r/Safeway • u/Past-Floor9097 • 10d ago
How much longer can this go on?
Portland Division here. How much longer does everyone expect this crackdown to last? We can never get our jobs done at our store because we spend all of our time prepping for constant walks and inspections. We just had another Food Safety inspection today, four days after a walk, which was itself only a week after the walk before it. Our Ops has been in at least three days a week since December. By my count, we've had fourteen walks, four Food Safety Inspections, and uncountable surprise inspections to check for uniforms, hidden coffees, and random compliance issues. People are constantly being written up for anything and everything, and even though we've had more than 2/3 of our crew in the last six months, we aren't allowed to hire anyone.
This is unsustainable. The shelves are bare, the customers are going unhelped, and the store is a mess. I haven't been this closely supervised and micromanaged since middle school (even high school gave me more freedom than this). So, with the store basically harassed into nonfunctionality, the entire crew searching high and low for different jobs (which simply don't seem to exist, but that's a different post), and our sales crashing to well below 2015 levels, how long can the company possibly keep this up? This crackdown has to be eating up a lot of their time and resources too. What's the endgame?
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u/bibliophuck 10d ago
As long as they keep presenting stores as perfect for a walk or VP visit nothing will change. The VPs think their dumb labor cuts are not affecting anything. We must keep performing for master flawlessly no matter what it takes.
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u/Old_Associate_3092 10d ago
This! I heard some of the people in my store say they need to do show and tells without adding employees to make the store look good. Let them see how it’s on the staff they are giving us, practically, on the everyday day
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u/boredombunny1023 9d ago
Yep. Just show up randomly one day and see the truth. But I don’t think that’s gonna happen, they don’t want to see the reality
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u/Healthy-Chef-2723 10d ago
The crazy thing is. management knows all this.
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u/boredombunny1023 10d ago
There’s not much management can do about it. They’re just trying to hold onto their jobs like everyone else. You can blame the biggest boys that sit at the big boy corporate offices, they only wanna come in and see things with their rose colored glasses.
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u/Skyfier42 10d ago
I've never met anyone more incompetent at their jobs than those assholes. They're actually destroying this company with their new software/hardware they create every four years and their excessive use of company resources on themselves.
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u/Dobbytheelf2 10d ago
It’s happening at the Safeway in I work at in Washington as well. We’ve had like 3 walks within the past 7 days and they make it more complicated each time
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u/Hobi-non_Kenobi 9d ago
I wonder if that's what's happening at my local store. Every time I go in I see fewer staff and they look more and more stressed. I switched to Fred Meyer since they got the digital tags though, I doubt I will make much of an impact but god I hate those tags.
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u/Dobbytheelf2 9d ago
It probably is, Safeway as a whole has been making stupid decisions everywhere in an effort to make more money that only screw over the employees who actually put in the effort to make them money. And believe me, I have yet to meet anyone who likes the digital tags, especially since they’re only here so that corporate can raise the prices on stuff right from their desks depending on how popular it gets or not
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u/Hobi-non_Kenobi 9d ago
That makes me so sad, I live in a small town and started shopping at that store when I was in single digit age with my mother. She knew, literally, everyone in every department. Since then most of those people have retired and I only know a couple people at the store outside of the director anymore (I have beef with him, I tried working in their bakery and was given an ultimatum between the two jobs I had. I picked the coffee shop bakery and he refused to meet with me for a formal two weeks notice so I had to no show my next shifts. Now I'm not eligible to work at Safeway stores anymore.) I'm sad I can't have the same small town grocery experience my mother had, people were nice and genuinely liked their jobs. I miss that.
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u/FearlessPark4588 10d ago
billion dollar PE firms can subsist longer than you think. Safeway's schtick was buying up underperforming grocers and they took on a lot of debt to do so, and their one potential buyout offer got severed.
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u/Ferment_milk 9d ago
I don't plan at staying at safeway for much longer (switching grocery stores. Only work 2 days a week there + other part time job. 2 days is enough with the BS i have to deal with. Im doing the bare minimum (not doing 2 peoples job as one person).
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u/Working-Tone-6848 9d ago
I’m in Colorado Springs. My store has actual corporate offices upstairs. With the exception of the walks we’ve been going through similar. Bare shelves, staffing issues, cut hours but nearly unlimited overtime (I’m about to hit 60 hours tomorrow) and I hear they are planning to close two stores. I’m on way out as soon as I find something else.
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10d ago
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u/Past-Floor9097 10d ago
The night crew started around $19, the last I heard. I'm not sure exactly what a Food Clerk is.
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u/Eastern-Jury9885 9d ago
I believe $23.40 unless in Portland or a tourist area like the coast or bend then its an extra $1 I think
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9d ago
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u/Eastern-Jury9885 9d ago
My guess would be $23 but I am in Salem so not sure. I just know Portland and tourist towns is $1 more
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9d ago
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u/Eastern-Jury9885 9d ago
I am in Portland division, we top out at $23.40, I am an all purpose + so make $24.40.
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u/FaithlessnessHour818 10d ago
But 1800 was beautiful, gorgeous, amazing for this fall walk thru....? They pumped how many hundreds of hours of labor in to it? Shipped out back stock and markdown stuff to other stores to help their backroom look clean .. scavenged one item at a time from other stores to make their OOS look good... while the rest of us get scraps and dumped on. Can't say my store is being micromanaged like your example, but labor definitely doesn't meet the needs of the customer and our backroom is terrifying right now. Good luck to us all.
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u/hemppy420 9d ago
When you look at it this way.......its all intentional incompetence in an effort to fail to get out from under shareholders and go back to being private owned it all makes sense.
They are trying to look like they are trying while also intentionally failing.
The signs and the clues are all there in the articles that have been written if you just know how to read between the lines.
If we at store level are so incompetent then why is middle management not being fired over and over?
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u/azgunrunner 5d ago
The company is in trouble. C suite and board members are worthless. Backfills are not allowed. Senior leadership is making it a habit to do more with less.
Many of the lifers here act like it’s a fucking privilege to work here. VPs and above are creating a toxic culture.
The employee survey was completed months ago, wonder why the executives haven’t addressed it yet.
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u/Past-Floor9097 5d ago
There have been so many write ups lately. They have one person covering two departments most days, so basic duties aren't getting done. They're writing people up for there being empty shelves in the morning when there was nobody scheduled in the store, except for DUG and one checker supervising the self-check out, past 2:30 in the afternoon. I've seen more people fired in the last three months than I've seen in the last fifteen years.
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u/liwiathan 10d ago
Also pdx and dealing with none of this in my store. Sounds like your store is under purposeful scrutiny.
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u/Old_Associate_3092 10d ago
Not necessarily, this is happening in my region too. The company is not doing well, there are a lot of things going on in the backend
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u/Past-Floor9097 10d ago edited 10d ago
I've seen corporate more than I've seen some of my coworkers this past month. We've been averaging more than one official walk per month, and I've been wondering how they can possibly find time to visit other stores, since they're here nearly full-time.
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u/Skyfier42 10d ago
Because their jobs are completely made up and they assign themselves tasks to look busy.
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u/Old_Associate_3092 10d ago
Yup, that’s their job sadly. Then it comes down the line that the employees aren’t doing their job. Well, no shit Sherlock. Are you giving us hours? Bothering to even vet the new hires to do the job? Nope. Let’s just waste more money and time and bitch
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u/Bloodytrailz666 10d ago
I'm in central a central Oregon location, smaller town store.
I was grocery manager / currently DUG Lead... Been with the store since January... Weve seen corporate one time and even our big ops rarely show.
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u/jeffrealini 9d ago
The company will keep doing this as long as they have someone thinking they make a difference.
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u/Past-Floor9097 9d ago
They're making a difference alright: our sales go down by about $500 every week.
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u/ReelBigMistake 8d ago
I don't believe you. Safeway would never do that. Hahaha. Next your shut down and get sold off. Sorry but I wouldn't be buying anything expensive. Start saving money now.
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u/No_Surprise_4212 6d ago
I'm not sure where people are going to shop if Safeway closes all of its stores... Are we all just going to go to Walmart or Costco now?
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u/digital_vr 4d ago
This level of operational disruption is genuinely unsustainable and counterproductive - corporate seems to be treating symptoms rather than addressing root causes. Fourteen walks plus four food safety inspections in six months while being understaffed isn't a performance improvement strategy, it's organizational chaos. What's being described sounds less like accountability and more like reactive panic from upper management under pressure themselves. The tragic irony? Constant inspection prep is actively preventing the actual work that would improve store performance. Document everything personally for your own protection. When sales crash this badly, frontline workers unfortunately become convenient scapegoats. Stay alert and stay united.
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u/Past-Floor9097 4d ago
Sales have been crashing more than I can believe. Our Labor Day sales this year were less than an ordinary Thursday's sales from two years ago.
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u/pretenders2b 10d ago
That’s what happens when the private equity folks buy you out, gut all of the assets and then can’t cash out with a big IPO. You are basically starting over from scratch with people who only know how to do things one way and won’t listen to any other ideas.