Butchering Your Departments And Your Standards

I used to work for a small, locally-owned supermarket chain with a small level of bureaucracy and a high focus on getting stuff sold.

After a few years, we were taken over by a national chain, which introduced much bureaucracy where emails and phone calls from the bottom to the top would be lost to the ether and left unanswered. Their focus was heavily on image, with staff at the head office who seemingly worked to ensure similar-sized products sat next to each other on each shelf so that it looked nice.

They also changed the shop managers’ incentives; their bonuses were the operating budget of their store minus wages, expenses, and written-off stock. So, obviously, we were now operating on a shoestring budget so the managers got as much money as they could.

Before the takeover, we had an award-winning butcher department that worked with local farms and catered to customer requests. The new firm immediately closed the counter and filled chillers with pre-packed sliced meats, instead, which we frequently discounted to prevent them from going to the bin.

One time, we received a dozen cases of a high-end cut of meat. It was way more than we would usually stock of an affordable packet, and it was therefore at risk of running past its sell-by date and being thrown out.

As it was a new product, we didn’t have a price label for it. After waiting a weekend for the system to update, I emailed the head office for a label and filled the chiller, using a pricing gun left over from the takeover to label each individual packet.

We had sold a few by the time I came back in the following week, but I was pulled aside by the management. The area manager had been in to inspect the shop, was “horrified” at the “ugly” labels, and demanded they be taken off the shelves until a label was ready.

I explained the issue, but they wouldn’t have it, so I took the packets out as instructed and left them in the big fridge at the back of the store. They sat there for a month until they expired, after which someone else recorded them for disposal.

A few days later, someone at the head office noticed the enormous increase in wastage and reported it. Down the chain it came, and the red-faced area manager stormed in to shout at the stern-faced store manager, who in turn called over the tannoy for me to drop everything and get to his office.

“I’m just waiting for the label,” I told them both, as they searched for a scapegoat for the £3,000 write-off.

I’ve since had similar experiences at other employers where department heads had bonuses tied to sales but didn’t like me pricing up produce, so hardware would sit and gather dust. I’m paid by the hour with no bonus, so I’m not going to argue the case.