- The workload in the deli is tremendous. As a Deli Associate, you're part customer service/cashier, part butcher and cheese-cutter, part sub-maker and chef, and part janitor.
- Many of the rules and requirements are ridiculously bureaucratic, petty, and unnecessary. Examples: We weren't even allowed to use steel wool to wash dishes. You had to log in at specific stations in your designated department. You could never clock in early, even by a minute, but never be more than 3 minutes late unless considered tardy, and "written up"/"counseled". Each week there was a new "dumb rule of the week" instituted, including having to wear safety goggles when washing dishes (which no one did). Even though I was mentioned in my evaluation by my manager as being a "great worker", I was written up for being tardy 2 days before my final work weekend (I had submitted my 2 weeks' resignation 1 week earlier already).
-Some of your coworkers are a nightmare to work with. They are gossipy backstabbers, and will report any instance of imagined infraction to management. It is mostly a female-led department, and there is a lot of anti-male sentiment, including scapegoating principally male associates for "all of the world's problems".
-Hours are slashed in "less busy" periods (which are still ridiculously busy) to only 1 day per week; however, in busy periods you can get prolonged periods of almost 40-hour-weeks as a part-timer. For some reason, Publix is allowed to do this, without giving part-timers benefits.
-Publix uses an advanced propaganda system, advertising it as a "worker-owned company". But that is a sham. It has labor standards that would have been considered criminal 40 years ago. The principal owners of the company are now long-term stockholders, the corporate CEO and his greedy board, and the incompetent ancestors of the founder. The stock for new full-time employers is mostly worthless.
-For the workload and skill requirement, the pay is subpar.
-Full-time status is laughably hard to attain (maybe one position opens up in a year), and management "pits" associates against each other to see who will "rise to the top". Management tells most new part-time employees that they will be managers, which many associates "buy into". But this is just a manipulative technique to get employees to work even harder than they already are (which isn't possible) , as well as to get employees to "tattle" on their coworkers. It's like a sad version of 1984.
-The customers are the most entitled, least grateful, most-demanding people I have ever had the displeasure of helping. They stare at you impatiently all of the time, verbally complain, and submit "bogus" complaints to management to get free products.
-The sub-shop stays open far to late, until 10 pm, and you are required to make subs for customers even if they arrive at 9:59 pm (which they often do). Publix allows this to happen. Then, you have to "hustle" to clean the department before the 11 pm deadline (which 90% never happens).
-We are required to stay after our appointed times at night. One night I had to stay until 1 am, 2 hours after my appointed leave time, because we had so many customers, and there was no reward, no "pat on the back", no nothing from management. However, if we come 4 minutes late, management will make a "major deal" of it.
-Full-time associates are used as unofficial managers, but receive no extra pay. A few of these full-time associate are incompetent "kids" in their early 20s. Subsequently, you get "bossed around" by much of the department, and if you decline to not follow the often nonsensical directions of these "wannabe" managers, they inform official management, who then have conversations with you.
-The turn-over is astronomical. In one week, three new associates quit. The majority of part-time associates are already looking for new jobs.
-Management is petty. I politely walked away from a customer briefly to retrieve my cell phone off a counter (which I had dropped). It took three seconds. Management "freaked out", shouting "you never walk away from a customer!". She acted as if I had killed someone.
-The toll the physical labor takes on your body is tremendous, and Publix only cares about liability, not your health and well-being. Associates have significant nerve damage (which makes sleeping hard), torn muscles, injured backs, battered knees, cut hands and fingers, broken bones, you name it.
-There are no breaks...ever. The company does not allow any 15-minutes breaks per four-hour-work-period. And you need them to cope with the workload. Publix calls your unpaid 30-minute lunch a "break". If you attempt to take breaks, which I tried to do in the beginning, your coworkers and management alike will make an issue of it. They even discourage you from going to the bathroom, and call this "stealing minutes". Associates and managements literally stare at you as you go and come back from the bathroom. It's creepy.
-Publix brags about its charitable givings, but all of that is tax-deductible. That tax income should instead go to the government, to be used to fund public schools, roads, healthcare, etc, not to Publix's preferred "tax haven charities".
