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DownTheRabbitHoleWeGo

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Posted 23 May 2021 - 12:21 PM

Hey,

 

I'm glad to have been suggested this site by the QA Manager at a competing produce company. I was thrown into the world of QA/Compliance about 2 months ago when the previous Compliance Manager decided to retire 5 days before out PrimusGFS audit. The GM came to me and said I'm promoting you to Compliance Manager ( I was a Delivery Driver). We failed the audit because we were no where near ready document or program wise.... Docs are almost completed but my biggest problems is getting the Owners 2 penny pinching Iitians to actually do what's necessary. This past week they put the entire ATP program on hold because they didn't want to buy a server. Once they see the cost of the Micro Testing we will have to do I'm thinking they will do the same. They want to pass but without spending the money needed to update our 60 year old building. There's a long list of issues with the building that just I was told they will never fix. not to mention one of the owners thinks that the entire audit scheme was stated by sysco and us foods to put the little companies out of business because they wouldn't be able to afford to keep up with the changes. Side note they have been trying to pass an audit of some sort since 1998 Ive read the previous audits and its always the same reasons they fail SOPs documentation, and the same building related stuff. they actually said we had an audit 3 years ago? (At home so not sure the date) almost passed with 87% why did we drop to 75%? Well they told you 3 years ago about the building issues, the pest control once a mth, etc... and you did nothing except continue to use the same contracted maintenance guys who keep installing wood in the coolers, etc. lol i think that's enough backstory for now HAHA. I'm glad to be here and happy to be able to pull from your many years of knowledge to help solve some of the problems I know I'm going to have. 

 

Thanks,

DownTheRabbitHoleWeGo

 

p.s. The owners and the GM think that once we pass the audit we can go back to the old way of doing things right up to before the next audit then start following the SOP's etc.... I love my job :/



SQFconsultant

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Posted 23 May 2021 - 02:50 PM

First welcome.

Second, you may want to have a session with the owners and a consultant to kick their asses - it sounds like they need to be set right.

The alternative is, just go out of business.


All the Best,

 

All Rights Reserved,

Without Prejudice,

Glenn Oster.

Glenn Oster Consulting, LLC -

SQF System Development | Internal Auditor Training | eConsultant

Martha's Vineyard Island, MA - Restored Republic

http://www.GCEMVI.XYZ

http://www.GlennOster.com

 


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DownTheRabbitHoleWeGo

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Posted 23 May 2021 - 04:53 PM

First welcome.

Second, you may want to have a session with the owners and a consultant to kick their asses - it sounds like they need to be set right.

The alternative is, just go out of business.

 

Last guy in the position "retired" but ultimately it was one of the owners telling him he's replaceable, when he pushed to get things done, and asked about the raise they promised him 6 months earlier. I won't go into specifics but we are paid way under what everyone around us is, to do buying and qa


Edited by DownTheRabbitHoleWeGo, 23 May 2021 - 04:55 PM.


MelanieWi1l

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Posted 25 May 2021 - 12:38 PM

Welcome to the forum!



DownTheRabbitHoleWeGo

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Posted 25 May 2021 - 02:30 PM

Welcome to the forum!

 

Thanks!



TimG

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Posted 25 May 2021 - 04:18 PM

Welcome to the forums. Sounds like you have quite a challenge ahead of you!

Just keep in mind in quality and compliance there's a point where a challenge tips over into an unwinnable situation . Typically, it's ownership and upper management that cause that to tip.



kfromNE

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Posted 26 May 2021 - 01:06 PM

Good luck. Many of has have been there as you can see from reading different threads. Remember - the owners are held reliable but anything you sign as well. Emails/paper trails are your best friend.



MDaleDDF

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Posted 26 May 2021 - 01:19 PM

Welcome.   Second post this week to remind me of the peanut corp of America.....



johnmcip

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Posted 26 May 2021 - 11:16 PM

I mean... the people sitting on the GFSI boards are not from small businesses. They build a program based off what they believe is attainable in their experience running a large well funded business. And hey, if it puts a smaller competitor out of business then so be it.

I'm not saying food safety standards are good, but lets not pretend that regulations applied evenly across the sector regardless of size doesn't burden small business.



DownTheRabbitHoleWeGo

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Posted 21 June 2021 - 12:03 PM

Been a few weeks. Just wanted to give an update. 

 

I'm working on getting us ready for Primus GFS. Talk about a headache. My 3m ATP tester got here last week everything is installed software related on my computer... Showed the Proposal from Madison Chem to the Owners and was told why are we letting a chemical company tell US!!! what we fing need to clean our fing building we are a warehouse why do we need to clean, they are trying to sell you crap you don't need. (mind you last time a mop or any cleaning that went on here was years ago). Whelp they are the specialist's when it comes to cleaning supplies. Anyway they read over the proposal and said I don't understand any of this shit, you figure it out (karmas a bitch eh). So now I need to figure out how much product we will use at a given time to determine if they should go with the 55gal drums or the 2.5g jugs. well that was last week. 

 

This week (today)

Compliance is now a secondary task for you. We need you to focus on doing inventory and ordering the pre cut, mushrooms, dairy, Cheese..... We want an inventory done on all the product Daily or your fired.

 

 

Welcome to my living nightmare haha jk. I asked for them to budget 2 people for a sanitization team and at least 1 QA staff member they said yes. 2 days later we don't need a sanitation team or a qa person. now its we will look into it. Half the time at this place Us in management just have to make the decision right or wrong and deal with the cussing and screaming because the owners cant make decisions in the office. Got to remember this is a HOBBY for the 2 owners. They would rather be out golfing. 

 

 

Hopefully I'll have good news soon. Anyone hiring? lol JK... I need to spend more time working on this compliance getting the experience 



kfromNE

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Posted 21 June 2021 - 12:23 PM


 

 

Hopefully I'll have good news soon. Anyone hiring? lol JK... I need to spend more time working on this compliance getting the experience 

What state do you live in? You may find a job as a QC depending on the industry.



DownTheRabbitHoleWeGo

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Posted 21 June 2021 - 12:45 PM

What state do you live in? You may find a job as a QC depending on the industry.

Ohio



Marloes

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Posted 21 June 2021 - 12:59 PM

Phew! Sounds like a hell of a job.
Congrats on the promotion anyhow.

 

 

Maybe a bit of unpopular advice.
If you do like the line of work (QA, compliance, buying) stay in this position for a year or two. Give it your best and learn everything you can.
And than take that experience and go to a company which does invests properly into your field of work.



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DownTheRabbitHoleWeGo

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Posted 21 June 2021 - 01:37 PM

Phew! Sounds like a hell of a job.
Congrats on the promotion anyhow.

 

 

Maybe a bit of unpopular advice.
If you do like the line of work (QA, compliance, buying) stay in this position for a year or two. Give it your best and learn everything you can.
And than take that experience and go to a company which does invests properly into your field of work.

 

Thanks yea I was planning on staying here for 1-2 years doing this. Getting harder and harder everyday, I'm doing what I can to get them ready. They have already lost a lot of business because they don't have a 3rd party audit. Trying my hardest to change the mentality of the owners and change the overall atmosphere if the business when everyone give blowback on changes like hair nets for example I had half the staff in the repack area threaten to quit, but the General Manager just them run around without hairnets and last time I wrote someone up for it I was told by the GM I'm not allowed to write anyone up because He doesn't want his managers writing people up only he's allowed to do that (been told many times to write people up by the owners). 

 

I know our competition down the street is hiring for compliance they run a 2man team for compliance and then they have a qa team and sanitization team under them. Me and her joked about that one day about me going over there but the owner of her company just give her a lil grief for headhunting from the competition down the street and they 2 family's know each other



DownTheRabbitHoleWeGo

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Posted 21 June 2021 - 03:09 PM

Phew! Sounds like a hell of a job.
Congrats on the promotion anyhow.

 

 

Maybe a bit of unpopular advice.
If you do like the line of work (QA, compliance, buying) stay in this position for a year or two. Give it your best and learn everything you can.
And than take that experience and go to a company which does invests properly into your field of work.

 

 

As a side note. How many people can say they built a program from the ground up. That will be good in the long run for my resume. I'm aiming for end of Oct for the first audit. I'm getting it done. 



TimG

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Posted 22 June 2021 - 06:52 PM

Ohio

Ironic, just had a company fly me up to Ohio to interview for a Compliance Manager position a couple weeks ago.

Didn't work out..



DownTheRabbitHoleWeGo

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Posted 23 June 2021 - 03:34 PM

Ironic, just had a company fly me up to Ohio to interview for a Compliance Manager position a couple weeks ago.

Didn't work out..

Was it in Columbus?



crystalQC

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Posted 23 June 2021 - 04:08 PM

Whew .... reading that gave me bad deja vu! Lol

 

Welcome, please use this forum as much as you can and reach out, unfortunately the situation you described is not uncommon for businesses, so I would guess a good handful of us on here have gone through something similar to you right now. In my case, I found out the previous QC guy before me was mostly forging a good amount of documents in time for audits every year enough to pass ...

 

I like Glenn's idea of getting a third party consultant about it and showing em .... keep emails / papertrails to keep record. 



TimG

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Posted 23 June 2021 - 04:12 PM

Was it in Columbus?

 

Negative



DownTheRabbitHoleWeGo

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Posted 23 June 2021 - 04:35 PM

Whew .... reading that gave me bad deja vu! Lol

 

Welcome, please use this forum as much as you can and reach out, unfortunately the situation you described is not uncommon for businesses, so I would guess a good handful of us on here have gone through something similar to you right now. In my case, I found out the previous QC guy before me was mostly forging a good amount of documents in time for audits every year enough to pass ...

 

I like Glenn's idea of getting a third party consultant about it and showing em .... keep emails / papertrails to keep record. 

yea our auditor turned into our food safety consultant 



FSQA MKE

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Posted 23 June 2021 - 05:40 PM

It sounds like your company is resistant to change,but in this ever-changing  industry change is necessary.

You can hire a consultant, but until management/owners ponies up the resources & commitment necessary for GFSI implementation, they will not be successful in this endeavor.

Best of luck!


Providing solutions for food manufacturing companies in achieving regulatory compliance, GFSI standard implementation, environmental monitoring solutions, and HACCP development.

foodsafety@email.com

https://foodsafetymuse.com

 


DownTheRabbitHoleWeGo

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Posted 27 March 2022 - 10:01 PM

Hey,

 

Wanted to give you an update on where things are. After the push for a year to get the place ready for a PrimusGFS audit i pulled the plug on the whole thing due to the company owners not spending the money that’s necessary to make us pass and their bullshit ideas that the audits are not black and white there are always cracks, we can sneak through, Not with the new changes in 3.2 not possible. Now they want just a normal USDA Gap Audit thinking it will work in place of a GFSI audit to the buying groups and restaurants..... I told them it will not work but hey who the flip am I to tell someone that’s been in the business for 30+ years how to do anything....

 

Fast forward to few weeks ago we are back to the co-owner and vp making homemade Italian sausage in the Fresh produce warehouse. I told him he couldn’t do it and was told off. the day he was making it he saw me and said, "Don't say a fliping word, Go the flip home."

 

Fast forward to yesterday.... Mind you i have not said anything to him about that incident I talked to his son the President of the company. (Who agrees with me).

 

"VP/Co-owner just came to me and said this. 

 

"Don't talk to anyone about me making sausage in my building again, you have no friends here, we are a small company and everyone tells me what you say, don't say A god damn thing to me or any other employee about me making sausage in my building again because if you do I will make your life here a living hell that you will beg to quit, You’re a BACKSTABBING MOTHER flipER! 

 

5 mins later he said this after I was done installing new tables and scales in the production room to replace the wooden tables and rusted out scales.

 

"Don't go behind my back and talk to President like a little kid going to mommy, you little bitch"

 

Was about to quit on the spot until I talked to the GM and he’s going to have a chat with both owners about this because in his words "I can't afford to lose you". This is the definition of a hostile work environment. I will not put up with it, I have enough dirt on these guys to get all the 3 acronym agencies on their doorstep. If I wanted to.



DownTheRabbitHoleWeGo

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Posted 27 March 2022 - 10:22 PM

didnt even notice the auto correct on the curse words lol





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