Pros
Good pay, customers are easy to deal with as long as you have a positive attitude. The store I worked at had intelligent great people as section leaders.
Cons
Lots of politics among management, no upward mobility. The police have been involved at my store (Cambridge, MA 502) because of how often top management allows situations to escalate and cannot resolve issues without the captain herself resorting to gossip, name calling or yelling at employees in front of customers. Employees have successfully litigated against the company thanks to discriminatory practices management has been involved in while trying to cut corners and exploit weaknesses in the employees with higher wages. Hopefully there will be more cases and I hope to watch journalists building a narrative around this store. I tried to turn employees cynicism into something more constructive (such as unionizing) but ultimately felt sick going to my shifts and left the store because I felt like executives were out of touch as well as so many of the employees thanks to how often management lies. Yes...the worst part are the managers (merchants and many mates) who are victim to the policies of the captain that currently works there and has the blessings of HR and the regional manager, they fear losing their own jobs speaking out against top management and will resort to lying to maintain status quo. Fortunately the captain did not get her bonus this year because the company is growing weary of her, but honestly it is the regionals who are to blame for how poor this store is run. On top of that, the company throws away a lot of food that are originally marked as donations in TJ's internal accounting system. There are articles that talk about how wasteful many TJ's stores are. NEVER BUY meat from Trader Joe's! And if you buy produce, it is not fresh and it is frequently mishandled from store to store (my store handled it fairly well but we still threw away A LOT of produce that goes bad quickly). Buy from your local fruit/veggie stand! Support CSA's (Community supported agriculture)! AVOID SUPPORTING TRADER JOE'S PRACTICE OF THROWING AWAY A TON OF FRESH FRUIT/VEGGIES You can read all these articles praising Trader Joe's high wages, but what these articles don't talk about is how many of the employees who wages were capped or near the cap of $22 per hour have mysteriously left the store? There is more to the brand that Trader Joe's has built than meets the eye.