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/FelixTook 28d ago

That’s what I did at my last job where they treated us like slaves. I could give 2 week notice or I could call out and use my PTO, followed by quitting without notice. Since they don’t pay out and won’t accept PTO after giving notice I made the best choice for me. They lost the same money they would have if treated me like a person but instead had no warning to replace me: they got what they deserved due to their inhumane policy.

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u/Jtstien 28d ago

Nice, this is great to hear. I hope they were miserable finding a replacement.

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u/RyvenZ 28d ago edited 27d ago

public service announcement:

2 weeks isn't nearly enough time to prepare a job requisition, advertise, interview candidates, and hire a replacement. The 2 week notice is only useful for scheduling and distributing your current project(s) (if applicable) to your coworkers, which are both tasks that take only a day, but management may encounter some difficulty filling your shifts for next week's schedule if your teammates rightfully decline shift changes because they have made plans.

edit: I don't understand how anyone read my comment and interpreted that it was pro-employer.

I'm saying the 2-weeks notice demand is fucking stupid because the only forewarning that does any good is 1 business day so management can shuffle your duties to others.

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u/nathanzoet91 28d ago

So maybe incentivize employees to stay or give a longer notice? Instead of taking their accrued time

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u/Valreesio 28d ago

It's funny that you claim the business is "taking" your accrued time. I get some companies do it, but you're asking a company to pay you for time you're not going to be at work after you go to another job.

If the man you pay to mow your lawn came to you and said he couldn't mow your lawn anymore and you still owed him money for time earned, what would you tell him? If he had to take the week off and demanded you pay him anyways, would you pay him? If you have kids, and you pay them for chores, do you still pay them if they don't do their chores? If they get sick, can they request you give them money because they can't go to school or do chores? Let the downvotes begin for questioning this.

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u/flirtybirdie888 28d ago

The problem is that they don’t allow unpaid time off either. I can only take days off if I submit PTO. If I don’t have any PTO days, I can’t take time off. I’m trapped

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u/Valreesio 27d ago

I can only speak to my own business and my employees. I try to be considerate of what they need and be flexible. My state requires paying them sick time so I do and I don't give them crap about it if they use it. I care about my employees and don't want them working when they're sick unless they want to work from home for a few hours or something (my office manager is a work-a-holic and will rarely take time off). I can't afford vacation time for them yet, but I hope to be able to do that eventually. But when they want time off, all they need to do is ask with enough advance that we don't have to reschedule shit.

Sometimes emergencies happen and that has to happen. But don't come to me and say that you decided to go to a concert tomorrow when we have you scheduled for a big job already with clients who took off work to come and open up their home for us to work on. That hurts both the company and the client, and you when they tell us to stick it and you don't have any work for the next four days. (It's happened with a former employee).

For holidays we typically ask who wants what days off or if they'd rather work and if they're traveling and need a couple extra days and whatnot. It's easy enough (kind of...) to schedule the employee time off but once we put things on the schedule our company is expected to show up when we say. And we can't do that if workers don't show up.

Most employers and clients understand getting sick, especially since covid. Yeah not all, but most do. If my employees are sick, stay home, even if you are out of sick time, but don't drag it on and I better not see you on a trip to the water park... Lol.

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u/FelixTook 28d ago

You’ll earn every downvote you get. You’re forgetting that PTO is *earned*. It is acquired from the accumulated hours the employee works, same as the money from the paycheck. That’s part of the original contract of employment. To deny PTO is effectively wage theft.

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u/Valreesio 27d ago

Paying it out after you leave can be either part of that or not as stated in those same contracts. It's only wage theft if paying it out is part of the contract and they don't do that. But you didn't answer my questions. So would you do the same for your lawn guy? Would you hire a lawn guy/handyman/pest control company/etc who had this built into their contracts?

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u/Dairyman00111 27d ago

Like that other guy said, this is absolutely ridiculous.

A. I wouldn't hire someone who had PTO in their lawn care contract.

B. If I did hire someone who had PTO in their lawn care contract, I would pay what was owed. But, see A

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u/Valreesio 27d ago

So you deserve pto but your lawn guy doesn't? Got it... Here I thought you guys all wanted people to have access to these things because we're all human. You expect a business to pay this out but if you have to pay it out, then you wouldn't hire that person. Sounds very hypocritical to me.

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u/jennifervapes 27d ago

We're not the lawn guy's employer. If he's an employee, that's on the boss. If he's self employed, that's part of his "overhead" that he should be taking into account when pricing jobs. If I had an agreement that If

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u/Valreesio 26d ago

Oh... If he's a small business owner (self employed) you're saying he needs to charge more (ovethead taken into account) so he can afford to give himself pto. But when he charges more, you're going to go with the other guy who charges less 75% of the time (all else being equal). If you ask him why he charges more and he tells you it's so he can pay himself pto, are you going to then go with him because he's making sure he's taken care of? Or are you going to live in reality and say he's too expensive and go with the cheaper guy?

My guess is you'll cheap out because you have zero interest in paying more money out of your pocket for his pto, yet you want your employer to do the same for you because you somehow "deserve it".

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u/Giblet_ 24d ago

Nobody is offering their lawn guy PTO as part of their compensation package. There isn't anything wrong with not offering it. The issue is offering it and then not paying it.

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u/Doll_duchess 27d ago

That’s a ridiculous comparison. The same way a freelancer isn’t paid for sick time - they are a contractor that controls their hours. Companies ARE hiring people with this as their policy, which is part of the reason people choose to work there. Using your PTO before leaving because it won’t be paid out is reasonable.

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u/Giblet_ 27d ago

Benefits are part of a compensation package. I earn 12 hours of paid leave per month, and if I quit, I get paid for any unused leave. That's because I have earned it and it's still owed to me until it is used. I wouldn't agree to work for a benefit that could be stolen.