State: Colorado (United States)

MY best advice is that when moving to an area that your work skills are not known write a really good cover letter. Explain your qualifications, management style, any degrees or awards,and basic philosphy concerning the culinary field. Prospective employers need to get to know a little about you.

5 years ago this job could be held with experience and/or a college degree. Now it is almost required to be APICS certified. If you plan on entering this field or staying competetive in the job market it would be very beneficial to get certified.

Accomplish one task at at time and keep moving

On my first day on the job I asked my new CEO, quite simply, "What are the 3 things you have to do every day that you'd rather not, because you feel pressure to work on more important things that only YOU can do or that effect the company's bottom line?" - This set the tone that I was here to help not only him personally but with the Company's Bottom Line. It puts your position in the correct context and starts of a pattern of dialogue for success, partnership and cements your value within the organization right from the start, in terms a CEO can understand.

Requested raise every year for 8 years. Every year management claims I am over paid for my position. The rest of the company has been getting at least cost of living raises most years.

When your boss tells you that you will be "cross-training," ask what his/her definition of "cross-training" is and ask why you are being "cross-trained." It has been my experience that in the process of "cross-training," the result is that you end up fulfilling the duties of a position that you were not hired for, and will not be compensated properly for. The cycle goes like this:

Person 1 is cross-trained and shifted to person 2's job. Person 2 is also cross-trained and shifted to person 3's job. Person 3 is cross-trained, and shifted to YOUR job. YOU are cross-trained, and shifted to person 1's job.

The result is more corporate funds spent unnecessarily on training, wasted time, and lower team morale - employees feeling like they are overworked and underpaid, since the expectation is for them to not only do their NEW job duties, but to also be of assistance for their peers who are now doing their OLD jobs. What exactly is the point of this? Why do it, when you already have people who are not only qualified, but effective, in their current positions? If it ain't broke, don't fix it! If the point is to trin someone in other job duties in order to promote the person, then TELL THE PERSON that he/she is being considered for a promotion, and why. Don't keep that person in the dark. This limits that person's options, and the company just might lose a valuable asset because that person wasn't getting his/her career needs met.

The other thing about "cross-training" is the theory that it will enable people to "multi-task." The assumption about multi-tasking is that it is a cost-efficient way to get more out of a situation by cutting down on lost production time. however - it has been proven that "multi-tasking" does just the opposite. It results in even more time being lost due to things like a higher rate of errors. Wouldn't it be more efficient to complete one project by deadline (or beating the deadline, possibly by a day or more) than to miss deadlines on 5 projects because people were "multi-tasking?"

This is general information which will apply to work in most retail perishable departments.

Persons wishing to enter this type of work MUST be FOCUSED, DETERMINED, INDEPENDENT AND TEAM WORKERS.

This means that you must learn how to play by the company rules and regulations, as food safety and lawsuits are on retailers minds now more than ever. You must demonstrate your ability to work with fresh, highly perishable merchandise.

Cleanliness is a must. You must also demonstrate an ability or a willingness to learn how to properly clean and sanitize the meat processing equipment (the saw, tenderizer, grinder, tables).

Impress your employer with your knowledge of stock rotation, key retailing (organization, organization and organization!) and your people skills. Butchers are generally asked questions of how to prepare meat and poultry products so you must know proper marinades for each cuts as well as how to properly cook them. Generally you must be willing to also work other perishable departments in the retail environment such as the deli or the produce department depending on their needs. Flexible scheduling is always a plus if you want full-time/overtime hours!

Safety is also a must for retail meat cutters. Since meat cutters handle sharp objects such as knives and saws everyday in their routine work you must be able and willing to demonstrate your ability to work safely.

Meat cutters are generally held to a higher standard than the rest of the store employees and must demonstrate their ability to be in compliance with OSHA standards (proper code-dating on fish, meat, hamburger, primal cuts and cry-o-vacs). Improper code dating can lead to shrink and lawsuits!

Interviewing is the best time to talk about expectations of salary esspecially when asked. Give them you're real expectations. If they come to you with an offer lower, they will expect that you negotiate higher and will ususally give in. I once got an offer for 80K a year after I told them I was making 80K. I laughed and said "why would I leave my company for the same pay, a place I know and am already familiar with". They asked if they could do anything and I said I guess not, but I would love if we could keep in touch. A month later I called and asked how things were going and that I was still interested. She asked why I didn't accept the first offer and I said I needed at least 10K more, which is exactly the offer I got. So talk about what you want and expect, not what you are making now.

As a new hire and having been looking for work for several months, I jumped too quickly at the first offer made. With no negotiation or simply asking, "Is this the best offer I can expect?" I came in below market.

After a few confidence building paychecks and understanding of the job requirements and my ability to excel, I went back to my superviosr and asked to be brought up to the industry standard. She agreed knowing what I could accomplish, my atitude in the work place and that I understood where the market was paying.

After that, the respect for my work and the company understanding that I was a saavy employee earned me above average raises and quicker advancement.

Sometimes you need to leave a postion to be paid what you are worth, but prove yourself to your employer and understand "fair" and you won't need to.

I have worked ever since high school graduation plus raised my son by myself after his father and I divorced.

Looking back I now see I often times cheated my son by putting my work ahead of him and his needs. He grew up to be a wonderful human being, but if I could do it over I would spend more time with him and worry less about whether my work was going to get done, because their is always tomorrow.

Don't let your personal life suffer because of over dedication to your job. You need to learn to balance the two so you are not totally committed to one and the other loses out.