Snooty Grocery Store Managers Are More Concerned With Good Looking Labels Than Selling Meat, So All Of It Spoils

There are times when it is clear why a corporate policy was written and how, exactly, it benefits their bottom line and/or customer satisfaction.

Other times, corporations incentivize the wrong things and somebody has to pay.

OP worked for a supermarket that was low in drama and high in customer happiness.

I used to work for a small, locally-owned supermarket chain with a small level of bureaucracy and a high focus of getting stuff sold.

After a few years we were taken over by a national chain, which introduced much bureaucracy where emails and phone calls from the bottom to the top would be lost to the ether and left unanswered.

Their focus was highly on image, with staff at head office who seemingly worked to ensure similar-sized products sat next to each other on each shelf so that it looked nice.

They also changed the shop manager’s incentives; their bonuses were the operating budget of their store minus wages, expenses, and written-off stock.

So obviously we were now operating on a shoestring budget so the manager got as much money as they could.

Now, a focus was on keeping costs low and not wasting food.

Before the takeover we had an award-winning butcher department that worked with local farms and catered to customer requests.

The new firm immediately closed the counter and filled chillers full of pre-packed sliced meats instead, that we frequently discounted to prevent them going to the bin.

One day they got a shipment of expensive meat, and a lot of it.

One time we received a dozen cases of a high-end cut of meat, way more than we would usually stock of an affordable packet and therefore at risk of running past its sell-by date and being thrown out.

As it was a new product we didn’t have a price label for it.

After waiting a weekend for the system to update, I emailed head office for a label and filled the chiller, using a pricing gun left over from the takeover to label up each individual packet.

We sold a few by the time I came back in the following week, but was pulled aside by the manglement.

The area manager had been in to inspect the shop and was “horrified” at the “ugly” labels, and demanded they be taken off the shelves until a label was ready.

I explained the issue but they wouldn’t have it, so I took them down as instructed and left in the big fridge at the back of the store.

The meat spoiled, and the manager lost $3k in inventory. Heads rolled, but not OP’s.

They sat there for a month until they expired, after which someone else recorded them for disposal. A few days later someone at head office noticed the enormous increase in wastage and reported it.

Down the chain it came, red-faced area manager storms in to shout at stern-faced store manager, who in turn calls over the intercom for me to drop everything and get to his office.

“I’m just waiting for the label”, I told them both, as they searched for a scapegoat for the £3,000 write-off.

I’ve since had similar at other employers where department heads had bonuses tied to sales but didn’t like me pricing up produce, so hardware would sit and gather dust.

I’m paid by the hour, no bonus, so I’m not going to argue the case.

How would you have handled this differently? Reddit has some ideas!

The top comment agrees that this only causes bad behavior.

These programs never have the effect that management actually wants.

There’s a simple rule.

An official law even exists!

Then again, everyone is honestly getting what they deserve.

This story would be better if someone actually learned something.

I’m betting they didn’t, though.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.