@Wild Bill wrote:

tsc84124 is a troll.



6th - No one is going to get assigned 35 stores that take an average of 1.5 hrs per store for a 2 week project.

Oh, yes. They will assign that many stores.

[www.troutmansanders.com]

Dated. But interesting. Regarding travel time.

Mine were 3'x4', no dummy phones. I do cosmetic resets so I had the card positions memorized after the first 3. I wear knee pads so I can bounce. I move the card from it's position to the new, the one I removed from there to it's new and so on. I dust everything, dusters in my back pocket. I never remove all cards unless I have a backer, then I place them on the floor in their new position; stacked in a special tube box I made.

@Wild Bill wrote:

tsc84124 is a troll.

1st - 7-11's cannot be scheduled or performed on the weekends, Mon-Fri only.

2nd - Cast does not charge for missing kits like Castforce used to. There is no kit agreement anymore.

3rd - There are no regional managers. Only TOMS.

4th - No TOM is going to arrange delivery to a store location. Only your home.

5th - No 7-11 is going to turn away free help. They just point at the cards and say go ahead.

6th - No one is going to get assigned 35 stores that take an average of 1.5 hrs per store for a 2 week project.
.

That is quite an assumption. Could it not be that the poster got bad information from the TOM? Not all are good, as you may have read in this thread. I am glad that yours is good, but others haven't had the same experience.

@LisaSTL wrote:

Despite not being a merchandiser, I've found this thread interesting. I now have a question. Is the new system of an hourly wage along with having to stay the required number of hours more beneficial to merchandisers who are slower and would normally need three hours to complete a job and detrimental to those who could possibly complete the same job in one or two hours?

I think that this is true, mostly. No incentive to work quickly when paid by the hour.

However, the old pay system was also great for folks who didn't actually do the work. It was less good for the good merchandiser who was the next to visit and had to not only do the current job, but clean up after the lazy one who came before.

That was always my pet peeve! I would go into a store for a simple refresh and spend an entire day because the person before me didn't do what they should have. They just made it look like they did for the picture and that was it!

I like that you have to take the picture while in the report. I don't know how many times I got caught up in something or was tired or frustrated and left without taking that damn picture and then had to go back! This way I can't forget to do it because it's won't get accepted without it.

Another case for why people should maintain their own stores. More invested when you know you will be there week after week.

I drove to an assignment 4 hours away and forgot to take a picture of one of the 4 sides. Customers who think I work there asked a question and I ended up with two pictures of the same side. I called the store and the clerk took a picture of the side I was missing and texted it to me. Thank you, you wonderful person, I'll never forget you. I bought a for sale sign, hung a string on it and put it on my steering column and wrote on the back in huge black letters, "Did you take the damn picture'? I flip it up on my dashboard when I'm driving.

Lol. That's one for the books!

I had tocall my brother once because he lived out where I was that day and asked him if he would go take a picture of the outside of the store for me. Of course I had to bribe him a little! But it was better than driving back! Lol!

I don't know where you all live, but I've been working with Cast since the first of March. I use the app they have. I check in and out at the stores. I have no reports to complete. They send me and email and I have been scheduling my jobs. I can work seven days a week which works great for my schedule. A uniform is not required but I use dark pants and a polo. I worked at CVS, Wal-Mart, Lowe's, and Target so far. I get an hourly rate. The only thing I don't like if that I can't work more than 26 hours a week for them. I can't figure out it that is their rule or something I put in my profile. I couldn't be happier.

@dreamweaver wrote:

I don't know where you all live, but I've been working with Cast since the first of March. I use the app they have. I check in and out at the stores. I have no reports to complete. They send me and email and I have been scheduling my jobs. I can work seven days a week which works great for my schedule. A uniform is not required but I use dark pants and a polo. I worked at CVS, Wal-Mart, Lowe's, and Target so far. I get an hourly rate. The only thing I don't like if that I can't work more than 26 hours a week for them. I can't figure out it that is their rule or something I put in my profile. I couldn't be happier.

Great that you have worked for them less then 2 weeks but if you read here most have worked for them years. Lucky you.

@Dreamweaver - "The only thing I don't like if that I can't work more than 26 hours a week for them. I can't figure out it that is their rule or something I put in my profile. "

Blame Obamacare. If you work more than 28 hours a week on a regular basis, they (Cast) have to offer some sort of health insurance. That's why they have the 26 hour rule.

Yes, please blame the president for the fact that your employer doesn't give a crap about you or your health.

Obamacare as the sole excuse seems rather limited. Employers have been limiting and classifying employees differently waaaay before Obamacare came along. Lets consider pensions, retirements plans and healthcare as only part of the likely reasons, like any other employer they want to keep their overall expenses down. Check out 4a and b. [www.twc.state.tx.us]

Take a look at what it says about employers and social security.
[www.ssa.gov]

Lastly, the more each single employee earns per pay period, the more the employee and employer (in this case CAST) will contribute that pay period to social security and Medicare. The current tax rate for social security is 6.2% for the employer and 6.2% for the employee, or 12.4% total. The current rate for Medicare is 1.45% for the employer and 1.45% for the employee, or 2.9% total.

[www.irs.gov]

These are all expenses to them that I'm sure factor in. Sorry for the nerdy links but it seem farther reaching and bigger than Obamacare.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2016 05:04PM by C4L.

What do you mean by no reports? Don't you have reports on the site where you sign in and out? There are some companies do allow you to work on weekends, you just have to read the guidelines. Why don't you schedule your jobs on the portal? I don't understand why you are so different from everyone else. Please elaborate!

This kind of expense is exactly the reason that companies want us to be IC's, not employees. As IC's, the burden of all of this is on us. Companies are switching to hiring employees only because of lawsuits that have been filed against companies who pay us like IC's because it helps them but treat us like employees.

@C4L wrote:

Obamacare as the sole excuse seems rather limited. Employers have been limiting and classifying employees differently waaaay before Obamacare came along. Lets consider pensions, retirements plans and healthcare as only part of the likely reasons, like any other employer they want to keep their overall expenses down.

Edited to remove most of the quote.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2016 05:51PM by TeriW.

I have had this issue also but if you call filed support they can change the parameters in their system and you will not have to drive 3 miles and then go back and do the job.

Does anyone know for certain that Cast is servicing 7-11s? Every 7-11 in the Los Angeles area looks like crap and don't appear to have been serviced in months.

sounds like Cast is servicing them, then.

Yes, 7-11 project is running through this week. Perhaps they just haven't been serviced yet.

Yes, MES, that's what I noticed also. I got to know the clerks, because, well, I'm an a$$ki$$er.

I took the time to make sure I ordered every sign needed. I told them I was ordering the signs.

I've gone into a few because they're in or around the hood and none of them have received their signs, the extra pegs needed; absolutely nothing. I feel so bad. It hurts my reputation also.

eta: I wonder what happened.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2016 11:33PM by spicy1.

Yes, 7/11's are being done. I have 4 more to go and then I have finished 20 of them!!!

I went and picked up 6 kits from a rep who quit yesterday. She was frustrated with the App. Oh well, I'll take the work.

Seems like Wild Bill is the only happy camper with Cast

I'm happy with Cast! I have 45 stores at last check. They keep me going. I get paid on time. I get new sites sent to me almost everyday to choose if I want them or not! The app isn't the greatest but I'll deal with it, they will have to figure it sooner or later!! It's all about patience.

Hey, I want to break it down point-by-point, castforce versus cast retail. I think some people have forgotten some of the things that went on with castforce.

Number 1. With castforce you had to select your jobs when they send out in the blast. If you didn't get to the blast quickly enough, you were taking jobs that were a long way from your house or not taking any jobs at all. With cast retail they give you the assigned stores and you'll get them over and over again.

Number 2. Once you get your jobs from castforce, you then have to print out a whole bunch of information including the specs, the invoice, the forms everything.that is time-consuming and also uses ink and paper. None of that is compensated for. With cast retail, you do all the paperwork in the store and no numbering the photos or any other extra steps such as getting a signature from a manager.

Number 3 once you got all your paperwork printed out, then you take it into the store and you have to fill it out. you have to get someone to sign it and you have to do all that correctly or you will have to go back to the store and do it a second time.

Number 4. Once you finished all your work and hopefully had your pictures which had to each be tagged with a number specific to the store and specific to the job and that has to be done while you're in the store, you had to take everything home and enter it into your computer.

Number 5. Once you enter all your work into the computer which can take quite a bit of time and is not compensated for, you then need to do a separate step where you upload every invoice for every job you had. There is always a chance that they can't read the invoice or you have to enter it again or they didn't get it or something so that can even be more time.

Number 6. I think a lot of people have forgotten the steps you had to do for the QC people. Sometimes those steps were fair and it was your mistake and you had to correct it. Sometimes it was the QC persons misunderstanding of what was required that cause you to have to go all the way back to the store and do the job over again when it wasn't really necessary. That could happen quite a bit and if you didn't do that, you did not get paid for that job.

You were getting paid per job and some jobs could go quickly. Other jobs could take a while and maybe the amount of money you got didn't really cover the amount of work you did. However if you added up all the time you spent printing, getting her paperwork together, turning your job, entering your invoices, following up with anything that didn't go through correctly the first time, that is a whole lot of time that makes a short job longer and makes the amount of compensation you receive not quite as good as you were thinking originally.

I think this is similar to people who talk about the good ol Days where there was no electronics to fool with and things were simpler but you forget how much time you spent on different things, like printing out MapQuest papers to every store because you didn't have GPS or whatever. The past is not always the best.

Well when you figured out how not to print EVER and negotiated better rates for yourself none of that really applies. Just because that's what they offered or told anyone doesn't mean it was the only option or way to do things. There were a lot more ways to be productive.

I agree with you! I love not having to print out all that paperwork and then having to hold on to it forever because you just never know. I like not having to putting up a sign with the store # and PIC on it. I don't know how many times I walked away and left that stupid thing on the shelf or wherever I was taking the picture . I LOVE having ALL my work done before leaving the store and not worrying if I forgot to do something. The final thing that is the ABSOLUTE BEST is having MY OWN STORES!! I will not have to go in and clean up after someone elses mess!!! I'm so much happier with Cast than I ever was with Castforce. I know there are some that were perfectly happy with Castforce and that's fine but there are some of us that are happy with Cast. So we all have different opinions and this debate is going to go on forever and nothing is going to change. So I think we should all just agree to disagree and move on. There's no use to keep comparing apples to oranges! ??

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2016 03:07AM by dishopper.