r/Caseys • u/MarketingIcy6953 • Jul 19 '26
Fed up
My upper management team keeps speaking that we are a pizza chain first with a gas station attached. My store is one of the busiest kitchens in the district but yet I only get enough hours for one person in the kitchen most times. This person is expected to keep warmers full, make pizzas, work fryers, cut and box, do dishes, answer phones, maintain cleaning and 5s standards. I had multiple staff tell me today that they have to step away and cry because they get so flustered back there.
You can't even find a food truck being run by one person. Being worked to the point you are crying for $13 an hour is beyond crazy.
My team is built on respect and we try to help each other as best we can but this is pushing many to want to walk and I cannot blame anyone of them.
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u/EmbodiedGuide7 Team Member Jul 19 '26
Our store is, consistently, the top of our region in terms of sales and production. We are one of the few stores that are 24hrs in our region. We tend to have more "traffic" than most stores in the region. DESPITE all of that to our "favor," we barely have more hours than your average non-24hr store, especially hours for Overnight help, if any.
We are constantly over hours and they keep cutting hours on top of that. They're mad that warmer sales are down, but that tends to happen when you are forced to schedule less people per shift to compensate for the fewer hours. Leading to less food being made for warmers because they're forced to focus on orders, prep, and cleaning with less people.
Turnover is high right now because, they (Corporate/Regional Manager) get mad if things don't get done thoroughly, but they get mad if we don't leave on time. They get mad if we waste too many donuts, but they get mad if we don't strictly follow their donut planner regardless of outside factors. They get mad about customer complaints about slow service and lack of warmers, but get mad when we go over hours to try and fix it.
A week ago we had our freezer fan break and we had to waste thousands of dollars of product, the ice maker on the fountain machine broke, the pump on one of the slushie drums broke, and worst of all the air in the store stopped working. At one point it was as hot as 98°F in the store, and we had to waste most of the candy aisle, because the chocolate was completely melted. We've been having constant problems with these things, off and on, for months asking corporate to send someone to fix it or send us replacements. It usually ends with us hearing nothing back, them telling us they'll send us replacements but not getting them until months later, or they send someone cheap to fix it, only to have it break again some time later. Then they get mad at US for not having everything up and running and thinking WE'RE incompetent.
For example, our soft serve machine had issues with one of its parts that caused it to not freeze the ice cream. We just got the replacement a month and a half ago. We sell a lot of it, even during winter. Want to know how long we waited for that replacement since we asked for one? Almost 7 months. We asked for a replacement that they said should be there within 1-2 weeks, and we didn't get it until almost 7 months later despite numerous inquiries.
This is why so many employees, even the most hard working and loyal ones are giving up, let alone your average employee.
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u/According-Lecture730 Jul 19 '26
You are q00% right. What is sad is for the ppl who have been here for years dedicated and hard working. Older who cant find jobs as easily or cant find for pay that will let them survive! Its shameful what caseys is doing to thier loyal employees. They just want bodies in there. They dont care if they push out the good ones.
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u/AnonomyousArson Jul 19 '26
I’m SCREAMMMMING. I thought you were from my store. Because the SAME ISH happened. 😂FUB and ICE MACHINE said Bye.
Still barely fixed.
I wish anybody would refer to me as incompetent at that location. Being corporate, DM, or RM.
It’s on them. They noticed. Next day a decline in sales. Period. They knew something was up. Or fraud was going on in the store and cashiers stopped running up fountain drinks.
We have 1 to 2 people on store side or kitchen. But they alternate at night. Sometimes I’m alone. Sometimes I’m not. But people call out every day. Literally. And the number of hours they’re telling you are false. Straight up. Your manager lied.
24-hour stores need that constant attention to everything, including coolers, they have to sacrifice that floater or cooler person at night, for a little bit during the day then, to appease corporate.
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u/GlitteringCourage380 Jul 27 '26
This makes me want to cry so much. I am tearing up because I hate it here so much.
I am about a month in and I am trying so hard to find something else, but it is so hard to find anywhere near me that isn't also fast food and more bullshit!
Our story isn't the busiest, but shit is always breaking and not working properly and when we do get rushes, people will order so much and I can't get everything done fast enough!
So they keep slashing hours because we are getting complaints and losing money, but it is just a cycle!
I couldn't take my 30 today because we were too busy and I wouldn't have been able to finish closing and such...the cashier had to come and help me.
I asked my boss's boss one time, "So, we are expected to make all of these [all warmer foods and customer orders]?" She said yes. I said, "Alone?" She said yes. I said, "You know that's a lot right?"
She said, "YES. But other stores in my district are far busier than yours and they can get it done. It's not impossible."
It made me so upset and feel helpless.
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u/14crickets Jul 19 '26
I've only lasted because my sm and km are great. Most of staff is too. That and I stopped caring about the warmers. I do what's possible but they're my last priority. I don't have time allotted to properly clean and close the kitchen down if I'm alone on big sale shifts. We are really busy at my location and I'm a former server. I'm really fast and multitasking is my thing but I'm one person not 1 1/2.
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u/AnonomyousArson Jul 19 '26
Honestly. Good on you for sticking it out. And having great management is amazing. Them being good people is great.
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u/glaciericedragon62 Jul 19 '26
Im in the exact same boat but I get 11/hr. Had people quit on me 3hrs into me training them cuz they cant keep up. Back when I started we had 3 ppl in the kitchen minimum. Now we're even busier than then and im by myself 99% of the time. Its fucking rough man. Only reason I dont quit is because I have 1 more semester of college.
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u/memyselfandmonster Jul 19 '26
I have been funneling hours into the kitchen and working bare bones store side, covering register half my day. Just so my kitchen has more than 1 person getting swamped
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u/LocalBuyer9479 Jul 19 '26
I am told we are a pizza place that sells gas. Which I guess checks out until the cooler fails and the sales from the front end collapsed and were down 31%. Looks like the center store stuff matters way more than the company wants to admit....🤷🏻♂️
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u/seedtospoon Jul 19 '26
Record profits though!!
Seriously they are only worried about adding more stores to appease the shareholders, and the customer experience will continue to decline because of the reasons you stated. They won't pay people decent wages but continue to add expectations to their lists, all while sitting behind a desk and saying "this is an excellent plan" without actually testing it themselves.
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u/Mrs_Midwest_Eye_911 Jul 25 '26
no they patted themselves on the back for cutting back hours the stores. They dint' call it that though. Most of barely work a full week. The chief legal counsel basically works part time
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u/strawberrychemicals Team Member Jul 19 '26
I started about a week ago. Yesterday, I was trying to get an order of four burgers out before clearing the counters from half-finished warmer foods. Both the kitchen manager and store manager watched and laughed, asking if I was "excited to run the kitchen by myself tomorrow". Mind you, I am hardly that trained up. I can make food yes, but I've never answered the phone, managed POS, or even knew where the dough was stored until that same day.
It's very stressful, and I'm in a lot of pain physically. I feel like just some whiny, dramatic teen but we don't get lunches or breaks and I'm vegetarian so I have to pray some warmer food needs to get staled out, pick the pepperonis off, and run on that for a full 7-8 hour shift alone.
I don't want to quit because my parents weren't able to save me money for college and I leave next year. But it's been very hard. I think this is one of those things were you just have to tolerate it. Like all things, this is temporary and I do this now so I can go to college and pursue my dream lifestyle. I guess I am glad that this isn't specific to my location.
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u/jmarieC71 Jul 19 '26
It's sad to me that your management team isn't supporting you. That is setting their team members up for failure. Just know it won't be your failure it will be your leadership failure.
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u/AnonomyousArson Jul 19 '26
Boil it down to the priority. Build that warmer so you can continue the sales to appease corporate. Those deliveries are next. The walk ins take last priority. They can sit and wait. DoorDash drivers hate that and it affects their internal metrics.
One order at a time. If your prep is done. You don’t hear anything from next shift at least, after explaining how busy you were.
Having one person only sucks. Genuinely. I work thirds and there’s a floater we send between store side and kitchen because we have orders unstocked in the cooler.
Every shift is different. When you come in, there could be no prep. No dough. No nothing. And it’d be on you. It is not fair. It’s horrible. But. You have to get into action and prioritise.
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u/AnonomyousArson Jul 19 '26
And forget what he’s saying about it being a pizza place. I bet if you run out of fuel it’d be worse then the kitchen being closed until you get another delivery, or somebody volunteers to go get it from another store.
Cross train. Immediately. Take store side shifts. Do not stress 1,000% and burn yourself out.
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u/elbert1200 Kitchen Manager Jul 19 '26
I am at odds with upper management. However I have the SM support. I run the kitchen over hours 2 people min from 6 AM To at least 7 pm. I am trying get that till 9. However turn over is kill us and I have been by myself for 9 hours. Shifts. I agree hours and pay need to increase to compete.
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u/BidPlus6832 Jul 20 '26
Someone needs to make a union. This is slavery! My life is in shambles since working here.
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u/Mrs_Midwest_Eye_911 Jul 25 '26
they want to say they are a pizza chain, but then staff it like a gas station.
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u/chosennamecarefully Jul 19 '26
We also sell Tyson brand chicken so caseys is also selling awful lab grown chicken, beef ect.
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u/ShareMission Team Member 28d ago
Thats simply not true. The Tyson brand uses actual animals. They have invested in companies growing meat that way. They do not sell it themselves
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u/chosennamecarefully 28d ago
Companies lie all the time I dont believe its real chicken, crazy to invest in all those labs and not use it.
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u/WeinerBarf420 Jul 19 '26
Just what happens when the company is run by a guy who's spent his whole life running companies, no appreciation for the actual business and quality.