
I'm a "Navy brat". Dad was in the Navy and we moved a lot. Virginia, South Carolina, Valejo Ca, back to South Carolina, Connecticut, Scotland, Back to Ca. During those years, he would sometimes tell us about how when he retires, we'll get a piece of land and raise a few farm animals and have a large garden.
Well, when I was about 14, that day finally came. He retired (or changed jobs). Anyway, no more moving and we got that piece of land and got some animals. I didn't know it at the time, but that's what led me to a career of meat cutting.
in 1976/77 I was taking an agriculture class as a freshman in high school. We were all required to have a project. Any farm animal, or crop of your choice. You do it at home if you have the land and keep records. There was a school farm for those with no place for it at home. Anyway, I chose to get a pig. We bought two weaner pigs. The plan was we'd eat one and use the other for a sow. My dad was as excited as me about this. He's always been a do it yourselfer and he decided that when the time came, he'd cut up the pig himself. He bought a book and taught himself. I helped him. While Dad and I were cutting the pig in the garage, that's when the idea came to me "I should be a butcher!" Oh well, it seemed like a good idea at the time, and here I am, still doing it.
................................. I don't like that fact that they're paying us less and cutting our benefits.
I think we should keep this thread postive and on topic, but I do want to reply to the above:
That's one reason why I'm perplexed about cutters (including myself sometimes) always getting excited about when your dept has a higher sales volume than this day last year, or this week or month is better than last, or your gross is getting better, etc. I don't, think the store owner has ever said "wow, this is great! I paid Jack $600.00 this week instead of $510.00. I'm so happy! Hopefully next week, I can give him $620.00. I wonder what I can do to keep paying him $620.00 or better?"
Instead, it's "we need to cut labor, benefits, vacation, sick leave". Some of us free time. The worst is managers wanting to go along with the cutting of labor and getting mostly clerks instead of cutters which will kill the trade (as a career), and all that time some of us just can't stop worrying about how much money the poor company owner is making.
i agree with you larry about most of this........just not the fact about the managers going along with the company.....sometimes even if you dont agree we dont have a choice........cause they look at it if you dont go along ...then they will get somne one who will.........and i like makeing amazing money........so if that means they want me to cut 20 hours that means im gonna cut 20 hours that just how it is........i dont have that problem though i save like 40 hours a week......and it pays off when they are handing out the bonuses there not gonna give a big bonus to some guy that fights them on it...or over spends on hours .......sad to say its just the way it is.......on another note......you are completly right....in theory......
When I went into the market it was for the few dollars more I was promise, I actually hated it, I couldn't stand to have grease on my hands LOL After being in there for five weeks, my raise never did come through, and when I ask about it, Joe ( market manager )told me he was just keeping me till he got some one else as I had no interest in being a meat cutter. I was a big boy and he was keeping me to carry the hanging beef for him.
The next day, he reach behind the saw blade to to catch a chuck roast being in a hurry as he had four women wanting orders, he took half his thumb off long ways. they sent this young cutter to replace him while he was out for two & half weeks.
I could talk with this guy, he was three years older than me. he was a fast cutter, full of bull ****, watching him made me want to learn about meat, I guess I ask to many questions LOL He told me, you see those books up on that shelve, they are meat cutting books, get you one, look at the picture, go in the cooler and get you the meat to match the picture, cut it likes the book says, if you mess it up, we will grind it.
I was on FIRE, as I cut this stuff, I liked it, He taught me more in a week than Joe had in five, BUT then I didn't really want to learn but I did now. These books were my bible, I even took one home every night to read.
When Joe came back I could cut most everything in the case, not perfect but good lol After he was back a week, Joe told me one day, get you a cup of coffee and lets go in the back and have a talk. I thought he was going to tell me that he had found another man, I had a surprise coming.
Like a Father he told me, son you quite school, you are like a lot of young men, think you know it all. you need to either go back to school or learn a trade. I don't think you smart enough to go back to school so you need a trade. Meat cutting is a trade that will give you a job for life and you can make good money at it.
then he told me, I don't know what happen to you while I was gone But what ever it was it was a good thing for you. you have learn to cut stuff it usually takes cutters a year to cut and your good, your fast, you have a interest in it, NOW are you ready to become a meat cutter and let me teach you how to make money out of it. The company I was with has 23 stores, Joe was usally the top profit man every month.
I was on a high, I told him Yes sir, He taught me well, and talk the company into giving me my first market managers job after a year with him. I kept that job 10 months and a A&P supervisor came by one day and ask me If I cut most of the meat in the case, I told him yes. He said, be at Navco Rd A&P in two weeks and you have a job waiting there as a cutting room manager at 250.00 a week, at the time I was making 150.00 as a manager with my company. AS T-BONE SAID, " IT WAS ALL DOWN HILL FROM THERE " LOL 51 years of it, An would make the trip again !!
I started wrapping when I turned 18, I had a very good market manager named Frank Meredith, old school meat man, many years with A&P. He would let me do little things for him, cube steak, chicken, cut boneless pork, I liked it and ask if he would teach me everything about meat. Over the next year I worked like hell wrapping and trying to get through so I could cut some meat. After a year, Frank went to bat for me and got me my first meat cutting job with the company.Going on 11 years now, I have never regetted any part of it !
I too fell into it lol...My husband is the truck driver for our meat packin plant...I had just quit my previous job of 18yrs had me apply at the plant...I started at the plant in the kitchen making (wieners..jerky...sausage ect) moved into packaging then into the kill floor and breaking room..The breakin room I was a wrapper at first (custom wrapper butcher paper tape ect lol) Now I'm a *butcher* we prefer to be called bone scrapers lol and come July 17 I'll be takin over the custom cutting...Go me lol..(kinda of a really big deal I am the second women in the history of the plant to work in the kill floor and the ONLY women to date to break beef...hogs ect) and yes I love my job...I went at it like a bulldog at first because being a women in the place I work was a challenge if you wanted out of packing lol and well here I are..lol
Graduated from high school in '02. I wanted to work for one year and decided to put out 10 resumes to 10 different places in my community. Got accepted to 3 of the jobs and I picked the grocery store, hired on as a Meat Wrapper.
Did that for one month, I used to get so upset that I couldn't remember all the PLU number's for the scale that I photocopied the plu sheet and studied it at home for 3 weeks, memorized every plu and price. shocked the Manager alright. I worked through lunches and breaks and then one day after about 2 months the lead cutter and meat manager asked if I would like to train to become a meatcutter and I said heck yes!
finished a one year on the job training program in 3 months and continued fine tuning for the first year, harsh treatment sometimes but learned some great lesson's along the way, various journeyman cutter's and manager's have shown me many things and even now I continue to learn (my lead cutter is a 44 year Meat Veteran)
I love training new people the trade, I really like the sales industry and direct involvement with people. no night shifts!
Screw the big box stores (looking at you Wal-mart) I think professional Meat Cutters and Manager's are here to stay.
Even though I left the industry twice I always come back.....Love my job, it's all good
I was working 2 jobs & going to college for accounting....well I was as I like to call it a meat bitch...i came in and cleaned up in the afternoon...then the wrapper broke his arm wrestling, so they asked if I wanted to work mornings...as usuall I asked if it paid more, the answer was yes, however I was working at a brokerage firm in the mornings, I went to my boss @ the brokerage firm and said i'd like to stay but I am gonna make more $ with them, I told him I would stay if he could match the $, well you know the answer I got....after a few months of wrapping, I started to watch them cut, and specifically make sausage, which for some reason really had me interested...I went on to become the smokehouse mgr for that store, while finishing learning how to cut everything else that was done in that store......I LOVED the smokehouse and kinda wish I could still do it again...someday....
