Topic: I CAN SAVE AAFES MONEY

[worked2death09]

 Please let me save this company money ...
  As our hours have been cut to a mere 22 hrs a week .. We have more supervisors and managers on staff than we do associates  ...
why not cut out ONE manager position ..    and put 2 more 22 hr a week employees on the floor ..   then we'd have almost all departments covered during the busiest parts of the day ...  AND still save MONEY ..,.
   Why is it ...   Our store gets hours before a visit, we can pay 10 people 8 hours for all night stocking parties .. but yet cut the regular stockers hours
  Quit buying cheap brands !!!   Stick with the well known brands. I see 2/3's of the simply perfect appliances come back with problems like "it smells like burning wires"   
 WHY DOES OUR STORE CUT EVERY 40 Hr week position that comes open?   and make 2   24 hr week positions?   We get good employees but cannot afford to work with the minute hours they are given, but yet are expected to be available all hours ...  Many more are heading down the road to the competition  ...   
 LET ME SAVE YOU MONEY !!   Instead of flying managers to meetings why not video conference ...    Why send personnel from HQ to find out why our managers score so low on their "rate your managers" in June. When it's simple ...  They score us low .. "so we have a place to work up from" and we do the same for them.
  WHY spend money on a store makeover ..  when in reality we just need a bigger store ..
 Why do we no longer carry the basic household needs such as WD-40?
Are we intentionally sending the folks down the road to the competition
    LET ME SAVE YOU MONEY !!!
 We are NOT WAlMART ..   Instead focus on what AAFES does that Wal-mart doesn't  ..  LAYAWAY ..  but again ..  make it worth the customers time to use the layaway system.
 Wal-Mart can sell to ANYBODY ..   AFFES is limited to whom they can sell to ..  make them want to come to our store and shop  .. offer better items ..  more selection ..
 We were told MANAGERS would pick up the slack to run registers as the open positions haven't been filled ..  I called for 3 days for any available cashiers ... NO MANAGERS showed up  ,,,     in fact there weren't any employees available ..
 The lines piled up ....   
   Most of us like our jobs, but get very tired of the up and down hours.
The constant changes, and dealing with angry customers because we are no longer carrying the items they shopped for ...
LEAVE it the way it is, older customers don't like the constant changes and can never find anything .. they leave without it because there was no one to ask for help ...
 Find a happy medium and stick with it ...   Come ON AAFES    let's all get on the same page !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   

[Eyesonly]

Welcome to the Boards

It is never about saving money, just shuffling it around.

Case in point, they sell items downrange at the same cost or near to as they do in the rear.  This loses money but supports us.

They commit to giving so much money to the community if they make that money or not.

But they do shift money around from one project and/or plan to another with no regard.

A manager position will not be cut, be it that they have transferred from someplace else, a local national, or just be cause they are a manager.  Like the old saying never to many officers in the military.

Night stocking parties are a temp fix, but more work gets done with less customers and many of the stockers will not got night pay by accident or on purpose

40 hours a week positions are to expensive with personal cost,  you can work to int/part positions those hours instead.  This may change when they drop post COLA.
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=64300
is your warning that will happen.

This month they will save money by not paying overtime for all the people working an extra hour at the time zone change.  Records will be alerted, promises made, but no legal overtime paid.

As for lines, they are not to concerned, look at all the impulse buys that people make while waiting in them.  Look at the lines at the KMCC to even find a parking spot (unless your the right rank).  Look at the lines at the Pulaski Shoppette (only place to shop since Vogelweh closed).  At the town hall meeting on Tuesday the problems with Vogelweh closing were brought up and then ignored.  Look at how many positions need to be filled at the KMCC, they have had more people quit in one day then other places have staff.

As for the stocking/selling issues I cannot offer any input.  But as for saving money, they are not interested in that.  Money saved is just funneled to other things.

[40ozloc]

ok why ya'll dont really talk to ppl?

[Eyesonly]

and this is on subject how?

[Eyesonly]

ok why ya'll dont really talk to ppl?

how does this relate to the subject?

[Disgruntled]

40 hours a week positions are to expensive with personal cost,  you can work to int/part positions those hours instead.  This may change when they drop post COLA.
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=64300
is your warning that will happen.

No, 40-hour RFT positions are NOT too expensive. When you consider that the people working those jobs are not likely to walk away for a job with one more hour and that they are not going to walk away from a job with benefits, then you have an employee for life. Hire someone for INT or RPT, you still spend the same amount of money hiring and training (yeah, I know...). Then they leave the minute something better comes along. AAFES is going to come up with yet another excuse to cut people/hours now that they are going to have to provide life insurance and long-term care policies for the RFT people. Of course, the health insurance is going up a bunch as are the deductibles; coverage is going down and AAFES actually chose to ignore a federal law for one part of the coverage.

We spend way too much money on the endless cycle of recruitment because people see how much crap they have to go through for 15-20 hours a week (if they are lucky) in the middle of the darned day so that they can't work a second job (which AAFES wants to tell you cannot do anyway) or even a third (which some of our people do--two jobs on weekdays, plus some weekend shifts elsewhere). AAFES likes to claim you work for them first and everything else (including family) is secondary. 

[anotherguy]

It's really not that much different from what is going on out in other retailers.  Walmart, Target, Kmart and the rest all are doing the same things or worse.

Do a search for Walmart Sucks, Kmart Sucks, Target Sucks, etc. and you can see what their employees are saying about those companies.  I particularly enjoy the Walmart Sucks ones---you might want to even checkout www.peopleofwalmart.com for a laugh or two.

[Disgruntled]

Work for HQ, do you? Your post reads like a typical response from them.

If I thought I could get away with it, I would put up a "people of AAFES" picture site. I have never seen so many tattoos in one place in my life. Or oriental women over 70 decked out in mini-skirts... Sorry, but our clientele is not any prettier. For that matter, nor are some of our employees.

The difference between the stores you listed and AAFES is that our agency is designed to serve a specific demographic and (as an adjunct) provide gainful employment for spouses/dependents. The benefits are still needed for those spouses who get traded in on younger models and for those who started working for AAFES straight out of school and stayed loyal despite all the BS. But, even as a spouse, paid leave is still needed because people cannot afford to take a day off and give up that little bit of pay.

[badu.washington]

How much does AAFES really help out the military communities?? feed back is needed

[Disgruntled]

No taxes. That's about it.

The MWR money rarely goes to services stateside because the bases are contracting the work out. Our base library is run by the county, the craft shop is 100% contractor as is the auto craft shop. Our school isn't even DoD--the county is in charge of it, too.

Most of the MWR money where I'm at goes to the units for their holiday parties per command.

[TheFreud]

Do a search for Walmart Sucks, Kmart Sucks, Target Sucks, etc.

Yeah- but they were smart enough to buy out the urls (walmartsucks.com, targetsucks.com etc) to keep people from me from having sites like this.

[notaafes]

I agree with the layaway and focusing on the customer.  But when the store you go to does not have really anyting worth putting on layaway then at least let the employee focus on the customer.  Yeah well that does not happen either you can walk into this place and just see the depression and worry on the employees and supervisors, mangers faces.  I have watched mangers get paged and they just take deep breathes before they answer the phone.  Now that is not right. But once again it is the store that makes up there own rules and does not treat the employees with respect. The upper manger i mean upper look down at the other mangers, supervisors, and employees.  But they also do not really have or do they order anything for the store that is good for the soldiers and families stationed at the post.  If you have a family do not plan at shopping at this PX because they have very little for you and your family. But at least let them make the soldiers that do come there feel a warm greeting and a happy hello not a look of depression.  I have been to other PX and talked to other employees and they or have i ever seen the way that customers and employees are treated.  I know they are not perfect but being afraid to go to your job is not something anyone should have to put up with. I know that this is not aafes and i also know like all other retail store the company is not perfect, but one thing is that I have seen them wanting to serve the customer.  Oh more cashiers and more people on the floor would be nice so cutting hours for the employees really should not be, I agree with that. I guess not used to that anymore because this PX never has enough staff and let along them staying past a second hello.

[Disgruntled]

Sounds like almost every PX/BX I've been to of late. 

A lot of stuff is on auto-order now, so the RA's can't order more even if you begged them. Our RAs spend all their time rearranging shelves and scanning holes non-stop when they are not trying to get another store to send them stuff or trying to get those stores to take our extra stuff.

When employees are having to leave the floor or go home because they are crying so hard or traumatized after a manager has chewed them out for something that is an institutional fault, that is a MAJOR problem.

Oh, and for the spies from HQ--someone tell Mr. Howard that the managers in the field have pretty much been told to ignore his edict about paying OT. It still ain't being done.

[posgirl]

As far as OT is here, only one who can authorize it is our GM. He put that out to all of the store managers. At my store if someone calls in sick it has been put out to the other managers and supervisors by the store manager that they cannot call anyone in,, to just deal with it. She doesnt want to add more hours to the BPA. Which means longer lines less help to the customers. To me the store managers and GM's are more concerned with their bonuses than they are with the customers. There have been times when there was only me and a supervisor and a manager in the store.