Grocery Hell: Second Hand Freezers

Hi there, all.  It's Banja again.  

And today I've got a lesson on why you shouldn't stock your store with secondhand appliances.

I was called back to the freezer section by my manager the other day.  I get back there and she informs me that last night, one of the freezers blinked out for a little bit, and the ice cream in them is starting to get soft.  So my job is to reach in and give the ice cream a quick squeeze.  If the ice cream is squishy, I put it in a cart and take it back to the big freezers until we figure out what to do with them.  If it's solid, I leave it be.

The job doesn't take too long; most of the ice cream survived.  So I finish and stroll back up front, pleased that I've been able to help.  I am now watching the ice cream that comes through my line like a hawk, and I'm even able to help a customer or two who accidentally got a squishy carton that I missed.  (I'm not perfect, I admit.)

I was working 12:30 to 4:30 that day.  Around 3:45 my manager bustles past my register and tells me that she needs my help again.  I quickly pull on my gloves and rush to the back to see what's up.

Out of our 8 ice cream freezers, FIVE of them had just stopped fucking working. No warning, no real reason, they just died.  Manager theorizes that it's because our freezers are secondhand, and tells us that this isn't the first time they've failed.

My manger, another coworker, and myself spent the next 30-40 minutes or so emptying five freezers worth of ice cream.  Even at our lower prices, that's still well over $300. We finally finish the job and go back up front, where we see that a nasty storm was just over the horizon.  The big boss has been informed of the failing freezers and has come in to look at the problem.  As he walks by, he tells me to go get the last few carts that are outside.

It's now 4:25.  But I bite my tongue and rush outside.

Just as I reach the cart corral, it starts to POUR.  It's raining so hard now I can barely see to push the carts back up to the store.  One of our bakery flats rolls away during all this, smacks into a bar outside of our store, and the wheels under the flats roll out into the parking lot.  Thankfully, a nice customer hunted it down and returned it to us.

I was pretty ready to go home after that.  I really wish our store stocked better equipment.

--Banja

 

Comments

[The Last Archimedean]

Sorry about your bad day.

Here's a piece of philosophy that made me smile when a coworker told it to me while I was having a bad day...

White's statement: Don't lose heart...

Owen's comment: ...they may want to cut it out...

Byrd's addition: ...and they want to avoid a lengthy search,

Sending positive thoughts your way...

[Miss Red]

It's not only secondhand stuff that can conk out without warning. At the store I'm at now, one of their freezers died ONE DAY before the store even OPENED! The bags of ice and quarts of ice cream were all kaput, so yours truly got volunteered to haul all of the ice cream containers to the construction dumpster in the parking lot. It didn't help that it was also July, the ice cream was really heavy, the dumpster edge was a bit high, and I am a short little bundle of evil, so by the time I was done evacuating the broken-down freezer, I was wearing a good portion of the rapidly-melting ice cream. Woohoo.

[Lamer]

Sounds like you need to estimate how much was lost, the cost of repair and how much a new one would cost. Don't forget to include loss of productivity!

[banja]

@The Last Archimedean - thanks for the kind words! I'll be sure to remember those ^^

@Miss Red - GACK! I'm saying my thanks that I didn't have to do that!

@Lamer - But I get the bad feeling the managers won't do that...

[TechTiger]

Banja, if you show them numbers for how much it cost them, they might. X amount of product, plus Y amount of your time having to check the product to see if its dead from crappy freezer, plus Z amount of your time having to haul dead product out... and add in at least a mention of 'what happens if a freezer dies overnight when nobody's around to catch it, something goes bad and a customer gets sick and sues'...

[Skittles]

Sorry about your day it sounded awful with the cherry on top of running about in the rain to get carts.

What concerns me is the health codes. I know there are health codes that would require that ice cream to be thrown away regardless of it's state due to it not being maintained at the correct temperature.

[banja]

@TechTiger - That's a really good thought. I wish I'd thought of that while I was there...

@Skittles - Thanks - it really was a bad day! I hand't even thought about the health codes, but apparently we saved most of it? So I was told...

[Skittles]

I obviously don't know the specifics on the health codes in your area, I just remember for the brief time I worked at Safeway they were very strict about x product has to be kept within y temperature range and if it is out of that range for more than z time it gets tossed right away.

[TechTiger]

Always give them reasons that hit the wallets. Any question that starts 'why do they' or 'why don't they' is always answered by 'money'.