has somthing major happened in the world of supermarket fridge ? I am seeing adverts for enthusiastic people to learn to be supermarket fridge guys , no experience needed . either racks have got a lot simpler or you have a big shortage of staff ?
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has somthing major happened in the world of supermarket fridge ? I am seeing adverts for enthusiastic people to learn to be supermarket fridge guys , no experience needed . either racks have got a lot simpler or you have a big shortage of staff ?
My guess is that it is all down to the way we look at things here in UK...
The whole country is run by accountants without any real life experience and now they finally managed to get the cost of the maintenance down to a level where the contractor not are able to send proper, time served / experienced, engineers to service the systems.Quote:
Cheaper, I want it cheaper!
[/end rant]Quote:
You pay peanuts and you will get monkeys working for you
:cool:
all the enthusiasm and hard work in the world won't help you if your thrown out on the job and you don't know what your doing , cheap until it goes wrong
Who in their right mind would get involved with supermarket work,it's obvious they want cheap so they can boost the margins some friends of mine got involved and beat a hasty retreat ok big nationals will take them on? Ok let them fight for contracts cut it all to the bone,I am time served respect my input into my work and do a good job if the people who are awarded the contracts then employ people who are thrown in at the deep end without the knowledge that's needed and screw up!sorry it's not a business ethic that makes sense.
The supermarkets are eventually going to shoot them selves in the foot. Everything is getting screwed to the bone from service to contracts. There is a massive shortage of good timeserved engineers who can hit the ground rolling on this side of the trade and it's as if no one realises or really cares. Where I'm from I don't know of any young lads coming through and trained on supermarkets. There needs to be investment in the future or there will be no future.
There is currently a massive swing to Co2 and there are a lot of people getting shoved out to work on these systems after a couple of days training. If you don't know what you are doing or unsure of how these systems operate they will bite back in a big way. The amount of near misses must be massive and it's just a matter of time God forbid that someone is badly hurt or worse.
I used to really like my job and it was very rewarding but I can see the downward spiral getting worse and it's getting more of a chore to get motivated to go and do the job I used to enjoy.
I bet this is the same for a lot of supermarket fridge guys out there.
it's the same else where , people will cut prices to the bone and do **** work , most systems I look at have been thrown in .
I have done work for transport companies that supply supermarkets and they paid well,but everything was on the hurry up being self employed it soured me but to work in stores count me out the health and safety aspects of co2 and ammonia demands in my opinion the need for no less than two experienced engineers to attend every call is paramount but my guess is this does not happen drive prices down drive quality down too,making accountants happy is a fools game!Quote:
Originally Posted by RONB
..........
98% of supermarket work is 'easy'!:p
If you call easy unblocking drains, cleaning condensers, dealing with shop managers etc......
But what a learning ground for the prospective refrigeration engineer, it either makes you damn good or bitter and twisted which path you take is down to yourself to choose! unfortunately most take the latter and this is why we see the large turnover of staff, mistreatment of engineers by the employers & the customers.
Do you know which contractors are looking (for an improver) ?Quote:
Originally Posted by abp32
try integral
.
Supermarkets want multi-skilled technicians and they
want somebody who is prepared to work the very unsocial
hours that are required.
They have replaced most of the larger central plant (pack)
type systems with large 25 hp to 50 hp compressors on,
which need 2 or 3 people to replace and have slowly been
installing scroll packs with multiple 5 kw to 7 kw compressors
on, that one person can change on their own.
They do not want dedicated time served qualified engineers,
they want multi-skilled guys who will be expected to turn their
hand hand to plumbing, electrical and other such things.
Supermarkets have been dumbed down now for more than
20 years. In the 90's the industry was screaming out for new
blood and it has been like that ever since.
Unfortunately and I'm sad to say this but the refrigeration industry
has slowly been dumbed down to the extent where we are now
no better than the AC industry. The majority of repairs now are
not done through diagnosis and system operation, it is done through
component replacement.
It is sad to say but almost anyone can replace a bunch of components
until the thing works again, but knowing what the fault is and repairing
it is a lost art.
The days are gone where you attended a site and stayed there 3 days,
finding the fault and stripping compressors down to the crank to repair
them. Supermarkets see the engineer - technician as a commodity and
that commodity is needed to be in several locations a day, so no time
for proper repairs and fault diagnosis.
Component replacers are cheap and don't need years of expensive training.
It bit cynical, but after 35 years in supermarkets, one tends to notice the change.
Rob.
.
More like 35 years Rob the firm I worked for was ok until they started doing Sainsburys then the standby went from up till 9pm to 24/7. You would go to bed with your pager (no mobile phones then) waiting for it to go off usually about 2 or 3oclock get up try to get hold of the store key holder who would usually say wait till 6oclock for the bakery manager to arrive ,so you go back to bed and can,t get to sleep and you don,t get paid for that time.
When you finally got to the store you find the alarm was on most of the day before but the staff ignored it and waited for the auto dial out at night.
Even in those days engineers were treated like s##t by the supermarkets you would turn up on a 2 hour response and ask for the case to be emptied only to be told you will have to wait!
The only good side was the money if you did go out in the middle of the night staying on site till 8-30 was the norm.