Will you please state your name, your job title
and the name of the organization you work for? My name's Jonathan Gregory Laffrata,
and uh, I work for Kroger as a meat cutter, and what did you ask me?
Where are you originally from
and what do your parents do for a living?
I’m originally from Lynchburg, Virginia and my dad is an engineer
and my mom is a nurse. How long have you been working at your
current job? About two years. Would you please describe in
detail a typical day on your job? Uh a typical day,
I go in, go in and uhh
and the guys who are just about to leave,
you know, just tell me how the day's going,
if it's busy, tell me what's selling, remind me of
any sales that are going on or things I need
to pay attention to the specific day. Um, So I'll, you know,
work the counter, do everything we need to do, and just talk and create the transition
space. And then, uh, after they leave, you
know, typically I just stand and watch the counters, keep everything full,
like the meat display case, and if anyone else for special orders.
Yeah, other than that, I just stand. What do you like best about your job?
It's not that hard. It's just standing around kinda. Anytime
I do have to do something, it's just stocking or cutting pieces of meat.
And I get to talk to customers a lot, which is
like the best part. What do you like least about it?
Least, um, I don't know. Probably, management. Um, management gets on my nerves a little bit. That’s probably what I like the least… some of the things they do.
Um What would you say the most challenging thing about your job is?
Most challenging, well, there's nothing really challenging. I probably said the most
challenging thing I've learned through my job was trying to
cut a tenderloin. The process that they teach you
is pretty difficult. Like the technique you have to use to cut the part the person wants cut off.
Trimming it down, it's, you know, pretty, it sucks. Would you describe the
worst day you've ever had in your job? Let's
see the worst day I've ever had in my job
was probably one where I was scheduled to work with
the manager usually have two closers with the job sketch
to work with him and he calls in around like
three decides that he's not coming in. So I
worked about three months and I'm by myself on friday
night and it was a game writers I think it
was either game right? It was a game following
basketball on saturday. So many people were just coming
in. My counter was wiped out. People were
coming up to the line lines only for special order
cuts and people wanted stuff from, you know,
that wasn't put out and should have been out there and management
was coming and like word, it was just a
there. I was just so happy. Okay.
Like the most, like there's so many people,
which is like in my face about about the best
day, the best day. Um, I don't
know, there wasn't really a best day, the
best days, like everyone so incredible. We're just,
you know, to improve morale. I guess
they were just like, they would have a cookout
and they would, you know, maybe cook some
food, just have like chips and different, you
know, you know, just in different rotations.
There was some people back there. You know,
all they wanted just to get back there and socialize
with other workers and just relax while you're at work.
It made use enjoy going back there. That's probably the best day.
How well would you say the management of the organization you work
for handles employee's needs. Um, it kind
of depends on the situation and a lot of situations,
I think overall they do a really good job
taking care of their employees, like on a day to day basis and
I make sure I get what they needed. Sorry
. Um, but you know, some things like
the union, like, you know, it's really
like come over and like taking over and like there's
only so much they can do and you know the
way they have everything set up a lot of times
the managers just have their hands tied and in other
situations like that still have, they won't do a
really good job of communicating like when conflict arises and
talking down to the wrong person. And a lot
of times, you know, apologize, you know
, just kind of various dramatic overall like they're pretty
good. It's good. What would you do differently
if you were in charge if I were in charge
? Hmm. Um, I really thought about it
, but probably not a lot. I mean I
might, you know, spend more time talking to
talking to employees just uh, you know, making
sure that they're happy with how things are going and
probably talk to him when we try to get input
from um, you know, because I know just
from my one job, but there are managers,
there are things that the managers don't know that they
should have known they could have known by talking to
making you're talking to someone else and just having a
conversation, you know, anyone that was going around
talking to one person, 10, 15 minute conversation
just about how that day was and I think it's
a large impact, especially if you know all the
managers did that. I brought something up right just
having and some of the simplest album probably sure.
Um how does Virginia attack the university affect your organization's
business? Probably the biggest impact on uh however is
, you know, the seasons in which sales structuring
customers fluctuate during square is obviously gonna be a lot
more students from Virginia in the summer is kind of
slow because obviously it's gone, it's working doing right
on campus by campus. No, that's a legend
. You know, friday saturday and sunday are always
just huge days, especially like on game days,
they're just huge. And then on Saturdays where it's
an away game, you know, it gets,
you know, the schedule is just completely different just
depending on, you know, people are technical plants
and um that place large impact. The schedule of
the campus, Back down the schedule of how the
sales going in my workplace, on top of that
. Just just the kind of people, its students
or professors and teachers of some sort, you know
, it's compared to working in other coders that I've
worked at. It's it's a lot get a lot
different attitude coming to you as most of the students
know what it's like to work job this in a
professional. A lot of the professors can relate to
it because there's probably a lot of students in the
papers that whatever it is, they understand where these
people first when I work in other where I only
associate with, you know, Professional people have professional
job with some sort of you have done what it's
like, it's been 20 years since they got the
job staying close to the new wage that they kind
of lose their kind of some of the respect.
Okay. Um Well working in food service in a
small town with a large university, I'm sure you
meet all different ages of people. So, would
you mind describing one of the worst customers you've ever
had? Let's see the worst customer I ever had
. This is one guy I was in the back
using the restroom and I came back and he just
he flips his lid on because apparently he's been standing
there for like he said, what was 10 or
15 minutes, but I don't think I was going
on. But that's not really the case. I
mean right, when I came back he just started
going and I stood there and I was like,
all right, okay. Like I'm sorry. And
I was a project. I can't really try to
help discuss there. And he gave me his order
and I felt in the hand and he just ripped
it out of my hand and I was it was
totally disrespectful and that's just the one thing that I
noticed about disrespected. It's like I'm here to do
the service. Not only we're getting in the way
we do that service because it's not communicating exactly what
you want. Your communication angry way. It's hard
for me to what you're saying. You said specific
give me a hand. Um Well what are your
future goals? And how do you think holding this
job assist you to achieve as well? Um Future
goals are just probably a job, business world several
major um and how to think how this help me
is? Uh you know I did get to talk
to you man. You know I kind of got
to see what the corporation so I got to see
what you know what the little bit of the corporate
atmosphere was like and how each other and just being
able to be a part of like a team because
the department pretty close together and you know like busy
times hit especially on holidays we have to work together
and pool their resources to get every customer, you
know so quickly and you know just that communication go
long because I think that's the most important part of
just being able to talk. Is there anything else
you'd like to share about your job? Any experiences
or stories? Okay Thank you so much for your 172 00:12:26.200 --> A:middle L:90% time.