I figured you could use a little cheer-me-up.
I see Bellingham isn’t as high as the more Seattle-ish cities, but it’s not a bad rate and a little higher than Blaine. Trader Joe’s? Average is $22.23 in Washington. https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Trader-Joe’s/salaries/Crew-Member/Washington-State
You know, I’ve been shopping at Trader Joe’s since the mid-’80s. I wouldn’t mind that at all. I’m sure it would be part time. $22.23 is less than I’m making now, but I’ve always heard it’s a good place to work.
Most of the people working there have unforced smiles and morale seems high. I think they pay a bonus for working on Sundays, too.
A friend worked there after he was laid off as a COBOL programmer. At first, he got the leftover shifts and that was a nuisance. But after he got a little seniority, he had a lot of choice as to his shifts, and overall he was very happy working there.
And it paid enough to tide him over until he could retire.
Heh. I wrote a few COBOL programs when I was at Experian. I don’t remember any of it, other than I thought Easytrieve was ‘COBOL-Lite’.
My wife works there. Most of those smiles are not really un-forced. But they do pay a premium for Sunday. At least here, it’s a very physically demanding job. You aren’t on register all day–you have to unload trucks and pack them out a good chunk of your day. And virtually none of the customers bag—and you’re expected to bend down and take all of their groceries out of their cart and bag them, so even on register she does a huge amount of bending. If you have a bad back or knees, this job will make them worse. Nearly everyone at her store is nursing some kind of injury and many are going to physical therapists for it.
I’d probably take a job there for just the thrill of watching their completly inadequate, confusing parking lots. Well, that and unlimited ginger snaps.
I thought that was just around here.
They’re also undersized spaces. Anything larger than a compact is a tight fit.
Our second TJ’s in town is where Bed Bath & Beyond used to be; so the aisles are wide, and the parking is excellent.
My friend mostly stocked shelves. I don’t know if he worked the registers at all. I think he enjoyed the physicality of it, though.
It’s a pretty common observation
Why Are Trader Joe’s Parking Lots So Small? It’s No Big Conspiracy.
Basically, Trader Joe’s knows that their parking areas can be frustrating, and one of the most off-putting aspects of visiting their stores — but that’s just the trade-off for having a Trader Joe’s in your neighborhood. “We don’t open stores with the world’s most ridiculous parking lot on purpose,” Sloan said.
Werner Herzog (supposedly) wrote an incredible review of his local Trader Joe’s, starting with the parking lot…
Madness reigns. The first challenge your soul must endure is the parking lot. You wait with your vehicle half blocking traffic, creating a perfect circular vortex of anger that encompasses the street and the entrance to the store. Once you attain access to the lot, you discover that this is a false achievement; other motorists stop and start with no apparent thought or plan-- turns once begun are quickly abandoned, the drivers seemingly immune to geometry. At last a space opens up, but the price is having to enter the store.
Huh? The setup at Trader Joe’s seems to be that the cashier always bags.
Exactly what I said. None of the customers bag—only the cashier does. As a cashier, you’re expected to not only bag, but bend down and take the stuff out of the cart. Doing that for a few hours is rough on the back.
La Jefa sent everyone a Teams message this morning, reminding them to complete the Gallup Employee Engagement Survey, and to check our junk mail folders if we haven’t received it. I hadn’t, and I told her. She replied to me directly (instead of her ‘everyone’ post)…
Don’t worry about the Gallup Survey. I may have left you off the distribution since I knew you would be leaving us soon.
And she deleted the first chat (which was used for other business).
“May have left you off the distribution list”? More like deliberately excluded someone who was being let go in an effort to reduce the number of negative responses.
Man, that sucks. I always bag when the cashier is ringing my food up at Trader Joes. At the very least, it helps to pass the time and get me out of there faster; I can’t imagine just standing there while the cashier is scanning everything through and then waiting for them to bag it up as well.
Sometimes one of the other cashiers will come over and we’ll split bagging - one with the cold items, one with the others - but if I have more than, say, four items, I’m grabbing and packing them as fast as I can.
Some do that, but it’s like 90% who don’t. They stand there on their phones or whatever. And then have the nerve to not be ready with their credit card when it’s done. Her big pet peeve is when, instead of bagging, they helpfully tell her how to bag. And then she’s expected to load the stuff back into the cart—it’s as lot of bending and lifting, much more than you’d see at the traditional grocery stores.
But the pay is better, it’s full time with pretty good benefits.
It has never occurred to me to bag at TJs. Although I often do at other grocery stores. IMO the layout of their standard checkstands makes it very difficult for the customer to bag. There’s nowhere to work.
My other pet peeve about TJs is their computer system won’t let you scan your credit card or phone until after the order is totalled. At more modern stores, I can scan my card immediately as the cashier begins. So I can do all that stuff like get out the phone, unlock it, tap, have the computers beep happily, put the phone away so my hands are free to carry away my groceries, before I’m wasting everyone’s time doing all that while the cashier is looking at me wondering what the hold-up is.
IMO if anyone wants to get pissy at customers paying slowly at TJs, blame TJ’s IT department.
That’s what I was thinking; Trader Joe’s has their checkstands set up so that the cashier can remove items from the cart or handbasket, scan them and then immediately bag them. As you said, there’s no convenient place for a customer to assist.