Now, the cons. This depends almost entirely on which branch you're working in. At mine, our manager was completely inept; she had no idea how to do her job correctly, so we were out of inventory all of the time and we were often understaffed. You recall when I mentioned four sections of the deli department, yes? Each of those sections draws its own crowd, and with that crowd comes a line. So picture four sections, each with lines of about two or three customers. And to combat those 8-12 customers are you ... and one other employee. Yes, that's right. Two people. For a department consisting of four sections. So you're both running around with your heads cut off, trying to help as many people as possible and being yelled at every time some customer who's just waited 30 minutes in line finds out that you don't even HAVE what he wants because your inept manager didn't order it even though you've been out of stock for a week, and somehow, throughout it all, you're ALSO expected to make pre-made salads and pre-made sandwiches to be sold on the sales floor. Yes, that's right. You're expected to create inventory AND do customer service. And you're understaffed the entire time.
I met one employee who said that the situation at his previous branch was even worse; he was the ONLY person in the entire department, and he had to help as many as 16 customers all by himself, while making sandwiches and other inventory for the next day. It's -ridiculous- how overworked we are. This place needs at least five people to run smoothly, but they never want to staff more than three. Utterly ridiculous. You'll be doing everything by yourself, and you'll be expected to just grin and bear it.
Don't get me wrong, either. I love this job on those rare days where we have enough people. On those days, it's the best job ever. But that -never happens- anymore. And it's only worse at other branches, apparently. Please consider this when, upon speaking to a hiring manager, they ask if you would like to work in the deli department. They're not asking because they think you would be cut out for the job; they're asking because our employees are so overworked that they usually quit or venture to another department altogether. We cannot keep people here, because we're so overworked.
