Frustrating, soul-crushing, tedious, painful, mindless...but at least it's work.
Pros
Some of the customers are nice. It's fun giving free samples, and there's a sense of accomplishment baking things and seeing the products you've packaged sell. Co-workers can be funny, and the work environment is actually somewhat nice since there's a sense of camaraderie that comes from sharing a crappy employer.
Cons
No employee discount (there's a coupon once you spend $500, but that's really not very exciting), the union dues make your salary negligible, the absurdly fancy uniform (tie, white shirt, black non-slip leather shoes...and the alternative, hideous-brown, Vons shirt is an obnoxious option because they make you buy it from them), the fact that being employed "part time" (even if you work 40 hours a week) gives them an excuse to give you a highly irregular schedule (posted weekly), the work can be extremely strenuous (heavy lifting, running around trying to get tasks done on a tight schedule, with demanding supervisors and customers often asking you for conflicting things), and the mind-numbing monotony. There's too much focus on paperwork and keeping up to standards (for mystery shoppers, out-of-stock audits, safety observations of fellow employees), and it's easy to lose sight of the fact that you're there to provide a service for a customer, not just to prove you're being productive for the company. It's alienating, soul-crushing work. You're a number for a corporate system, and they track your hours by having you punch that number into a clock, watching you on their cameras with a distrust that's merited because they treat you like such a commodity as a worker that of course you're going to want to defy them by untucking your shirt or taking a sample, asserting your humanity in whatever tiny way you can manage. They can fire you for no reason within your first two months of work (a "probation period" everyone faces), and don't pay you any more for working holidays or weekends (until you've worked for the company for a year, at which point you get time-and-a-half and a *whole week* of paid vacation). The 401K option is crap (no employer matching), and so is the healthcare (as far as I can tell, from having elected to not even bother). Customers can be rude and scary, and I've been grabbed, yelled at, and "accidentally" brushed against in an inappropriate manner. I have burns and scrapes and a perpetually sore back from the heavy lifting and from dealing with hot and heavy pans and sharp plastic edges of packages (also, I'm just clumsy), but I know if I tell a supervisor about any of these things I'll just create more hassle and paperwork and waste time for little or no compensation, probably just creating a new set of safety regulations that everyone will ignore (like they already ignore many of the things about how to safely lift heavy objects and when to wear mesh cutting gloves).
