Good luck! They’ll be lucky to have you!
Where I am, they’ve passed regulations that require letting employees know well ahead of time what their schedules will be. Red Robin just had to pay a hefty fine for violating it.
This. I chat more when I am excited about a prospect. It has cost me big time in job interviews. Good luck to you @ekedolphin !
Our schedules run from Friday to Thursday. She posts the schedule… on Thursday. Going into Thursday, no one knows if they’re working on Friday. It’s ludicrous.
And no paid time off. If it wasn’t such a fun job, and if I didn’t need the money, I would have started looking for a new job much, much earlier.
Oh, bless your sweet little ol’ heart. Minimum wage customer service retail jobs never give you paid time off.
Food Lion is non-union, so I’d suggest looking for a job at a union grocery store instead - you’ll have to pay membership dues, but the pay and benefits will be a lot better, and the union will help you find a job at another chain if you get laid off or your hours cut.
The chain I work at isn’t union, but it is employee-owned, and we have a collective bargaining agreement that requires our pay and benefits to be equal to or greater than our local union competitors, which means I get most of the benefits of being in the union without having to pay dues. It’s a pretty sweet setup. (I also own about $200k in company stock that I didn’t have to pay a dime for and I’m on track to retire as a millionaire.)
In most of the areas where Food Lion operates there aren’t any union stores.
I have never heard of a union grocery store.
That’s disappointing. Aside from us and Walmart, pretty much all the chains out here on the west coast are union shops.
They are very common on the East Coast and apparently also on the West.
Food Lion is mostly Southeast. Their major competitors are Walmart, Publix and WinnDixie. All non Union. And a bunch of smaller regional chains ALL of which are non-union.
Kroger has some union stores in their area and in the Del-Mar-VA area there is Giant Food and Safeway. Most of Kroger locations are the non-union Harris Teeter stores.
Publix, IIRC, is employee-owned, so if they’re like my employer then they probably offer a better compensation package than their other non-union competitors.
Out here, Kroger is represented by Ralph’s, QFC, Fred Meyer, and in the southwest Fry’s, which are all unionized, and they’re pursuing a merger with Safeway/Albertsons which are also union stores (though that merger is being challenged by several state AGs and might not go through). I was a little confused when I first moved to WA from southern CA and encountered a grocery store called Ralph’s which is completely unaffiliated with the Ralph’s chain in California, and is instead part of a regional IGA-ish chain of independently owned stores called Thriftway (which is ALSO union).
I would phase it like this: “I tend to upsell customers, because I am an extrovert”
Positive statement that puts both you and your relationship with customers in a good light from the perspective of the shop.
It’s fine to be chatty while cashiering as long as it doesn’t throw off your efficiency. You’ll be expected to scan a certain number of items per minute, and your manager will likely factor how efficient you are into what hours you get (assuming they write the schedule themselves; at my store, the computer writes the schedule and the manager mainly just rubber-stamps it after making a few tweaks).
You might be able to impress the interviewer if you can memorize some produce codes before the interview; they’re universal, and knowing them will go a long way towards being efficient. 4011 is bananas, 3107 is oranges, yellow onions are 4093, baking potatoes are 4072, garlic is 4608, iceberg lettuce is 4061, green bell peppers are 4065, and so on and so on. Here’s a guide I found online;
i thought youd like to see this …
Supermarket cashiers don’t upsell. All he needs to say, if anything, is “I genuinely enjoy working with customers” or some such.
Oh, really? I worked at swirling-the-drain Blockbuster for 13 years, my final pay was $8.35 an hour, they were on a mandatory raise freeze for the last six years, and even they gave guaranteed paid time off.
I just applied at Wawa, which is closer and provides stock options for its employees, and I spoke with the assistant beverage manager, who spoke with the assistant general manager. They’re very interested in getting me in for an interview, and will be in contact. I am VERY excited.
The best of luck to you. You seem to be a good person who deserves a break in life.
Thanks. If I get the job, would anyone be interested in a Wawa follow-along thread? Based on the response to this thread, I’m assuming yes, but.
I for one would be interested. Day-in-the-life threads about a world I’ve only seen from the other side of the counter are always enlightening & entertaining. And as we see with @Smapti & @Broomstick’s contributions, others in your line of work can chime in with info useful to you. A win-win.