I was with the company before and after things took a turn for the worse. Almost 10 years.
- For starters 2/3 of all hires are age 29 and under. By doing this the company saves millions of dollars every year, because they only pay 5% retirement benefits as compared to 15.4% for crew members above the age of 30. They also love to cut your hours as a way to save money. You could have 40 hours one week and the next your down to 24 hours wondering what happened with little to no explanation from the manager writing the schedule.
-Many of the stores are somewhat of a throw-together and are only about 9,500 square ft. on average. This makes for small narrow isles and a lot of accidents. It also saves the company a TON of money in real-estate fees. You're average conventional grocery store is 50,000 square ft.
-Management expects you to go to them and ask for feedback when it should be the other way around.
-There is also no formal training guide from which crew members and management can learn how to do things. Managers go to Trader Joe's University(TJU) to get training, but people have told me it's more of a party than training. It's sink or swim and more often than not you end up sinking, because of the lack of training your managers have received over the years, which is miniscule. Captains and Mates will often times make your fellow crew members give you training who are surprised this is part of their new job description. Many times you will be told you're doing the job wrong simply because you're not doing it the exact same way someone else, usually a Mate or Captain, would do it.
-Management likes to promote their friends within the company and often times the mates they bring in "off the street" and crew member they promote are not even remotely qualified for a position in management. Many Mates and Captains had unsavory attitudes and nothing, but contempt for the employees and really don't know how to create a fun working environment.
-Stores are also dusty and dirty and not cleaned for long periods of time. I brought this up to the attention of management multiple times at my store and was told "Corporate has a 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' mentality"
-The Registers and computer systems at the front desk were running on outdated software . My store was still running Windows Microsoft Office 2003. The Registers, especially, are breaking down at an alarming rate at the older stores,mine being one of them, which have not been updated in many years.
-Corporate is now hiring an extremely high number of people for the position of "MATE"(Assistant Store Manager) at Trader Joe's to help fill the void when they open new stores in the future. Ordinarily this wouldn't be a problem, but Trader Joe's has a very unique culture and way of doing things that you don't see at other grocery stores. It is a culture that someone "off the street" doesn't get and having these people as your boss on the first day is very detrimental and demoralizing to the crew members and managers.
-Captains and Mates are not required to adhere to Trader Joe's founding principles, or "Core Values", many of which are useless and outdated anyway. Crew Members, on the other hand, are held to these "Core Values" like superglue.
-There is NOT a lot of room to move up in the company unless you're really good at positioning your lips on the Captains buttocks. If you're a suck-up you'll get all the opportunities in the world whether you deserve them or not and if you're like me and have a good, hard work ethic, sorry, no opportunities for you. I must have asked 100 times to do more and every time the answer was the same "NO".
-Crew Members often times will tattle-tale on you to the Captain and Mates in order to get more opportunities in the store.
-Management will do whatever it takes to get ahead including lying on your reviews. I'd work hard all day doing the work of 2 or 3 people only to get a "have a good night" from the Mates as reward for working 3/4 of the load. As another reviewer said it's the 80/20 rule. 80% of the work is done by 20% of the crew.
-There is no accountability for crew members or management in place when an employee does not follow "company standards(the biggest oxymoron of them all).
-Absolutely terrible communication on a store level. Crew members are always expected to give a WOW! customer experience and yet we are not given the training and resources to help us deliver that level of customer service. If you chat up all your customers you're golden.
-Safety Training/equipment is an afterthought. The Fork lift and pallet jacks are all out of date just invited daily injury. So, be ready to blow out your knees and lower back, because there is no equipment besides a red knee pad and a few step ladders to save you. Management is absolutely oblivious to the fact that SAFETY COMES FIRST. They simply don't care to correct this or any problem in their stores
-Reviews have gone from 1-5 pts system(1 being the worst, 5 being the best) to now a "MEETS EXPECTATIONS" and "DOES NOT MEET EXPECTATIONS" systems and you are never really told what the Captains definition of EXPECTATIONS is, since everyone perceives it and therefore you different. I would be reprimanded verbally by the Captain for having Poor Customer Service and then told on my review that I have outstanding Customer Service. Contradictions like this are the order of the day in stores especially with many of the new "off the street" Mates and Captains.
Trust me, the list could go on indefinitely, because of the new direction the company has taken. Trader Joe's is sadly, becoming more like Safeway everyday and they don't even know it.
