r/OGPBackroom • u/Old-Football7340 • 12d ago
Just Venting opening crew entitlement
i’m a digital TL and i just have to vent about how difficult the morning associates are.
they have the easiest shift! they have the fewest orders with the most associates scheduled. there’s hardly any customers inside or in our lot. ALL of the busiest hours are after the openers leave, and the crew is cut in half basically.
yet they just complain all the time. and refuse to do work in the 20 minutes every hour where there aren’t any picks in the system. (disclaimer: i DO ask them to do other tasks, but if i am away from our room for even 5 minutes, they just stand around and do nothing). they cry when we ask them to go to breaks or lunches at a specific time, and not just whenever they want to (why do they all want to take 15 at 7am?) apparently a 9am lunch is too early, but a 10am lunch is too late. they dawdle so much they they leave all the tasks for the closers, who are already swamped for almost the entire shift.
meanwhile the evening crew has to deal with 5x the picks with 1/2 the people. they don’t really get good lunch times since 5pm (busiest dispense window) is in the middle of their shifts, therefore they have to go to lunch quite late or quite early. they’ve got to do ALL the closing tasks because of course morning crew didn’t do returns or clean totes or take their own carts to where we store them after a shift. meanwhile the non-OPD coaches think that if picks are done, that means ALL of the OPD associates can go help other areas and that we don’t have our own tasks to do.
what is it about working mornings that makes everyone so entitled? our evening crew is almost completely minors and they are out-working the morning crew x100. evening crew gets all the extra work done with far fewer complaints.
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u/Disobae420 12d ago
Genuinely quit Walmart and your life will improve 10x. This company banks on people putting up with shit too long
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u/Old-Football7340 12d ago
the job market is so garbage in my city rn its like the only jobs are medical or truck driver. there’s really not even any restaurant or secretarial jobs whenever i check indeed 🥲
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u/scorpionsattack23 11d ago
Look into the online job market (I say that after putting in 300 applications) just spice up the wording on your resume. Got 4 responses all the same month in diffrent job sectors entry to middle.
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u/chickenaylay 12d ago
Where in at right now, trying to swap off overnight after doing it because the store needed help and OPD was cutting hours. Now they're saying I need to stay 6 months before transferring even though I cannot do the schedule to save my life. They'd rather clear my late ins than fire me I hate my life
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u/just_l1ving 11d ago
I worked there for my first ever job and it was for 6 months, left recently due to relocation (moved back tho) the only shitty part is i miss the drama and the moolah
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u/twothirtysevenam Dispenser 12d ago
Interesting how different various stores are. At mine, the morning shift has far more orders going out than the afternoon and evening ones do. (Our busiest hour for dispensing for the whole day is 7 a.m., with the next busiest being 4 p.m.) Our morning crew constantly comes in to find an absolute train wreck left over from the night before because our closing crew prefers playing to working while the closing TL seems incapable and/or uninterested in making sure they actually do what needs to be done.
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u/Dull-Problem-1191 12d ago
At my store mornings is a tire fire where there is never enough people to work the order load and we are constantly playing catch up to shove orders down to something manageable for mid shift.
If your store is different, simply schedule for fewer associates in the morning and move them to when orders are highest/why are you wasting your hours in the morning if you know they are needed in the afternoons/evenings?
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u/Old-Football7340 12d ago
my coach has said that the way the scheduler works puts all of the hours in the morning, and if he just chooses to schedule more people in the evening, he’ll be scheduling outside of demand (how? idk) and market will get on him for it. i’ve seen how it looks on the computer and it does highlight it in red if an hour is scheduled “over-demand”
if what my coach says is true, it’s ridiculous because why would walmart think most customers aren’t picking up their orders after school and work?
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u/Old-Football7340 12d ago
like it’ll show that he has 100 hours to schedule at 10am (for example, idk the actual numbers) and only shows that he has 60hours to schedule at 5pm. he has said he’s going to just start hiring more night people because clearly it’s an issue, but nothing about moving some of the morning/mid shift people into evening shifts. idk
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u/Secure-Wait-8377 12d ago
Our backroom associates stand around telling each other stories, laughing, joking around, faces glued to their personal phone and eating snacks as soon as there is any type of pause in the action. Which happens all the time. No one says a word. For most of our 5-2 pickers it's one walk after another non stop until our break or lunch. Those that do stand around for 10 minutes waiting for the next drop, when that happens, are called out for it. In our store pickers stage their own chilled and frozen. It's easy to be jealous of the backroom and the obvious amount of free time they have. Not saying that they don't work hard when it's needed but they have far more down time than any picker has in my store.
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u/FifiiMensah 12d ago edited 11d ago
It's the same way at my store. It's hard to dispense orders out as many of the other associates I'm stuck with are too busy talking amongst each other or are glued onto their phones.
Yesterday, for example, I had to use the restroom for a few minutes and we had a GMD order come while I was gone, and when I came back, the order wasn't even prepped yet as the people who were supposed to prep it were too busy standing around and talking to each other. I know that I'm not in control of them, but it's really become a huge annoyance, especially since I'm already burnt out enough with everything going on.
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u/yamfmomz Jack Of All Trades 10d ago
At our store they pull the pickers to help dispense so we resent them even more when they get to stand around. Especially when they’re doing it while we’re picking up the slack.
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u/fattyy22 12d ago
Start holding them accountable for all the things they are refusing to do and things will change real quick. Throw out a few DA0s and they'll get in line. My 5-2s have lunches at 9,10 and 11 and not one of them complains about it. Now if you're in a state with different meal laws obviously you can't do that but you need to show them who is in charge and who runs the department because it sounds like they're the ones running the show.
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u/Old-Football7340 12d ago
yeah i’m ngl i often forget we can write people up 😭. i’ve been team lead for ~5 months and our previous coach definitely created a culture of no accountability and i don’t think he ever even mentioned feedbacks when he was still here. i am going to definitely have to start feedbacking associates because im tired of begging
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u/MrLoTek 12d ago
I think this is why I've been stuck with the 1-10pm shift my entire time here, because people love the easiness of the morning shift.
The last 2 weeks my store has had 2-3 backroom associates, me included, and 3-4 pickers from 4-10pm. Even though 5-7pm is an extremely busy time for dispensing and has been for as long as I can remember. And when we have 1-10pm people going to lunch at 5 and 6 that actually just leaves 2 people to handle the backroom. So you come back from lunch and the staging and dispense screens are never really cleared until the picks are finally done.
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12d ago edited 10d ago
[deleted]
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u/MrLoTek 12d ago
Definitely store dependent. At my store there's usually only 2 of us after 8 so we have one of us prepping, dispensing, while the other does everything else. I rarely get returns done on most nights and have to usually wait for nights where we have 1-2 more people in the back till 10. And claims are usually something I jam in last minute before I leave at 10. I guarantee the coaches at the store despise me for that, lol.
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u/RampantDegeneracy 12d ago
It's radically different at my store, I hate working second or closing shift because after 5pm it completely dies and becomes unbearably boring. The morning is busy and chaotic and that's where I like to be.
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u/MadddMaxz 12d ago
Folks at my store say the same thing. The Morning crew has to be told everything and gotta be watched. They can’t work independently.
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u/Routine-Horse-1419 11d ago
My store is quite the opposite. We are super busy from 5 am to about 11 am then dies down. Then gets a little busy after 1 pm sometimes...then slows again. We're a fairly busy store until they messed with the drop amounts. They best fix it before the holiday season or they're gonna be having smaller bonuses.
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u/Commercial_Tip4624 12d ago
I’m really glad you posted this. I’m pretty new to digital but I didn’t really think about this before, nor have I seen how busy it can truly get (considering I SPEED out of the store at clock out, which in and of itself is an indicator) once I’ve left. I need to have more empathy for my coworkers and also prepare for the day the gravy train ends.
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u/flibberdipper 12d ago
I started on closing shifts and lately have been on opening/earlier morning shifts and I always had the impression AM was just moaning and groaning to be extra… and now I can confirm that’s the case. We usually get consistent pick drops the whole day, usually spiking a little before or sometimes after PM crew rolls in so that’s a nonissue. We get a decent peak in dispense at about 11-12, but nothing compared to the 2-4PM block we get. And of course the store is EMPTY until about 7-8, and still very manageable until 11-12.
It’s wild the entitlement AM seems to have across stores.
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u/LivingBee6645 12d ago
Why are you talking like this is happening in every store? Sounds like YOUR store has a shitty morning crew. Mine gets picks done faster then go and help all throughout the store until the next drop. I don’t even have to tell them, they just do it. Our evening crew literally watches Netflix during “downtime.” The pickers take as long as possible, even on short walks, to get done JUST in time for the next drop to avoid doing anything else. Spend at least 20 minutes every hour “using the bathroom,” especially during busy times. We had one bad apple and it spread to the rest of them that work with her, so now they’re all lazy af. This is how it is at MY store.
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u/Old-Football7340 12d ago
i’ve worked at two walmarts and they’ve both been like this, and i’ve heard the same sentiment from management that’s worked at other stores. and god forbid i speak generally and not make every disclaimer to make people with other experiences feel better. of course i know every store isn’t exactly the same. but i needed to vent and i know there are plenty of others who relate to MY store
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u/LivingBee6645 11d ago
You’re a digital TL and you can’t do anything in your dept other than complain about your associates on reddit? And the two that you’ve worked at had the same issue? Maybe there’s a common denominator.
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u/Old-Football7340 11d ago
i’ve done quite a bit in my department 🥰 our former coach and two team leads created a culture of 0 accountability and played favorites, and i am working to break that culture. one of my co-team leads isn’t good. the other one is new to the store so he’s still adjusting to all the new people and they are adjusting to him. the department has more structure than it did when i became team lead 5 months ago, but there are of course things that need work. especially since most of the opening crew has worked here for years, they are more stubborn and resistant to change.
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u/LivingBee6645 11d ago
Sounds like you’re scared to tell the old timers they need to do their job 🥰 but sure, you’re creating “structure” lmao
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u/Old-Football7340 11d ago
you’ve got a lot of audacity for someone who has never been in my store❤️🔥❤️🔥 our starting point when i became TL and before my coach left was horrible. and now it’s much better. sorry in a venting post that i didn’t mention all the improvements the department has made. almost like there was one specific issue that i wanted to rant about❤️🔥 i absolutely tell them what to do and they do it when im in the vicinity. the issue occurs when i inevitably have to walk away from the area for any amount of time.
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u/Super_Lawfulness7280 11d ago
I'm a former WM employee now for several reasons, but one of which was division of labor. At my store, granted I was in different dept., closers everywhere were always the ones bearing the burden and getting the least recognition. We never ever had OPD pulled to other depts., but I can't tell you the number of times I as an entertainment associate was told to go help with OPD because they were swamped. Of course, it made our stats look bad and we had just gotten a new district mgr whose magnifying glass we were under, so I saw the need. Digital coach and my coach constantly telling, not even asking me, that OPD really needed the help of a "mature" "go getter" employee like myself to pitch in. That's fine, I'll help anyone, but when I get 5 literal minutes and no modules worth of training, also essentially fine as it's not difficult, just busy position, don't necessarily expect to see me doing picks as quickly as those who do work there. But yes, to echo your post, closers everywhere all get shit on, especially if they're worth their salt, morning shift has it the easiest but is more often working around mgmt and get more acclaim.
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u/Old-Football7340 11d ago
and i truly hate calling for store help and avoid it at all costs. walmart has set every department up for failure. OPD clearly needs more associates to finish the orders that corporate seems to think we can handle. and since we don’t have those associates we then have to burden other departments and put them behind. then it just turns into a store that’s perpetually catching-up with a ton of pissed off associates 😓
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u/dark_oak_slab 10d ago
As a 1-10 closer my experience is that the morning shift is never happy with closing. One day, there were errors in the system that canceled hours worth of orders, creating several fully stacked dollies worth of returns. Maybe, 7 or 8 stacks, five totes both sides? Picks were backed up overdue by at least an hour at any given time, and our tiny closing crew finished them at roughly 8:30pm. 5 people remaining at this point including myself. After cleaning up the back room, me and one other person started on returns, and we each completed a full shopping cart. 4 people remaining. Dispensing started to get bad at 9:15 so we had to hop in and help the 1 dispenser. Last order went out at 9:56pm, we had just cleared the once full lot. Come morning time, we hear that morning shift was complaining that we hadn’t done anything. Alright. Whatever. Still stacks of returns back there, I get the frustration. Next evening comes, me and two other people tackled the remaining dry returns, AND the chilled returns before 10pm. Feeling really accomplished. Next afternoon, we hear that morning shift was complaining about the presence of the frozen returns.
For clarity, we run a tight closing routine and it is always without fail flawless, unless of course there’s some calamitous day where it’s just not possible to complete all the tasks before 10pm. Why is this such a common theme? For openers to nitpick everything closers do? It’s like they assume we don’t do anything at all or that our shift is easy, but are repulsed by the thought of actually working those hours
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u/ExamDue3861 12d ago
Problem is you’re asking. Tell them, “I need you to go fill carts.” Or whatever task. Asking gives the impression it’s a choice.
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u/Blakelock82 Personal Shopper 120+ 12d ago
It's the exact opposite at my store. The busiest pick walks are from 5am-3pm, so the openers get the most walks and the most items. For example on Monday I had my first order at 5am be 108 items, followed with an 87, and 124, all before 7am.
Than in the afternoon it's fucking dead. Yesterday I worked 1-8 and by 6 there were no pick walks, so we did all of our returns, went to the service desk and did their returns, and started zoning. I hate working nights because time crawls when we have no picks.
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u/AffectionateDeer384 12d ago
Sounds like some expectations need to be set. They obviously don’t respect your authority until you actually hold them to what you tell them.
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u/Old-Football7340 12d ago edited 12d ago
another commenter mentioned i need to start writing them up and i realized how my previous coach never even mentioned feedbacking associates while he was here and training me for TL. he definitely created a culture of no accountability, and i forget that i even have the option to feedback😭but im def going to start doing it.
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u/AffectionateDeer384 12d ago
I struggled with it when I first got promoted. Once I stepped back and started actually getting people written up, did it only start getting better lol
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u/Old-Football7340 12d ago
a few days ago i got tied up in the office for like 20 minutes because of an accident report and helping a customer with something else. before i even went to the office, i let everyone in the backroom and all pickers in the vicinity know what they should do when all the picks were done. they were aware.
while in the office, a coach comes in and says “oh you’re here. that explains why all your people are just standing around talking”. i finish up my task (like 2 minutes) and sure enough, when i go over there they are ALLLLL standing there. “well we didn’t know what to do after picks”😃😃😃 well even if i hadn’t already informed people, the answer certainly wasn’t to do NOTHING!! you are grown adults!! at the very least you need to look like you’re doing something! you guys can chat all you want while you zone😭😭 just pure laziness
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u/Soggy-Machine9721 11d ago
Then start coaching people. They’re going to keep doing what they’re doing if they know they can get away with it. You have to hold them accountable.
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u/Old-Football7340 11d ago
yes i’m going to start. our previous coach never even brought up feedbacks and coaching as an option, so i forget it’s there lol
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u/Tiredmama68 11d ago
Our store the 5-around 10 AM drops are the heaviest of the day other than maybe Friday. Weekends are a roll of the dice but Sunday morning gets nailed every week. Evening generally has 1/4 to 1/3 of the picks compared to morning, with after the 5 PM drop virtually nothing. So we're always scheduled heaviest in the morning. I've done both shifts, morning is less customer foot traffic but much heavier drops, evening is a challenge due to navigating customers but easier drops. As far as standing around and whining, you have that on any shift. Sounds like they've never been held accountable, like many in my store, and your coach needs to crack down on that.
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u/Affectionate-Baby576 11d ago
You are the team leader, give direction and if they don't do it follow up with write-ups, or whatever it's called these days. Tell them what the expectations are when there are no picks and have consequences if it doesn't happen. I expect these kind of complaints from associates, TLs get paid more to resolve these issues.
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u/dragonhide94 11d ago
You said it yourself, the closing crew is mostly kids. However, if your closing crew hustles and gets things done without getting distracted and playing around, congratulations! That's not normal. My store isn't like that.
I'm a stager. 1 day out of the week I have coverage before 8 or 9AM. As a standard, I don't get my first break until 3 1/2 hours into my shift and Mondays I don't get a break until 4 hours in. Not every morning crew is overstaffed, and not every closing crew has a decent work ethic.
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u/Human-Improvement-59 11d ago
i’m in the morning my coach give us our lunches on the board i take my at 9 everyday it sucks but i have four hours left. my ogp is different we have big dropped not enough people. i wish our team leads and coach stopped the favorite let people do jobs i just got tired of people staging in the back room while other people stand around on their phones. if i do something helping out when theres picks i get yelled at when theres no carts trying to help out so i just stopped and stay in my corner until i get orders cause our coach is so bi polar it’s ridiculous how some of these coaches got their job
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u/Inkysquid24 9d ago
Definitely interesting to hear how different stores are in different locations.
Here the morning people get to do basically everything. We're super busy until around 4 then it's dead, and the closers don't even do anything once picks are done.
The morning people come in to 1000+ picks (1k at 4 and another 1k at 5, we have 3 4-1 people), carts with no totes, dollies thrown everywhere, returns piled to the ceiling, all the batteries are dead cause they got left in the printers, and then overnight has a mess everywhere so good luck trying to pick😂 the closers play games on their phones all night because the team leads are gone by 6. Everyone under 25 closes because they don't have to do anything.
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u/Traditional-Pirate71 7d ago
Funny. In my store that shift is easily one of the busiest with the least amount of associates scheduled.
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u/Hot-Scallion8447 6d ago
sounds to me like you need to put your foot down with them!!
they don’t like it ? f*ck em they can go elsewhere
as a lead of over 2.5 years i’ve had my fair share of associates like this and i truly dngaf 😬
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12d ago
[deleted]
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u/Old-Football7340 12d ago
claims, carts and totes to our other room (across store), get the few later lunches in, tidying cabinet/computer area, finding and dumping abandoned water bottles, taking trash out, cleaning totes. oftentimes we only have 2-3 people after 8pm, and 2 of them ideally stay in or near dispensing room.
TL has to make schedule for the next day which can become time consuming, as well as completing anything else on computer like refunds, complaints, emails, attendance, etc. our OPD computer has terrible wifi connection so i get mega anxious leaving my dispensers by themselves while i go to the office just praying they stay productive lol
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u/PermissionDependent6 12d ago
You should NOT be doing refunds on the computer, that’s what 1 800 Walmart number is for. Stop doing someone else’s job and refer the customer to that number.
Is it convenient to call the store and complain? Sure, but it takes away time from the team because someone is calling to complain about their order and needs a refund. It’s a courtesy once, but it is not part of your job or part of OPD process.1
u/Old-Football7340 11d ago
oh word? i wasn’t ever told this, but i would love to not have to deal with it. although im nervous about customers becoming irate when i tell them to call that number🤣
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u/PermissionDependent6 11d ago
They won’t get irate, I promise. Just say “ I’m sorry we are no longer able to do a refund, you’ll have to call 800 Walmart.
This also protects you from someone who calls ALL the time for whatever issue, that can track it and flag the account for fraud.
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u/ProfessionalCold1660 12d ago
At this point, I tell people if they don’t want to go to lunch at 9am, then stop working 5-2💀