Working in grocery/dairy if you're a girl? (1 Viewer)

[lsennosuke]

At the moment, I'm working in the deli at Coles and before that, I was working on checkouts at IGA. I cbf applying for another job and I've spent a lot of time watching the people who stock shelves. Basically I want to get out of the deli and transferring into dairy (I think it's also called perishables in other supermarkets?) is looking good to me at the moment because of the greater freedom and you wouldn't have to put up with the filth of the deli, cash handling, serving customers etc.
My friend who works in grocery was telling me that grocery is easier but I'm leaning towards dairy because I think there would be less heavy lifting. I don't mind either way but my main question is whether they would agree to transfer me seeing as I'm a girl? We have only one girl working on grocery in the store and none on dairy. From observing the dairy people, I think I could handle the heaving lifting but would anyone who has worked there before be able to tell me what the job involves? I'm planning on asking some of my friends in the store but I'd like to hear your opinions first.

 

[Roga]

Hi, I work as a Longlife assistant at a Woolworths. In my department, quite a few females work with us (5 out of 15 in fact.) Working in dairy (Perishables) is almost the same as Longlife but you just have to get stuff from the cool room which is terrible on winter days. Anyway, I don't see why not you should become a grocery assistant, lifting and carrying the stuff doesn't seem to hard, you just gotta have speed and good accuracy!

 

[lsennosuke]

Hey Roga, thanks for your reply Yeah I think I will ask them to transfer me into either and they can decide. I wouldn't mind going into the coolroom too much seeing as I already have to for the deli. Would anyone be able to confirm if people in dairy get paid more than other departments? I think I heard that somewhere.

 

[Roga]

I don't think it's either higher nor lower. I think its basically the same as grocery department, but I'm not entirely sure.

 

[babikakez]

I work in Woolworths, and while I don't think that there are any female casuals in perishables (dairy) or grocery, there are plenty of full time female staff in those departments. But thats not to say that we haven't had female staff in those departments, its just that theres none at the moment. But we also have almost 100% female nightfill staff, so that proves that females are certainly capable of the lifting involved.

 

[Gavvvvvin]

I work in dairy at Coles. Its a pretty easy job, we usually just face up the whole department in the morning for 2 hours and then do the load for the rest of the day, which only works out to be about 3 or 4 cages of stock per person. The heaviest thing you'll have to lift is a box of juice, so if you can handle that you'll be right although filling the milk gets pretty tiresome. And yeah we get an extra allowance for working in the cold. Filling yoghurt is the biggest prick in the world.

 

[lsennosuke]

The thing is, I'm not actually very strong so doing the milk crates would be kind of a challenge for me. But I would be fine doing the yoghurt/frozen things, I figure once I lift the boxes onto the trolley, I would be fine because the trolley is there for a reason. I think the dairy department in my store is pretty understaffed so hopefully they're desperate for more staff and won't make me stock the extremely heavy things that often!