During "happy hour" who can afford to drink anywhere else? $1 domestic bottles. $3 pints of local brews when the local brewery is charging $6. This is why HyVee is loosing money.
Hy-Vee-What's up?
- Thread starter dmclone
- Start date
During "happy hour" who can afford to drink anywhere else? $1 domestic bottles. $3 pints of local brews when the local brewery is charging $6. This is why HyVee is loosing money.
We ate at Market Grill a few times, usually on a Friday or Saturday night when most other restaurants are busy. I'm sure it goes against what HyVee wants, but having a separate entrance rather than having to navigate the front of the store would give me more reason to visit.
1st world grocery clerk problems....I remember them well.
Perhaps nothing worse than the first time you’re assigned to mop the deli and bakery after they close....
@CYdTracked it has been really interesting reading your thoughts on this. I also worked for HyVee at their Westlakes store for several years when that store first opened. And my thoughts on the change in the company over the last few years now observing my local store in KC are almost exactly the same. I see so much crap that just wouldn't have happened in my days there in WDM. I've always been willing to dismiss some of it as details can get ignored a bit easier when you aren't in corporate's back yard, but it is clearly more than that. They have really abandoned a lot of their core competencies. They need to get back to some of the basics of what got them here in the first place.
The fuel saver is really the only reason my wife still goes to HyVee. Once they **** with that, and the new Aldis opening in Grimes, she gone
And I was on the other end of this. I'd have the meat manager calling me up saying "We don't pay our meat cutters $10/hour to go up there and bag your groceries". Then when this got bad enough the actual meat manager would come up front and bag groceries and the assistant manager would say "Why is our meat manager bagging groceries". Then 2 seconds later a customer is yelling at me because she can't buy a cooked chicken with food stamps. Then I have to do an overide for a customer that wants an item free because we charged her LESS than what the shelf price was. Then I have to make sure all my 14-15 year olds are punched out by 6:45pm. Then I have to figure out why a cashier is coming up $4.27 short at her register. Then I have to send everyone home at 10pm and finish the work that they didn't get done. It's 11pm now and the night stock crew is calling me to check out customers. Oh and I have to work tomorrow at 5am! "Thank you for shopping at Hy-Vee"
And I was on the other end of this. I'd have the meat manager calling me up saying "We don't pay our meat cutters $10/hour to go up there and bag your groceries". Then when this got bad enough the actual meat manager would come up front and bag groceries and the assistant manager would say "Why is our meat manager bagging groceries". Then 2 seconds later a customer is yelling at me because she can't buy a cooked chicken with food stamps. Then I have to do an overide for a customer that wants an item free because we charged her LESS than what the shelf price was. Then I have to make sure all my 14-15 year olds are punched out by 6:45pm. Then I have to figure out why a cashier is coming up $4.27 short at her register. Then I have to send everyone home at 10pm and finish the work that they didn't get done. It's 11pm now and the night stock crew is calling me to check out customers. Oh and I have to work tomorrow at 5am! "Thank you for shopping at Hy-Vee"
I don’t have time to listen to your problems, I have to face front the cereal aisle...
And I was on the other end of this. I'd have the meat manager calling me up saying "We don't pay our meat cutters $10/hour to go up there and bag your groceries". Then when this got bad enough the actual meat manager would come up front and bag groceries and the assistant manager would say "Why is our meat manager bagging groceries". Then 2 seconds later a customer is yelling at me because she can't buy a cooked chicken with food stamps. Then I have to do an overide for a customer that wants an item free because we charged her LESS than what the shelf price was. Then I have to make sure all my 14-15 year olds are punched out by 6:45pm. Then I have to figure out why a cashier is coming up $4.27 short at her register. Then I have to send everyone home at 10pm and finish the work that they didn't get done. It's 11pm now and the night stock crew is calling me to check out customers. Oh and I have to work tomorrow at 5am! "Thank you for shopping at Hy-Vee"
I don’t know if this is an industry wide thing but I have never gotten that “One-Store” vibe from Hyvee or their employees. They seem to be fiercely loyal to their own departments to the point of not wanting help from other areas and not wanting to give help to other areas.
We had:
"There's a helpless frown on every clown."
And
"There's a helpful ***** by every door."
I worked part time at Hy-Vee in the 70's. Then two years full time before deciding to go to ISU and get a degree.
We had a store manager, and two assistant managers, and then what I guess you are calling shift managers, we called swing-men (probably changed later due to females getting those positions so makes sense).
No one was allowed to work there unless you were at least 16 years old.
Every male had to wear a shirt and tie. A WHITE shirt and tie. And jeans were not allowed.
And everyone was free game to come up for bagging (they called it 'courtesy' help). I was dairy manager and got called up often. (But sometimes when in the cooler I couldn't hear - and sometimes I heard but pretended I couldn't).
And the same Ric Jurgens who became CEO was just one of the swing-men at our store all those years before. I know he was an ISU guy. So they did promote all the way up back in those days.
I haven't noticed that much difference in stores as others have. But I really don't go that often. Aldi is pretty much 90% for me.
I have had a few negatives where I've specifically asked about certain items that a particular store does not stock that others do. Each time I was steered to a person who wrote down what I wanted and assured me they could order a case of it and would call me when it came in. Every time I got no call.
The "one store" sounds great but the "My department is going to make an embarrassing amount of profit" makes more money.
I hate to say it since he was a military man, but
General Hy-Vee's Chicken is a bland piece of garbage soaked in way too much goop.
General Hy-Vee's Chicken is a bland piece of garbage soaked in way too much goop.
and I ******* love it. Hy-Chi is my favorite Chinese food.
No. No. No.
Not even close. I love their fried chicken but General Hy-Vee's Chicken can't even be considered Chinese food.
Some kind of Midwest fusion or something. Throw some gravy on there to give it some taste. Can't hurt
Hy-Chi General Chicken egg roll/Rangoon surprise:
-Slice open two egg rolls and two crab rangoon
-spread out in bottom of plate.
-Add layer of your preferred rice.
-add healthy portion general chicken on top of rice
-add at least 1 cup of shredded Mexican blend cheese on top
-microwave on high for 45 seconds or until cheese is melted
-****
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Plus the damn self checkout screams, "Have you used your Hy-Vee Fuel Saver Card today?" at you!!
So you worked when it opened in 1998? Curious what you did there, I didn't really know a whole lot of people outside of the meat room or store management as I just didn't get a lot of interaction with the rest of the part timers obviously. I still shop there today as it is the closest store from where I work so it is really convenient to stop there on the way home. Not many people left from when we worked there but in retail I am not surprised by that either it is a high turnover business and those who do hang around either stay in 1 spot for a long time or jump to the next promotion they can get. I am really impressed with the current store director they have there as I bet 75% of the times I am in there I run into him either in passing or he's running a check out lane or helping dish up some food from the Chinese or kitchen. Always quick to say hi and ask how you are doing and maybe even make small talk so I get a sense he's probably a very hands on director that knows what is going on there. I couldn't say the same about the guy that was the director when it first opened up. He was usually up in his office a lot and never saw him get out on the floor and help much. He probably was able to get away with it in part that the managers directly under him were really good as well as the department heads too plus that store is in an area that it will always get a lot of business regardless because there is no other grocery store within several miles of it. I did enjoy getting to visit a good chunk of the stores during 2 summers and part of a spring after a college doing some IT work for them as I got to meet a lot of great people that ran the stores. Was interesting to see the behind the scenes stuff that goes on in both larger and smaller stores they have and the type of people they had a the top of their management.
You save more in one trip to Aldis than that card will save you. It's night and day.
The Hy-Vee Chinese is very hit or miss in some stores unfortunately because it all depends on who is making it. If they have some guys that know what they are doing some stores make some of that stuff really good while others is blah. The ironic thing about this is that back when West Lakes first opened they had a manager that was able to buy some awesome locally made egg rolls that were way better than what they had then someone in corporate found out and told them they couldn't use them anymore because all the stores needed to be consistent with their recipes so customers were not going to 1 store over the other because 1 store does something differently. I get that line of thinking but with the taste and quality of the food is noticeably different from store to store even if they are all using the same recipes and ingredients then they ought to address that issue better too. Heck even back in the meat room before they started to pre-pack a lot of the stuff we originally hand made I bet there was some differences because I doubt we mixed our marinades the same strength or our ingredients we used for other stuff the same way as every store did which is probably part of the reason they started automating that stuff with pre-made stuff too.
