Supermarket Engineers

[bernard]

There seems to be a serious lack of supermarket engineers,is there something I don,t Know??Every engineer I try and poach is not interested.

Regards Bernard

[taz24]

There seems to be a serious lack of supermarket engineers,is there something I don,t Know??Every engineer I try and poach is not interested.

Regards Bernard

Hi Bernard.

I have worked in industrial and the comercial side of fridge.
I have worked though for most of my years in supermarkets (20 odd) and did enjoy it.
I would say that over the last few years the freedom the engineers used to have, has gone.
The engineer used to be his own boss and had lots of free time which made up for the unsocial hours and callout.
Now the engineers have trackers fitted to vehicles and have to account for every second of the working day.

Money is important but the freedom of the service engineer is what applealed to me.

Cheers taz.

[LRAC]

The problem is the super market managers treat engineers like S**T you wouldn't get me doing supermarkets again. And all the systems have dial out alarms you end up working all day and all night.

[Latte]

Bernard,

The money on supermarket work is better than normal, that normally tells you something.
As LRAC say's Supermarkets are now a 24 hour operation and they expect the same level of support.

I have on more than one occassion done over 100 hours overtime in a month and one i remeber was 120

Everything is now monitered so as soon as an alarm goes off they are on the phone., Managers are not trained to know whats an emergency or not but with Health and Saftey in full swing a light bulb out in a walk in not working can be placed as an emergency 4 hour response.

Dont get me wrong, i enjoyed the job. Yes, some of the managers look down at you or just ignore you but i have and always will say if you are single with little family life and want to earn lots of money this is the way to go

Im just too old for all that now

Regards

raymond

[chillin out]

Yep, thats the problem.

All the good guys left cos they got treated like muck when they found out that there are jobs with less work/less stress and more money.

I love fridges, always have done and probably always will do, but the way I get treated makes me want to leave it all behind.

Chillin

[LRAC]

The biggest problem was when you asked the manager to empty a case out, they would bitch about loosing sales, not my problem?

It would take them hours to arrange it so in the end i use to tell them that a massive flood was on the way, by god that got them in gear. You were never appreciated and never thanked.

Yes i did have some good store managers actually nice people and i would go out of my way too help them but not many.

Supermarkets is a mugs game

[Gary]

Supermarket work is controlled by the bean counters and clock watchers. If you fix it right, you took too long. If you slap a bandaid on it and run out the door, you are the hero... even if it breaks down again next week. This is true of most commercial service, but supermarkets are the worst. 40 years of this is sufficient punishment for anything I may have done in all of my past lives. I find retirement to be far less stressful.

[bill allen]

everythings controlled by the bean counters these days i've done a bit of supermarket work and i reckon its good money for a young bloke. when u start chukn a managers stock around he soon finds some staff to get it outa there. my last job was at a large a/c company they had me reclaiming 500kg of r123 with a small javac shark vac pump, they didnt want to pay to bring a l/p reclaim in from interstate.

[bernard]

[QUOTE=LRAC;71486]The biggest problem was when you asked the manager to empty a case out, they would bitch about loosing sales, not my problem?

It would take them hours to arrange it so in the end i use to tell them that a massive flood was on the way, by god that got them in gear. You were never appreciated and never thanked

Yes i did have some good store managers actually nice people and i would go out of my way too help them but not many.


*****************************************************************************

Supermarket work has changed a lot in the last year,The case must be empty on arrival or give them 15 mins,if not empty turn around and go, plus the visit is chargable.Parasence will only call you out for 5 or more cases overnight.

Regards Bernard

[chillin out]

Parasence will only call you out for 5 or more cases overnight.

Regards Bernard

What Parasence are you dealing with then??

I just got a call about 30 minutes ago for one case. They are always phoning me, even if it's the same case alarming within 5 minutes of itself.
Usually when I call the store they know nothing about it and all cases are down to temp.

Chillin

[bernard]

Strange,at first we used to get called out all through the night, now single case alarms stop at 7pm.Parasence will still e-mail store,but we don,t get call till next morning

If probe temps on graph touch this will cause critical alarm also if you cook the coil on defrost.

Chillin are you able to monitor your store temps from home???


Regards Bernard

[chillin out]

Yep, I know the website but can't remember the log in pass.

I am usually out on a job anyway, unless it's the middle of the night so it's easier just to phone the store.

Chillin

[GHAZ]

i,ve been to supermarkets trouble shooting compressor failures,and when i,ve been there the engineers are under alot of pressure from the office and from the shop managers and they also moan about being under paid and working long hours just to make ends meet and it stresses them out, because they can,t spend extra time doing the job properly

[mug]

Supermarket work has changed a lot in the last year,The case must be empty on arrival or give them 15 mins,if not empty turn around and go, plus the visit is chargable.Parasence will only call you out for 5 or more cases overnight.

I've heard this too.......

PARRASENCE IS THE BIGGEST THORN IN OUR SIDE!! I've just finished fixing a gas leak in a sainburys 4 which i had to pump down the pack, (which is fine) left site all up and running a treat! just to be called back to a pack alarm once half way home to find it was from that repair hours pervious! CRAP! emptied in 15 mins!! (that must be after finding the manager and then begging him on your knees untill he gets sick of tripping over you)! an 5 or more cabs in the night!! (i must of drempt of all those times i've been there banging on the door at 2am just to look at a single petty fault) I HATE THIS SYSTEM BY THE WAY!! AN I KNOW IT FIRST HAND!!
thanks.

[bernard]

Supermarket work has changed a lot in the last year,The case must be empty on arrival or give them 15 mins,if not empty turn around and go, plus the visit is chargable.Parasence will only call you out for 5 or more cases overnight.

I've heard this too.......

PARRASENCE IS THE BIGGEST THORN IN OUR SIDE!! I've just finished fixing a gas leak in a sainburys 4 which i had to pump down the pack, (which is fine) left site all up and running a treat! just to be called back to a pack alarm once half way home to find it was from that repair hours pervious! CRAP! emptied in 15 mins!! (that must be after finding the manager and then begging him on your knees untill he gets sick of tripping over you)! an 5 or more cabs in the night!! (i must of drempt of all those times i've been there banging on the door at 2am just to look at a single petty fault) I HATE THIS SYSTEM BY THE WAY!! AN I KNOW IT FIRST HAND!!
thanks.

Hi Mug

I,m no lover of parasence but its here to stay,once the cases are set up correctly it does work,unfortunately overstocked cases and high ambients set it off.Surely if you inhibited the pack alarm and all cases supplied from it while you carried out the repair then you wouldn,t have caused the alarms and call out.

I find my self speaking to trend more and more because the stores are to warm they then offset their probes and drop the store temps.

Or the defrosts are set to long with a high termanation temp,parasence can,t tell if a case is on a defrost.


Regards Bernard

Regards Bernard

[Keef_Controls]

Supermarket work has changed a lot in the last year,The case must be empty on arrival or give them 15 mins,if not empty turn around and go, plus the visit is chargable.Parasence will only call you out for 5 or more cases overnight.

I've heard this too.......

PARRASENCE IS THE BIGGEST THORN IN OUR SIDE!! I've just finished fixing a gas leak in a sainburys 4 which i had to pump down the pack, (which is fine) left site all up and running a treat! just to be called back to a pack alarm once half way home to find it was from that repair hours pervious! CRAP! emptied in 15 mins!! (that must be after finding the manager and then begging him on your knees untill he gets sick of tripping over you)! an 5 or more cabs in the night!! (i must of drempt of all those times i've been there banging on the door at 2am just to look at a single petty fault) I HATE THIS SYSTEM BY THE WAY!! AN I KNOW IT FIRST HAND!!
thanks.

I agree It does'nt seem to user friendly - just starting working in a few JS's again after leaving RCS 2 years ago, i was quite supprised.. It seems as if they are still developing it - after selling it.. The idea behind it is good though.

[joe magee]

I have been in markets for six years, before that I did mostly resturants,ice machines etc. I left that to make the big bucks. I burned out about six months ago. It's always just take one more call. Were slammed were stacked were too busy. One of the techs rolled his van after falling asleep. He had worked 28 hours went home and slept a few and was told he better get back to work or else . They moved that manager quick. Management uses words like wimps, pussys and back in the day when I ran calls I would sleep in my van. In our one branch in the valley north of La they have an average of fifty calls holding at any one time. The less techs they have means more work for the remaining few. I don't see it getting any better any time soon.

[Latte]

Any of you supermarket guys (EU) signed up to the working time directive Another piece of legislation that isnt going to work

Regards

Raymond

[mug]

we had to sign out of it just to get the job. love to see the boss's face if i came out with that!:-)

[mug]

I have been in markets for six years, before that I did mostly resturants,ice machines etc. I left that to make the big bucks. I burned out about six months ago. It's always just take one more call. Were slammed were stacked were too busy. One of the techs rolled his van after falling asleep. He had worked 28 hours went home and slept a few and was told he better get back to work or else . They moved that manager quick. Management uses words like wimps, pussys and back in the day when I ran calls I would sleep in my van. In our one branch in the valley north of La they have an average of fifty calls holding at any one time. The less techs they have means more work for the remaining few. I don't see it getting any better any time soon.
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its the same over here! quite dangerous really! Mind i quit a good job after my manager came out with "you should of done that extra job" after a hard weekend on call! Shame it took about 4 lads to leave before he was given his cards!