So, I've gone back to working at Home Depot while I'm going back to college right? Well, sh*t is about to hit the fan at Home Depot's across the country. A new policy has been put in place about warnings for not following your schedule to the T, which originally everyone thought only applied to punch in and punch out times. Which would be fine! A lot of people do come in late too often, or leave late, or whatever. BUT. Home Depot also, technically, schedules what time you're supposed to take your lunch. But NO ONE follows this part of the schedule because you literally CAN'T. The lunch times are so random and rarely work with people's coverage and they frequently break the rule of getting a 30 minute break every 5 hours because of where they sit in a shift. Plus, sometimes they'll be super early in a shift when you just aren't hungry yet. And the new policy? If you are even a few minutes off on taking your scheduled lunch you'll get an attendance occurrence. (Or half of one, depending on how off you are in your timing.) Once you reach 10 occurrences, which would only take about 2-3 weeks at most of being off on your lunches, you get fired. Talking to a customer? Too bad, you must drop everything and go to lunch. In the middle of cutting a lumber order for a customer? Too bad. In the middle of a huge rush at the paint desk with no backup that actually knows how to work the paint machines in the store? Too bad. Driving a forklift? Too bad. The policy goes into effect in a week. People are already crossing out "customer service" and "employee support" (or whatever that one is) on the little values wheel on their aprons. There's talk of a work to rule strike. Anywho. Prepare for some chaos at your local Home Depot and be patient with the workers going forward. We're not happy about it either.
