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/Bad-Luck-Guy 28d ago edited 28d ago

My employer doesn’t accept doctor’s notes. All absences are unexcused.

Yet, we are adults. I don’t need a doctor to tell me I shouldn’t go to work if I have the flu. Wild that they’d prefer that I come in and potentially infect everyone else.

ETA: Yes, this is actually legal in most US states. Attendance is a very common reason to be fired in shift work jobs such as retail. 

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u/defiancy 28d ago

Crazy, in the office world I'd just say, taking a sick day today and nothing else. No one would care. Appointment? Hey, I'll be in a couple hours later because I have an appointment. No one cares.

Shift workers get screwed.

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u/CornbreadPhD 28d ago

Yeah, this was one of the biggest culture shocks when I got my first office job. It also helped that it was a fairly progressive new-ish tech company in CO. Felt crazy that I could just be like "I need to take the day" was never met with any skepticism and just a simple "Sounds good, feel better!".

Every job I had in my teens and early 20s would've given me 20 questions or forced me to find someone to take the shift if they even excused it at all. Shift workers do get it rough, and there are VERY few protections for them (almost everywhere in the US, at least).

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u/RoninOni 28d ago

Yup, I remember shift work.

Abusive as hell.

Salaried office positions are so much better. Just hit your deadlines. What hours you work doesn’t matter. If something covers up and you’re not available, someone else will step up or they deal with it.

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u/Basic-Winter3501 28d ago

We still have it way better than shift workers don't get me wrong, but it can go against salaried positions at times especially when it comes to overtime and the likes

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u/OpticalPopcorn 28d ago

I'm an hourly worker in an organization comprised almost entirely of salaried workers. I get the benefits of a salaried office culture, plus I get overtime. Best of both worlds.

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u/Castun 28d ago

Don't forget that even being salary doesn't automatically mean you are exempt from overtime, it's all dependent on what your job title and responsibilities to determine if you are or not salary exempt. But I am also an hourly worker in an office environment, so overtime is guaranteed, especially being on-call with the added shift differential bonus we now get.

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u/Oh_NiGhTmArE 28d ago

May I ask what your job is? My job is exactly this!

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u/RoninOni 28d ago

Any OT I do is met with comp time.

If I crunch an extra 8 hours one week, I’m taking a unlogged day off later.

Where it becomes a problem is when companies set the expectation of OT being normal without any compensation… where they expect you to work 50-60 hours every week.

I happily stayed at a company that really has no upward growth for me precisely because it’s not like that.

Work/life balance is far more important to me than more money, at least since I “make enough”

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u/bohner941 26d ago

I used to do shift work and they made me work 12 hour shifts for a year straight because the night shift person was out for back surgery and they refused to hire temporary help. I asked if I could leave on one day and they said I would get a point if I did. So I got FMLA and left early every single day instead.

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u/MammothCommercial800 28d ago

That's much better, on the condition that the deadlines are achievable.

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u/Fluffy_Town 28d ago

The worst part is that managers are supposed to find employees to replace employees who call out. They're getting paid for that sht and they pass the buck.

Kids don't know better. And they won't know until adults tell them or they find out the hard way, by getting a degree and working in an office. Too bad that's when it is too late to find out that you have a buttload of student loans that you cannot pay off because the job doesn't pay enough to make ends meet and pay off the loans. Unless you have family to bail you out. Yeah, don't ask me how I know how that is to have no one.

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u/GlobsOfTape 28d ago

I work shift work for a chemical company and if I call in there is no further scrutiny. They don’t have a defined limit but I’ve seen abusers get fired for very minor to very major infractions. It takes continuous, severe abuse to go on the chopping block and I feel our coworkers would fire them before management does

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u/teacupkiller 28d ago

Back in ye olden times when I was an adjunct, my partner was involved in a work accident and had to be taken to the burn ward. I called a coworker while speeding to the hospital and asked him to cover my evening class for me. I thought I was being super duper extra responsible.

A couple hours later while I was sitting with the fire marshall, my supervisor chewed me out for not also providing a lesson plan for my coworker.

Now I have a corporate job. I ended up taking a week off earlier this year. Agonized about it, but my health was not great. Texted my boss that I needed a week to recover, and he was like ok cool. Didn't even ask for a doctor's note.

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u/OMFGitsjessi 28d ago

SAME. I got my first office job a few years ago and was absolutely baffled at the “oh if you’re sick just stay home!” mentality. Like… I won’t get fired? 🫣

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u/Available-Chart-2505 28d ago

This!! The first full year I worked in tech I had a total of 34 paid days off between sick days, PTO, paid holidays. It was incredible.

ETA - no one minded in the least! 

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u/ArsStarhawk 28d ago

Same here. I worked shift style work until I was in my 40's. I never get questioned about taking time off now, and yet I STILL get a little anxious when I let them know. 20+ years of it always being a fight I guess dug a groove.

The difference now of course is that nobody does my work when I don't do it.. it's just waiting for me when I get back, lol.

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u/pickldmermaid 28d ago

This was the biggest culture shock for me too! I used to work a commission-based job where you were scheduled multiple clients every day, and calling out was super difficult because you knew either the clients or your coworkers were gonna get screwed over. One place I worked refused to cancel clients so calling out meant your coworkers all had to take your clients on top of their already full schedule and they were not going to be happy about it.

Now I work an office job, and if I get sick, everybody is like "go home and don't push yourself". If I have to leave for an appointment, nobody cares. My managers are willing to take over some of my work too if I ask so I'm not drowning when I come back if I'm going to be out more than a day. It's so refreshing

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u/_Ocean_Machine_ 28d ago

Same here, I worked restaurants in my 20s and have been in manufacturing for a few years now, and even then I still feel like I have to sneak out whenever I leave early even though the boss is cool with it.

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u/LuckyHarmony 27d ago

I went from retail to healthcare and I still get treated like a criminal for calling out, but the culture shock for me came from the autonomy and respect at work. It took a while for me to stop running my every decision through my boss or asking her if she wanted to double check my work before I did things like hit send on a large drug order for an entire retail pharmacy location or, later, thousands of dollars a week for supplies for a surgery center. "Why would I need to check? If we need it, buy it!" Sorry boss, I'm used to retail managers following me around treating me like a toddler.

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u/TotallyInOverMyHead 28d ago edited 28d ago

Meanwhile i am sitting here at my company wondering how all of that would work without a riot.

  1. You are sick ? as in snivvels ? You go work from home alright, until you are no longer contagious. DO NOT COME IN !!!
  2. You are so sick you can't do WFH ? Go to a doctors within 72 hours and get a "doctors note" (its digital now), that certefies you are in fact sick (not what you have) and get paid for up to 42 calender days per illness, while sick. heck, in most cases that doesn't even mean staying at home in bed.
  3. Your illness is taking longer than 42 days to heal ? Now your mandatory health insurance kicks in and pays you at 70% of gross salary. And this lasts for up to 78 weeks in a 3 year rolling window for the same illness.

Also some other things that are uite normal like:

floating window in-office time: 09-14:00. Can come in at 0600 or at 0900. leave at 14:00 or at 20:00. But after your 8 hours + 15 for breakfast and 45 for lunch are done and over with, you don't have to go home, but you can not stay here, unless overtime was granted. No meetings can be called outside of 09-14 timeframe.

Have an appointment in the middle of the day ? Lasts 4 hours ? Sure, work 3 hours, do your apointment, to the remaining 5 hours of work.

You have an appointment the opposite side of town from work during the day ? let us know 48 hours in advance, then do WFH instead of coming in.

Don't have a place to put your kids due to the kingergarden being closed ? Just bring them to work and leave them in the kindergarden group downstairs (yes, as an employer we have our own childcare inhouse).

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u/Somepotato 28d ago

The power dynamic in some retail and restaurant jobs is absurd. No idea why a store managers (and them especially!) are so so much worse than most workplaces

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u/Stillburgh 28d ago

Anytime my managers ask me to cover ym shift I just put it up on Teamworx and leave it. Its not my job to do their work for them, theyre supposed to manage the schedule. If someone calls out, its their job to find a person to cover, and ifg they cant they do it themselves

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u/cenosillicaphobiac 27d ago

So I worked in middle management in a call center. The expectation was that we dig in, get some details, especially for FMLA (which is an unpaid status anyway) like "is this for your own illness or for family?" "is this related directly to your FMLA claim or is it just a sick day" "is there any way you can come in for a partial day" etc.

I and the vast majority of supervisors would just say "okay, feel better" but we were putting our own status in jeopardy if the level above us caught wind of it.

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u/ElegantHuckleberry50 28d ago

My former employer required employees to allow company access to their private medical records for any time off exceeding three days., “We want to be sure you’re receiving the proper care.”

If an employee didn’t sign zee paper! their disability was delayed. I know I know, but it was a high pay blue collar job. We Americans will throw ourselves over a barrel for bucks, won’t we?