Produce Clerk - Produce Clerk King Soopers Employee Review

Oh boy, where to begin. Now let me start off by saying if you're not extremely extroverted, that already will be a hindrance to any job in King Soopers. I can't speak for other non Kroger grocery stores, but I feel they would be the same way. What I mean is while struggling to do the primary task of stocking produce, you are also expected to interact with every single customer that comes your way. I understand the purpose of customer service. While I personally don't care if anyone says hi to me if I am doing my own personal shopping, I know others will take great offense if nobody even makes eye contact to them. At King Soopers, if you don't make deep conversation with any customer that comes your way, even if the customers ignore you, the managers will yell at you for not having deep conversations with the customers, often threatening you with a write up or even writing you up. You even get yelled at or threatened if a customer walks past you if you don't even see them. They even have secret shoppers whose primary goal is to make sure you are interacting with every single customer. If you don't say hi first, that is an automatic failure and write up. Even the upper management often fail the secret shopper test. If Upper management fails it, no big deal, but if any other employee, including department heads fails it, automatic write up! Now let's talk about the job itself. Your primary job is to keep the produce stocked on the floor. Honestly doesn't sound hard, right? You even have to rotate stock, break down loads that come in everyday, take out rotten produce, and other similar tasks. Still doesn't sound hard, right? Well, none of that would be difficult if it wasn't for every single manager, department heads included. So, someone who has been there for 10 years would be able to do everything fast and accurately. If you are brand new, you are expected to be able to work at that same level of efficiently right away. Working too slow because you are still learning how everything works and where everything is on your first day? Then you will get yelled at and threatened with a write up. You stock a table and one thing you don't even notice isn't exactly straight? You get yelled at and threatened with a write up. A customer messes up the newly stocked table you just finished in record time and perfectly straight? You get yelled at and threatened with a write up. You ask a question? You get yelled at and threatened with a write up! Everyday, the department head would find something to yell at everyone for. While she did show us the ropes on our very first day, she just expected us to be experts in the department right away. Just because she has been there over 10 years and finds this job very easy doesn't mean we will be experts on our first day. As far as I know, none of us newbies slacked off, none of us had problems with attendance, everyone did their best to help out customers, and what did we all get in return? Get told that we are doing terrible jobs and constantly get threatened with write ups. It's no wonder the produce department can't keep anyone for longer than 3 months! I was there for only like a month or two, and two people walked out! Looking back, I honestly think it would have been better to just walk out instead of doing the polite thing and giving my two weeks notice (which I don't know how true this is, but I hear rumors of them trying to enforce two weeks notices if you decide to leave). If I do shop at King Soopers, I will avoid the store I worked at, even though there is a retail store I go to down the street. I can't say anything about benefits or time off since I wasn't there for long at all, but I can say I called in sick once, and the manager I spoke to tried to accuse me if being somewhere other than my house, just because my cell phone's area code was different from what they have.