Back End

Back End

adj. See BE. Contrast FE, FRONT END.

Back-set Offset Row

Back-Set Offset Row
(right) More, Neater

Back-set Offset Row

n. An arrangement for like cans, bottles or other round ITEMS in a HOLE that allows a greater than usual number GO while still maintaining a straight FACE and good BLOCK. See also JAM, MAKE IT GO, PACKING THEORY.

NOTE: Whenever jars or cans slightly overhang the lip, or there's a gap between the BLOCK at the FACE and the rest of the STOCK on the SHELF, or if there's a significant fractional can or jar's worth of wasted space right up at the front, you may have an opportunity to get slightly—sometimes significantly—more PRODUCT up. Just shift a row of PRODUCT three or more rows back from the FRONT sideways, left or right, so that it's “hills” fit into the “valleys” of the row behind it, similar to the way the teeth of two gears mesh. Repeat the offset process as often as necessary to make the first three rows sit flush with the front edge of the SHELF, alternating left and right, and moving backwards towards the back of the HOLE. This compresses the distance between the centers of jars or cans in the offset rows, making a tighter “lattice” and thus more will GO to the SHELF. Candidates? Premium canned soups or tomato PRODUCTS, jars of spaghetti sauce, those little jars of baby food, etc.

TIP: Best Face Forward. Any time you place Back-set Offset Rows, the foremost Offset Row should ideally be at least three or more rows behind the SHELF FACE, so that it's less obtrusive (see where the arrow's pointing to the three highlighted circles in middle of the rightmost illustration pane, above).

Back-Topple

Back-Topple

n. A nuisance or annoying condition akin to the domino effect, necessitating the removal of one or more ITEMS or CASES in order to set upright something that has been inadvertently pushed or toppled over towards the rear of a DISPLAY. Specifically, an unfortunate tendency of 2-liter soda bottles being slid into BOTTLE-RACES, and of TRAY-CUT CASES of cans that are being slid onto a STACK, where underlying cans in the back of the lower layer can be inadvertently displaced.

Badge

Badge

n. Your official NAME TAG, issued by the STORE upon hiring.

NOTE: If you're a MANAGER or FULL-TIME EMPLOYEE, your Badge is gold metalized plastic and your name is engraved. MANAGERS get pocket-protector-style Badges, FULL-TIME EMPLOYEES' have pin-backs. If you're PART-TIME, like me, it's white PLASTIC and your name is applied as a piece of printed labeling TAPE.

Besides the individual EMPLOYEE'S name, Badges show the STORE'S logo and motto. At least for PART-TIME EMPLOYEES, it's customary for your EMPLOYEE NUMBER to be written on the back, so you don't forget it.

Whenever you're working, you have to wear your Badge. It's part of your UNIFORM. If you lose it or forget it, see the FRONT-END MANAGER for a replacement or temporary substitute. Expect a scolding (I speak from experience) if it happens more than once.

Banana Cart

Banana Cart

Banana Cart

n. A decorative, vertically-oriented, wheeled CART with sling-style canvas shelves that cradle bananas, as well as other ITEMS such as banana-related gadgets or Vanilla Wafer cookies on an ordinary bottom SHELF.

NOTE: Despite its location near the TOP of the breakfast cereal aisle, the Banana Cart is kept stocked by the PRODUCE DEPARTMENT. It's a P.O.S., or Point-Of-Sale strategy: many people like bananas with their cereal, so why not make it convenient and provide what they want where they want it?

Barricade

Barricade, Window

Barricade, Aisle

Barricade, Checkout

Barricade

n. A gate or other obstruction generally imposed as a SECURITY measure to control access to a particular area, and specifically intended to deter THEFT. —v. To put such obstructions into place.

NOTE: Various Barricades are routinely put into place overnight, when fewer people are in the STORE. For instance, unused CHECKOUT REGISTER lanes have the usual “Closed” chain augmented by the addition of an empty SHOPPING CART, to discourage any who might consider ducking under and running out. In similar fashion, a number of CARTS nested together guide incoming and outgoing traffic through the area that's staffed. High-risk areas such as the cosmetics AISLE have their own movable, accordion-style gates that are put into position during the overnight hours.

Base-Cut

Base-Cut

v. To make a very shallow cut around three sides of a plastic-wrapped CASE containing a CARDBOARD TRAY, in order to allow the outer covering to be peeled back out of the way and eventually removed. —n. Any such cut. See also BOX CUTTER, H-CUT, LIFT-CUT, PEEK-CUT, SHARK-CUT, STACK-CUT, TAPE-CUT, TOP-CUT, TRAY-CUT, WINDOW-CUT, X-CUT.

NOTE: Candidates? Plastic-covered tray CASES containing jars of spaghetti sauce, jars of baby food, cans of cat or dog food, and so on.

Ordinarily, you first would make an H-CUT, extract a single can or jar out the top of the still-intact case, and only make a Base-Cut once you're fairly sure the entire CASE will GO.

However, when THROWING LOAD, except for SPECIALS (easily identified as multiple CASES of the same ITEM), the presumption is it will all GO, so you'd often employ the Base-Cut's many-at-once variation: a STACK-CUT.

Basket Trick

Basket Trick

n. A technique for effectively creating a small SHOPPING BASKET on wheels by setting a regular hand-held SHOPPING BASKET down sideways into the front of a large wheeled SHOPPING CART so that it rests on the three rims at the front of the CART. “Look, Ma! No arm strain!” See also BOTTLE TRICK.

BE

BE

adj. “Back End.” A notation used by the GROCERY MANAGER and others on written instructions to indicate where something GOES or may be found relative to a given AISLE, designated by number. For example, “Kill pasta BE-3,” means “SHELF OUT and then BACK-STOCK any remainder of the pasta DISPLAYED (e.g., on a END-CAP, 3-WAY, WING BASE, or SHIPPER—it should be obvious once you look) at or near the Back End of AISLE 3.” Also BACK, BOTTOM. Versus FE, FRONT, TOP.

NOTE: May be written with or without dashes or spaces, as, “BE-#”, “BE #” or “BE#”—all are equivalent.

Belt Clip

Belt Clip

n. A small device affixed to a belt which is used to hold and keep a BOX CUTTER readily available when not in immediate use. See also HOLSTER. Contrast HUNT.

“Best EVER... !”

“Best EVER... !”

adj. Something that is really, really G-O-O-D, good! Contrast “WORST EVER... !”.

NOTE: Feel free to nominate your own contributions to this “Best EVER...” list:

...Time to Shop. Saturdays, between 10 P.M. and Midnight is ideal. Why? No, it's not just because the STORE'S not very crowded at that time. That's true more or less every night of the week. Oh, no. There's a much better reason: it's because during those two hours on Saturday nights the SPECIALS—sales and promotions—from both the past week and the week ahead are valid at the same time. So, with careful attention to the ads in the weekly CIRCULARS (the SHELF TAGS may have already been changed over), you can save more money by taking advantage of two weeks' SALE ITEMS at once!

BLACK RACK Clip

BLACK RACK Clip

n. A special variant of a SHELF CLIP that has a curved hook that slips snuggly over the rod running along the front edge of the shelves on a BLACK RACK, and is used to hold 3-UPs. See SHELF CLIP.

Blade

Blades1

Blade

n. 1. A small replaceable, disposable sharp-edged and pointed piece of metal that goes into a BOX CUTTER for the purpose of making CUTS. Also called “utility knife blade.” Blades are trapezoidal, with the base providing two sharp points and a long cutting edge that may be reversed when one end becomes dull. 2. Square, single-edge razor Blades as are used in the push-up style BOX CUTTERS that are frowned upon because they are very unsafe and have an unfortunate tendency to create STORE DAMAGE.

NOTE: The approved, trapezoidal Blades come in two lengths. The longer style is necessary to prevent jamming caused by twisting the Blade in older, longer CUTTERS such as the classic S3. Newer CUTTERS, such as the S4 and later models suffer from no such problems, and can use the shorter (less expensive) Blades.

TIP: Blacken Blades. Before loading new Blades into the handle of your BOX CUTTER, take your MARKER and blacken one end of each Blade on both sides, and put a dot on both sides of the other, unpainted tip. Then, when you load a new Blade, use the silver end with the dot first. Later, after you've forgotten whether the other end of that Blade is sharp or not, look at its back end. Black means sharp and unused. Silver means toss out the whole Blade and get a new one from the cache in your handle. No thinking required!

Bottle Dump

Bottle Dump

n. 1. A See BOTTLE RUN, below. 2. The recycling dumpsters outside the rear of the STORE where bottles are dumped.

Bottle-Race

Bottle-Race

n. A device on SHELVES in the soda AISLE having an inclined plane with anti-friction grooves on its surface and a series of parallel coated wire guides perpendicular to the SHELF FACE and separated by the width of a 2-liter soda bottle, used for holding same, and which employs a gravity feed to coax bottles flush forward to the SHELF FACE in good BLOCK. Compare CAN-RACE, SPRING-TRAY. See also BACK-TOPPLE.

Bottle Trick

Bottle Trick

n. A method for conveniently carrying, e.g., soda bottle six-packs on the edges of a SHOPPING CART by straddling the edge of the BASKET so half of the bottles hang down inside the CART, and half hang down outside the CART, thus saving lots of room in the CART, and also preventing any ITEMS from getting squished by the heavy bottles of pop. See also BASKET TRICK.

Brand

Brand

n. 1. An identification between a product or service, its manufacturer or provider, and an associated perception or value in the mind of the CUSTOMER: “I'm sorry, Ma'am. We don't happen to carry that brand.” 2. A logo, trademark of other means of promoting such an identification or association. See also STORE BRAND.

NOTE: Branding, and the building up of what's called Brand equity is a multi-billion dollar industry, involving marketing, advertising, PRODUCT placement, positioning, and so on.

For example, when you think of a facial tissue, you probably think “Kleenex®”, and when you think photocopier, you probably think “Xerox®.” Those are Brands.

TRUE STORY: Kleenex® and Xerox®, among others, are in fact such powerful national brands that the companies that own them pay big bucks to put ads in Writer's Digest and similar magazines to plead with writers not to use their Brand names as generic words. If a Brand name ever becomes generic, anyone can use the word, and the owner looses both a huge marketing advantage and a huge financial investment. For example, did you know that “zipper” was once a Brand name owned by B.F. Goodrich? Not anymore!

For more information on lost Brand names and trademarks, see, e.g.,
^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks}