Duties/responsibilities of grocery store manager

jannawrites

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My MC manages a small-town grocery store. What sorts of things might she be responsible for? I don't need the deep-down nitty gritty; I can skim the surface with her duties and tasks.

Thanks!
 

Cranky

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Oh boy. My husband does this, Janna, so I'll tell you what I know about his duties and responsibilities.

Ordering stock. This involves going up and down the aisles with a barcode scanner and logging in the number of items on the shelves. This, I believe, gets plugged into a database, and when the number reaches a certain point, they order more stock.

Scheduling. They have to cover all the hours of operation, and they have to schedule according to employee availability and peak times.

Keeping an eye out for shoplifters, check kiters, etc.

Hiring and firing.

Let's see, what else? Oh yeah. His store has weekly ad flyers that have to be packaged for the postal routes, and that's time consuming. They have to be ordered and set up to begin with.

Merchandising (i.e. those displays you always see? they plan those and have or help the employees set them up. Sometimes, they're set up by distributors, so you have them to deal with, too.)

Community Affairs - with our store (small neighborhood grocery store, btw), they do things like cater for small events, they've donated water and backpacks to the school, and they helped cater/put together a bag lunch for the Parents Night. They also get involved in other things. Don't know how useful this part is to you, though.

Maintenance and general cleanliness of the store. Usually, if there is a big maintenance problem, they'll have to hire someone to fix whatever's wrong.

HTH!
 

jannawrites

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Cranks, this is WONDERFUL! Thank you so much. And the part about community affairs is perfect... and I can make that tie in later, in a plot-affecting way. Awesome!
 

Cranky

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No prob, Janna. If you have more questions, I'd be happy to forward them on to the hubby.

One critical thing I should add is that while this grocery store is relatively small, it does have a deli, a Subway, and a Do It Best Hardware store attached. Which makes it bigger than your average mom n pop, but doesn't come close to the size of say, Hy-Vee or Russ's or Albertson's or what-have-you. I don't know if that makes a difference, since the duties are mostly the same, as far as I know.
 

jannawrites

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Good to know, but what you've given me will definitely apply. Just so as I'm writing with my character in her work environment, I know how to flesh it out. Know what I mean, Vern?

:D
 

Cranky

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Yep! Glad to be of service, milady. :D