Pros
Good Pay. I started at $14.00 an hour. They have a system that you can trade off your shift with anyone and be off or pick up another shift. You post your shift electronically online through whats called DayForce HCM. As long as you do not go 30 days without working, you can basically give away your shift as long as someone else commits to your shift. You can change your shift hours every week as long as management approves it. There's at least close to 150 to 200 people working in each Trader Joe's location (look in the cons section for the reason for all those employees working in each location). The customers are really nice, and so are the employees. The culture at Trader Joe's is a good one, everyone majority of the times are in a good mood. You can taste test any foods in the store, as Trader Joe's wants the employees to be able to tell customers how the products in the store taste. The hours they operate are 4:00 am to 12:00 midnight, sometimes they have overnight hours if the delivery trucks come in late. They have a system called WOW customers, meaning if you feel a customers needs extra attention, you an give them a product for FREE! You just have to make it's scanned in the register and given to management.
Cons
Get ready to work VERY HARD! I mean HARD LABOR!!! BACK BREAKING labor. You will be required to lift and carry very heavy boxes , stock shelves, pack groceries at the register. The physical labor is non-stop, sweat factoring. I am not kidding you, you will be physically tired after your shift. Avoid at all cost to work any hours beyond 4 hours each shift. The 8 hour shifts are brutal. Trader Joe's offers no safety back brace or belts for it's employees which I find to be wrong. Twice a day if not three times a day huge trucks come to delivery products which employees have to removed from what's called a pallet. Look up what a pallet is and that'S what you will have to unload every time the truck comes in. Management are usually at the bridge (basically customer service center) and some goof around a lot there (if you don't believe me go to a Trader Joe's and observe for yourself). You also have to clean the restrooms. If you have back problems DO NOT work at Trader Joe's. If you have a good back, expect to get a back injury which when you do they will tell you that the job description stated lifting. The reason they have so many people working in each location is to spread out the physical work, but that doesn't work because the turn over rate is very high. Once people realize theirs back are messing up, then quit. Those who stick around, work very little hours a month.