Winn Dixie

[frozensolid]

I read a story in the paper this morning about how Winn Dixie is closing more stores. This has turned into a yearly tradition for them. They blamed Wal-Mart for their troubles. I have no great love for Wal-Marts business practices, but for W/D to blame their woes on them is wrong. W/D is it’s own worst enemy.

W/D is stuck in a time warp, with their 18th century management style. Winn Dixie’s management is just plain bad. I have seen third world grocery stores that are operated, and maintained, better than W/Ds are.

They treat their employees like dirt and their contractors even worse. In the employee break rooms, posters offer 50-dollar rewards to rat out their co-workers. If they paid their people a little more maybe it would not be such a big problem.

They use the 10-15 year old racks and cases from stores they close; to replace the 30-year-old junk in the ones they keep open. Altec is the controller of choice, that says a lot by itself.

Unless W/Ds management experiences some kind of profound metamorphosis they are doomed. Their only hope would be a buy out by one of the big four or five chains out there. The problem with that, lies with the fact that William Davis’s ancestors don’t want to let go.

They could learn a lot from Publix, they do it better than anyone I have ever seen.

[Diceman]

When we vaca in Fla I hit the Winn Dixie or Publix depending, as far as customer service they are both very good.
WD opened a liquor store next to the food store realizing the market share of tourist near the beach.
That's all I know about em.

[jhd1234]

Don't get me started on Winn Dixie. In the 1980's, I worked for them for about 6 months in Fort Lauderdale. I agree with you about Publix, they have probably the best formula. I serviced their stores all over Florida for years.

[frozensolid]

jhd, where in the Islands do you work now, You sound very knowledgeable. That should just about make you Royalty over there.

[jhd1234]

I work at a missle tracking station on Antigua in the Eastern Caribbean. Thanks for the compliment, but some days I wonder.

[Dowadudda]

whats that like? Living on an Island in the caribbean. Is it cool? Just curious.

[jhd1234]

Like a lot of things in life, there's good and not so good.

Upside:

housing and meals come with the job
no income taxes on my salary
I can salt away a lot of my earnings
I can set the pace of my work
I don't have the time & money pressure of a service truck job
tropical weather year round
lots of vacation time and I can afford to enjoy it

Downside:

live with the same people I work with
the natives aren't that friendly
3 week menu cycle
most of the work is PM- boring
mail comes once a week

[goober]

I watched the Atlanta division disolve into Save Rite a few years ago. I was working for a company whose bread & butter was WD brand... thank goodness I got out when I did. WD management was their own worst enemy not Wally World.

My last project in com refrig was to go out to all of the Atlanta div stores and retrofit the service cases...prime meat, deli, bakery, and produce to self service-prepackaged cases. In a time when companies are trying to boost customer service these goofballs are running to the opposite end of the spectrum.

Notice the other key here...I retrofitted the cases instead of replacing them?!?!?

Anyway, I hate to see any chain go asta-la-bye-bye. It only hurts consumers. A lack of healthy competition between chains allows grocery store prices to increase thus affecting our pocketbooks. Not to mention taking work away from refer techs whose livelyhoods depend on the existence of these stores.