Trader Joe's reviews

You'll get hurt, and you'll get hurt again. Then, you'll get hurt again. Be willing to accept major wear and tear on your body due to extreme expectations compared to other grocery stores and not fully recovering physically for a nonprofessional hourly wage. Also, don't count on getting the medical insurance. They can keep your hours just below the required level and then you're out of luck, no matter what they said when they hired you. The corporate office has a remarkable lack of ethics. I never thought they would be like that when I was simply a loyal customer. I've seen too many coworkers treated badly to explain away what goes on there. I'm fortunate to be built like an ox and to be young enough to recover quickly, but I've seen older people forced to do things when they said they could not safely do them, and they've been seriously hurt. Something is seriously messed up about that. Basically, the stronger and faster get treated better than the hardworking and generally fit people who are not quite as strong or who are older and therefore have to be more careful. Sometimes it seems like management is trying to use up and then force out anyone who is not an athlete even if they work hard and are great with customers. Use 'em up, and throw 'em out. I've talked to older workers at other stores, and not all stores do that. Some give the older workers the less physically taxing work, but, for some reason, my store and some other stores just beat the living daylights out of them. If my mom worked here, I'd offer to support her rather than having her here because it would be only a matter of time before she was badly injured and TJ's would be claiming that it never happened and calling her a liar, mocking her, with management statements to back them up. It's disgusting. I'll be looking for another job soon. I just can't stand to see what they do to people. Yes, some enjoy it, but they are supposed to consider everyone's physical abilities and set limits on what they ask people to do. There is enough variety of work that they could do that. They also don't discipline employees who violate privacy and behavior standards. If an employee is a favorite of management, they can treat you like crap, ask you questions employers are not supposed to ask, gossip about you with false statements, etc. with no ramifications. As far as I know, everyone seems to like me. I smile a lot, work hard, and never complain. But, I'm more than fed up with this place. Enough is enough. As for career opportunities, a few will make it to management and make decent money, but they could make as much elsewhere without risking injuries and having to lie to keep injured workers from getting temporary income and medical help when they need it. It's not worth it for most.

Training and standards in general are inconsistent. Performance reviews are incredibly subjective and can easily be biased based on people's personal opinions of you. It's easy to be overlooked if you are not one of the "popular" people, even if you perform better and are more consistent and reliable than other crew members.