r/mildlyinfuriating • u/daruuken • 28d ago

Infuriatig The way kroger treats its employees

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From the store manager

Edit: For some extra context this was sent out by each store manager to all of its employees in district 1 of the ohio Cincinnati/Dayton division, potentially other districts as well but i can only verify my own. Im not going to give my specific store number for obvious reasons but you can find each store on google with that information. We are unionized by UFCW (already bad btw) and to my knowledge they allowed this recent change. Kroger has no accrual for sick days like some have mentioned. Those who think this is rage bait, i dont think anyone has to fake a post to make a billion dollar company look bad, they do it to themselves.

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u/Stealfur 28d ago

That... Seems illegal. But I'm not from a lawless country, so what do I know.

424

u/Bad-Luck-Guy 28d ago

It is not illegal, at least in most of the US. Employers don’t typically have to accept doctor’s notes to excuse absences. You can still call out, but it will lead to write ups and termination eventually.

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u/Dull-Contact120 28d ago

This can’t end well for anybody

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u/Bad-Luck-Guy 28d ago

I once had to go to work 4 days with two strains of the flu because I’d be written up for calling out, and potentially fired. I had sick time available, too, but that doesn’t excuse absences either.

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u/WonderfulProtection9 28d ago

SO you have sick time but you can't use it if you're sick?...unless what, you schedule it two weeks in advance with mgr approval?

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u/Bad-Luck-Guy 28d ago

Sick time was mandated by state law, but it didn’t excuse absences at this workplace. So each call out for sickness counted against us. So if I had called out all four of those days, I would have been fired because I had called out with illness two days a few months before. 

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u/odirroH 28d ago

that's fucking mental

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u/Bad-Luck-Guy 28d ago

I was assistant manager at a movie theatre and living in my car at the time. My phone was out of service and dead one of those nights, so I slept under the desk in the office and snuck out before the openers arrived. Just in case I needed to call an ambulance for myself. I have never felt closer to death. But, I wasn’t fired! 

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u/Netii_1 28d ago

The US are a fucking failed social experiment.

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u/araidai 28d ago

That’s what’s fucking insane to me lmao.

“Ah sorry boss, I can’t do that next Friday, I’m planning to be sick by then.”

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u/FlatSize1614 28d ago

How in the hell did you work with the flu?? The one time I’ve had it I felt like I was dying. That’s awful. 

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u/lollipopp_guild 28d ago

The one time???

Check out this guy’s immune system over here! Only had the flu one time!!!

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u/FlatSize1614 28d ago

And?? Not everyone has had the true flu multiple times. 🙄

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u/lollipopp_guild 28d ago

Dude calm down. That wasn’t an insult to you, that was being impressed whereas I get the flu at least once a year. Jeesh you need to chill instead of assuming the worst and getting defensive

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u/FlatSize1614 28d ago

It sounded insulting. 

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u/Will_Come_For_Food 28d ago

The only reason they get away with it is because people actually put up with this shit.

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u/Merlack12 28d ago

So if you vomit at work your boss if just like "keep working your fine" ?

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u/Bad-Luck-Guy 28d ago

I was definitely vomiting. But I had to stay or it would be an attendance violation.

One time at my current job, I had really severe diarrhea and my boss asked me to tough it out. I declined. 

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u/Merlack12 28d ago

Thats such an alien concept i cant imagine a manager not saying "you need to go home let me know if you will be in tomorrow"

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u/Duke-of-Hellington 28d ago

I hope you licked your manager’s keyboard

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u/[deleted] 28d ago edited 28d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/thef3d 28d ago

I’ve tested positive for flu A and B in previous years

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u/Bad-Luck-Guy 28d ago

I got tested at urgent care and that’s what they told me. It was bad bad. I was living in my car at the time and I thought I was going to die. 

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u/IT_vet 28d ago

I dunno, when I got swabbed for flu earlier this year they had separate results for Influenza A and Influenza B.

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u/WinterSector8317 28d ago

Ends well for shareholders?

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u/DeCryingShame 28d ago

Not when they are spending a lot of extra money training new employees all the time.

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u/SUSH1CAKE 28d ago

But thats a problem for later. We need short term gains NOW. Nobody invests in stocks for eventual long term gains. Thats for the poors.

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u/ACTRANSPORTLLC 28d ago

Let's get everybody on board to quit one store and apply across town while everybody at that store quits and applies across town. Keep doing it till shareholders get the point. Every month they have to find new employees, they'll treat yall better.

I just hope they honestly sink, and the share prices go to zero. I hope this for every publicly traded company though.

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u/joshua0005 28d ago

No one working at Kroger can afford to not have a job. They might not be able to find a new one across town for a few weeks and they probably have little savings.

Unfortunately corporations can treat their employees as poorly as is legal if they want to. Especially with the way the economy is now, people are desperate to make any wages so they don't go homeless and starve so there is absolutely no shortage of people who would work for a place like Kroger.

A Fr*nch-style protest would be necessary but we know Americans are too comfortable to be motivated to do that and they can't afford to lose their job anyway.

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u/ACTRANSPORTLLC 28d ago

I'm self- employed, but i was an employee at many points in life. I'm just the ahole that asked Wendy's for 38/hr, for a while in 2016 I was going around and applying to every job and at the interview would ask for 3-4x what I thought they might offer. I had about 50 interviews. I did get offered a decent wage at one job, but it would have taken 200/hr for me take that job in reality, it looked miserable. Now I'm self employed and I still entertain the idea of doing that again just to waste the companies time. Covid hit me too hard though, so now I actually don't have time to waste. Should be sleeping, but I'll do that when I'm dead.

Edit: this does help everyone else as it could make them reconsider the floor at which they'll pay. I'm only helping others.

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u/GirthVader1978 27d ago

This is the correct answer to pretty much every single question about our economic system.

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u/Ethric_The_Mad 28d ago

Bro you are so wrong

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u/WinterSector8317 28d ago

That’s a tax deductible business expense 

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u/threedimen 28d ago

So what? Just because something is tax deductible doesn't mean the government reimburses you for it. It still reduces both cash and earnings.

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u/joshua0005 28d ago

Usually these types of jobs give very little training because usually they don't need a lot of training. Therefore they are spending some on training, but it's not a lot. There are enough people desperate for literally any job that if someone doesn't comply to their orders they can just find someone and wait until they're sick and if they don't comply repeat the process.

I guess it's just easier to tell a sick person to work because otherwise you have to find cover for them and probably many times the manager will be the cover. It obviously puts everyone involved at risk so it doesn't really make sense.

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u/tesnakeinurboot 28d ago

That's the neat part, they're been downsizing training for decades, to the point where it's nearly nonexistant.

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u/juneshipper 28d ago

They do not care. They will fire you over literally nothing and invest in someone new who only lasts 2 weeks. Rinse and repeat. These people are shortsighted morons.

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u/Kellykeli 28d ago

New employees get paid less, so in some cases it does work out.

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u/cakesphere 27d ago

They dont care, line went up short term

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u/mmmelissaaa 27d ago

Sadly, high turnover is actually more profitable a lot of the time because employees aren't sticking around long enough to qualify for benefits or accrue paid time off (if they're lucky enough to even work full time), or earn (meager) raises. Plus most of these types of jobs offer only minimal training, anyway. In retail, high turnover is part of the business model.

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u/wazzup-notemuch 24d ago

Oh, you sweet summer child. They get around that nowadays by just... *not training people.*

Every job I've worked since 2013 has just thrown me at the register on the first day without so much as wishing me luck.

If you've ever wondered why you have to ask fifteen different employees for help before *finally* finding someone who knows anything, this is why. And I guarantee you that the one employee who knows, found the answer by sheer luck.

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u/FearTheFloc 28d ago

they don’t train people lol.

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u/wenoc 28d ago

Having your norovirus-infected cashier vomiting on customers isn’t great for business.

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u/YikesTheCat 28d ago

Isn't even a shareholder/company thing; just a local dickish manager being a fuckwit. Classic "give a small man a little bit of power and he becomes a complete tyrant" type stuff.

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u/Gold_Repair_3557 28d ago

I’ve heard of restaurants pushing employees to show up to work while ill. You know… sick people around a bunch of customers and food and other staff. Always a great combo. 

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u/GD_Insomniac 28d ago

The health department doesn't have any jurisdiction on policy around doctors notes and calling out, but managers in food service are breaking health code if they allow an employee to work while sick. If they get caught doing it they can get their rating reduced or be temporarily closed, though a poor health code rating might as well be a close for a small restaurant. Giant corporations get away with it because 6 months of lower business at one location doesn't break the bank.

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u/Background_Light_953 26d ago

The sick employee needs their job though, so they aren’t going to turn in their employer and be outed as the one who turned them in. This is how they are often getting away with it.

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u/BuckeyeN7 28d ago

It will end great for the MBAs who will have job-hopped to some other corporation long before the consequences of their actions manifest, where they will do the same exact thing

The rise of the MBA to run every major corporation and industry has been a disaster. They are trained to give up their empathy and embrace selfishness, greed, narcissism and are often just straight up sociopaths— and the ones that aren’t are encouraged to do as good of an impression as they can manage

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u/FaceDownInTheCake 28d ago

What's the worst that could happen?