Steerpike

Holy shit, you are brave! I don't think I could do that! How did you make the snake hook?

scrubbedexpat091

took a broom stick, straightened a wire hanger and bent the hangar into a curve at the end. Worked pretty well.

I used to go out as a teenager and look for snakes, and while never handled/dealt with venomous snakes, had used snake hooks before on large non-venomous snakes. I did make sure to put on a pair of jeans and boots and wore a jacket, but the snake was pretty cooperative but did rattle, luckily the bathroom was right by the front door, so didn't have to go far, literally hooked it, walked about 2-3 feet and set it down outside and closed the door, waited an hour, opened the front door and snake gone.

Kind of like this but with a broom stick and wire hanger.

caretaker

Years ago I took a walk up to the old Fairview town site above Oliver where the town used to be in the gold mining days before it burned down. It wasn't finished being developed as a tourist thing yet, but they had the walking paths laid out. I spent an hour or so kicking around in the underbrush in my running shoes looking for artifacts, but didn't find much. A year later I went back and there was a structure with info boards showing the history of the place, and new signs all over saying be careful and watch out for rattlesnakes. I went back down the hill to my parent's place, and the next day when I returned I was wearing combat boots and staying right in the middle of the path. The only rattlesnake bites I want to see are on old westerns on tv. Plus side is hospitals in the Okanagan are prepared and know what to do if one does come in
https://wildsafebc.com/rattlesnake/

Pulaski

That reminds me of an incident a few years ago, soon after I discovered that Lowe's live inventory data is available on their web site. I knew exactly what I wanted, a small specialist plumbing tool not much bigger than a matchbox, and I knew that the Lowe's store that I was in had five of them, which may have been as many as they would have sold in a year, so it was implausible that they were all in someone's hand on the way to the check out.

I walked up and down the plumbing aisles, several times, focusing on the bays with tools, and the bays with PEX pipe and fittings (it was a PEX tool I was looking for), I checked the aisle end-caps, the display bins cluttering the aisles, and the things hung on the racking, but I found nothing, not even an empty shelf space or hanger. Then having previously worked in warehousing, and shopping at Lowes at least once a week over the years, I looked in the racking shelves, and there, above the plumbing tools, I saw a small box marked with the product code (also reported on Lowe's web site) for the tool I was looking for.

I found an employee, who listened sceptically to my explanation, but agreed to fetch the steps to access the racking shelves, and when he brought the box down we found that it contained that store's entire inventory of the tool I was looking for!

scrubbedexpat091

It's why people who illegally keep venomous exotics and up in trouble when they get bitten. Your local hospital isn't going to have exotic antivenom most likely.

It's expensive and difficult to make with limited shelf life.

It's why zoo's with venomous snakes keep their own stockpile of antivenom for all the species they keep.

But hospitals in locations with venomous snakes usually have a stock of antivenom for snakes in their area.

kodokan

Oh no, often it’s a mess, especially in the non-grocery departments - produce, meat, dairy, etc. Most of the produce items say there are ‘999+’ of a thing almost all the time, but the produce team are great guys who never mind being asked about stock levels, and don’t mind me rummaging out back in their fruit-and-veggie lair to hunt (they always offer to check out back for me, but I’m trying to become self-sufficient as everyone’s so busy right now).

Meat is the opposite problem - their items usually say ‘NULL’ for everything. And the names of the cuts of meat can differ from my scanner to the label on the packages, and sometimes the bar code UPC will be different, even though it’s clearly the same type of meat (‘Oh, that’s an old UPC for salmon fillets, we haven’t used that one for years’... sigh). The meat guys are also INCREDIBLY irritable right now, with all the supply chain issues they’re living through, and lose their temper at one or more or us at least daily when we ask about stocks or for clarification that X is the correct item. We’re all tiptoeing about trying to be patient with them, and not be too much of a bother.

I don’t know if this is typical, or the result of virus supply disruptions; the fresh departments never seem to get what they order, or even know what’s actually going to turn up from their order each day until the truck arrives. it feels a bit wartime - ‘sorry Mrs Smith, no corn or strawberries this week, how about a turnip and a nice pineapple?!’

Shelf stable items are more true-to-count, and it doesn’t take too long to check the back stock - it’s actually been quite shocking to learn how extremely limited the back stock is for most things! Except sodas; ALWAYS plenty of pallets of sodas cluttering up the receiving bay, but that’s no use as they’re all shrink-wrapped in giant towers much taller than me, and nothing I’m going to mess with as the bottle and can cascade will kill me. So I try to flag down the Coke/ Pepsi stocking people, ask them if they could possibly get to that pallet next if it’s not too much trouble *points, smiles beamingly* and then circle back around later to see if I can get the elusive item that always seems to be at the bottom. I make it a personal challenge to get what the customer ordered, if at all possible!

scrubbedexpat091

When I worked at Target our backroom was always cluttered with Coke and Pepsi products and chips. We were not allowed under any circumstances to touch the coke and pepsi products in the back, even if the shelf was empty out front, the contract Target had at that time (maybe still do?) said only coke and pepsi stock people could stock the shelf, seems even here in Canada its done that way, same with the Frito Lay chips, we couldn't stock those either, only the Frito Lay person could. It was frustrating as some customers would peek through the stock room window and see pallets of coke but couldn't understand why we could not give them any...

The system used back then was pretty good, majority of the time the product was in the correct location and in the quantity listed but sometimes there was a ghost, system says we should have X amount but its nowhere to be found.

I enjoyed that job, daytime stocking wasn't too bad, no supervisor, no stress, just stocked through the day, but the pay sucked, was only $6.75 per hour which was min wage at that time but hey at the time if you worked 27.75 hours or more per week you got healthcare, but sucked they scheduled nearly everyone not in management at 27.25 hours per week so just shy of the 27.75 hours needed, but hey they could technically say they offered healthcare benefits.

Target was/is more or less a dead end company if you don't have a degree, they required a bachelor or higher for any store management, at least Wal-Mart as bad as they are do promote more from within and its possible to work up from bottom up, where Target seems to prefer the, hire straight out of university into middle level store management with little to no work experience.

Pulaski

I have found the whole shopping experience has become a crap-shoot in recent weeks, and not just fresh produce, but things at random going out of stock - last weekend at one or two of the competing groceries I go to to cover all the bases, I found that mushrooms, locally produced sausage meat (two different brands), and instant porridge oats were out of stock, and bread flour was out of stock in both stores.
Agreed, people would be shocked if they knew how limited the stock is for most groceries - two deliveries a week to the grocery, and each delivery with enough for 3-4 days of business, so if the delivery of product X is late then the shelf will probably be bare four days after the last delivery. There is substantially no stock held at the store that isn't on the shelf, other than deliveries waiting to be put on the shelves.

When I worked in a manufacturer's warehouse, in the UK, the warehouse only held, on average, one week's demand, in other words if deliveries from the factories stopped then the warehouse would be empty in one week on average. "On average" meant that some products produced in batches might be stored for several weeks, or longer for seasonal goods produced ahead of time, but other popular products might run out in only 3-4 days if delieveries stopped, and it certainly wasn't uncommon for a "just in time" delivery to be "not quite in time". There were certainly occasions when I went to the loading docks to get product that had just been received and add it to an order that was being loaded, and on one occasion I remember I loaded an order that was missing a product that we and run out of, and after closing the trailer and it pulling off the dock, a factory delivery backed up to the dock that contained the product that was missing. And for the most part, products came off the production line and were prepped for loading to take to the warehouses - there was very little addtional inventory held at the factories.

So, TL; DNR version: if production stops, deliveries to the warehouses would stop in 24-48 hours, which would run out of supplies in less than 7 days for popular products, and the groceries would have bare shelves 4 days later, so less than two weeks of demand is in the supply chain!

kodokan

I think that sort of hours finagling is typical of all supermarkets- except currently in the online order picking department I’m in! We’re very much the golden child right now, and probably for the next year or two. I could have 40 hours every week if I wanted them; I’ve actually asked/ told my supervisor to put me on more of a 30-32 4-day week pattern for the next month or so, because my daughter is here visiting from out of state, so I want more time with her. He agreed with no issues because he’s a really nice guy, but with lots of mock sadness at losing one of his fastest pickers for one day a week. He frankly says he’d love to schedule me for 7 days a week if it wasn’t for the obvious burn out that would cause, and the fact that obviously I’d refuse!

I currently get $11.50 an hour - with 6 and 12 monthly newbie rises and a cost of living bump that are all baked into the union contract, I’ll be on $13 by next March. And then it’ll go up 50c-$1 every year or so after that - reading the way it’s charted in the contract for the next few years, I’m guessing the company is easing itself into the inevitability that is the $15 minimum wage that will kick in at some point.

Since I’ve already done so many 40 hour weeks, I’m also well on the way to hitting the 52-weekly average hours to qualify for health insurance at the end of my first year, which will save me about $4k. Looking forward to that.

The work is pleasant and easy with just the right amount of human interaction, the other employees are nice, the store management are decent and reasonable people. I get lots of exercise built into my working day; have choice of shift patterns which has settled into a consistent 6a-2p; clock in and out for shifts but no one manages what I do for the 8 hours between so I can take my breaks when I want, take as many restroom pit stops as I want, etc. I have a 401k, and health insurance on the way, and a not completely terrible salary. It’s pretty much recession-proof, and it’s a job I can easily glide into semi-retirement during my 50s. There are much worse things I could be doing.

scrubbedexpat091

Pay is a little more here in BC for grocery stores, but in CAD$ so I guess its actually lower in USD$ lol...

The min wage here in BC is $14.60 which works out to about $10.79 in US$, our min wage will be $15/hr by next June.

My wife worked for 2 months early in this year before the pandemic going online orders for the one chain that does it in house here, the job itself was fine, but the working environment was toxic so she left, that is the biggest with retailers here in Canada, most offer such a toxic work environment, if the work environment in retail stores wasn't so toxic here, they would be so bad. They also hired her part-time 20 hours per week, then as soon as she started wanted her to do 40 hours a week, called her on her days off trying to get her to work, which didn't help, she can't do 40 hours a week with her disability.

Supervisor and above make ok wage in grocery stores, one chain pays dept supervisors 22/hr and assist managers like $26/hr.

scrubbedexpat091

Having now used IC as a customer a few times, I can see why we get such good ratings...

The delivery person on my order today left our stuff on the street in front of the main door, didn't deliver to the door as they were supposed to.

I normally give 5 stars even if a small error occurred, but goodness leaving the items outside where anyone could waltz by and take them and not delivering to the door when the apartment is very clearly on the address just isn't acceptable.

scrubbedexpat091

IC sometimes doesn't understand geography and at least here they don't let the customer choose which store location, all you get to do is pick the chain, IC picks the actual location.

But some reason IC thinks that North Vancouver Wal-Mart is better than choosing Vancouver Wal-Mart for people who live downtown, to get from North Vancouver to Vancouver Downtown requires crossing a bridge, a very congested bridge, something most are not willing to do, unless your already in North Vancouver and going to Vancouver.

Also orders within downtown, sorry $8 with a 0.86 tip wont cut it, parking costs money downtown.

These are common scenarios where orders sit and sit in the available batch sometimes for hours without being taken.

Bots also seem to be an issue, which in part I think explains why we don't see any good batches anymore, just low paying ones nobody wants to do...lol

Only got $24 today, doing $10 orders isn't really worth the time, after taxes and expenses like gas, not sure any money to be made on $10 orders lol

scrubbedexpat091

I am not sure how the whole bot thing works with IC, but seems its probably the problem now that they went back to their usual method of batch offering which may explain why we see so few and what we do see are like $8-$12 which are not worth doing, the time and gas it takes for a $10 shop without a tip.

Having browsed IC subs on reddit, American's seem to tip far better, typical tip here in Vancouver is $3 or less.

The highest batch that has come across today has been $12.60

So far this week we have made $105 worst week so far, last Saturday we were at $250 already.

sid nv

Working part-time as a poll worker is not going too well as certain people seem to be getting irritated at the speed of my vote counting. I do like to be methodical. But a more interesting opportunity has presented itself:

Being paid to be elevated is clearly a role that matches my skillset. But closer inspection reveals:

All well and good, but I don't see age mentioned in that list of attentions. 18 months into my job search and I think ageism might possibly be a thing here.

scrubbedexpat091

ageism is most definitely an issue in both the US and Canada.