Snack shop trainer - new-hire day-three certification checklist - label printing, bin rotation, planted short-dated decoys, voucher redemption: six live demonstrations, all passed before a solo shift, failed items extend only themselves

You are a checklist writer for a snack chain's
training team. Write a "New-Hire Day-Three
Certification Checklist" for the managing trainer
to judge whether a new hire can work a shift alone.

State this principle at the top of the checklist:
certification is live demonstration, not a written
test - between answering a question and performing
the task sits an entire rush hour. All six items
pass before a solo daytime shift; a failed item
extends training for that item only, never a
restart from day one.

The six stations (each: what to demonstrate / pass
line / what failing means):

1. Scale-label printing
- Demonstration: print 5 labels live, items and
  unit prices chosen at random by the examiner
- Pass line: all 5 correct (item, unit price, and
  weight fields all matching), and the hire
  re-weighs their own work after printing
- On failure: 20 practice labels that day, retest
  the item tomorrow

2. Tags and shelf locations
- Demonstration: the examiner points at 10 random
  items; the hire states location and shelf price
- Pass line: no more than [1] wrong
- On failure: an extra half-shift shadowing
  stocking

3. Bulk-bin refill
- Demonstration: complete one refill at any bin
- Pass line: old stock removed first, returned on
  top after the new goes in (the rotate-old-
  forward order must not run backwards), surface
  level with no heaping, rim wiped after
- On failure: watch the stocker demonstrate once,
  redo it the next day

4. Date check (the planted-decoy test)
- Demonstration: the examiner has hidden [2]
  short-dated decoys (empty packs with dates
  applied) behind the back rows of a designated
  shelf; the hire, not knowing where, searches
  the shelf and finds them
- Pass line: both decoys found, plus a correct
  statement of what happens next (move to the
  markdown section / tell the manager)
- On failure: extended date-management training -
  a hire who fails this is the most dangerous one
  to leave alone

5. Vouchers and checkout assist
- Demonstration: redeem one group-buy voucher
  solo (the examiner's test order), and complete
  one cash sale with change verification
- Pass line: the redemption flow completed without
  prompts; change counted out aloud with the
  customer confirming
- On failure: half a shift shadowing the cashier,
  retest the next day

6. The three service-floor questions
- Demonstration: the examiner plays the customer
  and asks: "is this one good?" "can my kid eat
  this?" "how do I use the voucher?"
- Pass line: the three banned lines ("I don't
  know" / "no returns" / "that's not my job")
  never appear; where the hire can't answer, they
  fall back to "let me check the package / let me
  ask a colleague"
- On failure: one extra coaching session on the
  response scripts

Close-out:
- All six results on a certification card, dual-
  signed by examiner and hire, archived
- All passed: the schedule moves to solo daytime
  shifts; the first three shifts touching money
  or vouchers get a till-error review afterward
- Any item failing a second time: the trainer
  steps in to judge training problem vs fit
  problem - where two hires in a row fail the
  same item, the training process changes, not
  the people

Constraints:
- Every pass line is a fact you can watch (how
  many wrong, found or not found, order correct
  or not); no "proficient" or "basically grasped"
- Six stations that don't fit one session split
  across two days; demonstrations are never
  compressed
- No "continued learning after certification"
  tail on the document

Why it is written this way

The planted-decoy test is the checklist's heart. Date awareness is the snack shop's floor-level skill, but "search the shelf for problems" can never be tested on a normal shelf - a properly faced shelf holds nothing to find, and the check becomes theater. Hide two dated empty packs in the back rows and the test becomes a real search: whether the hire has the habit of reading back rows, and whether they know the disposal path once found. This is the station whose failure makes solo work most dangerous, because one expired item sold costs the store its entire food-safety credibility.

"Extend only the failed items" exists so that "not passed" stays sayable. The classic distortion of sign-off gates is the manager's discomfort producing a blanket pass - and the bill arrives as an incident on the first solo shift. Restarting all three days, meanwhile, is punishment rather than training; neither the hire nor the trainer can afford it. Precision extension keeps the gate serious while making the retake cheap, which is what stops the whole thing from being negotiated away with "close enough."

The service floor is tested by role-play because banned phrases can only be heard, not read off a written sheet. A written test cannot surface "I don't know" slipping out under a real question - the examiner plays a customer asking three high-frequency questions, and whether the banned lines appear, whether the fallback phrase shows up instead, is audible on the spot. Each banned phrase is a specific string of words, which is one hundred times more executable than "mind your service attitude."

Variables