Trader Blows

Well that trip didn't last long: God, I hate that fake-hippie, so-cal crap they try to put on at Trader Joe's. I don't know why people have the impression that the company treats their employees so nicely. Other than starting the enlisted (I have trouble using the term employee since no one is really treated like they matter) out at around 10 bucks an hour, they really stack the cards against the 'crew members.' First of all, the union square store that I managed to work at for just under two weeks has more employees than any other Trader Blows in the country. The store is just so busy all the friggin' time that they have to hire scores of un-trained and barely interviewed pseudo-employees to keep the operation afloat. But the amount of traffic wasn't a turnoff so much as the way they handled it. Which brings me to the main reason I hated the place: the "full-timers." As part of their supposedly earthy philosophy, there aren't managers but asshole full-timers. Immediately, my forty hour weeks seem inadequate, don't they? These kids were all about my age but much stupider and less ambitious; thus fit to earn the full-time label and abuse power over a couple hundred generally nice 'crew members.' I don't know how they got their jobs, but I bet the screening was a modified version of my 5 minute interview. They are way too ignorant to actually run the store properly and love enforcing stupid rules. Our shelves remained empty while the registers were carding everyone (old ladies and peevish grown men included) for beer and even ringing the bell for full-timer verification if the customer happened to be from out-of-state. That meant ringing a friggin bell to get the people not wearing t-shirts to come over and double-check some 68 year old's Jersey ID just because. And the customers are all from out of state and love acting like they're insiders for knowing to go to the only grocery store in town with a line out front. "oh we're from California so we know all about Trader Joe's." Jesus Christ, get over your self.
The full-timers were too lazy to make a functioning schedule so I was usually forced to work register for entire shifts. Since the place was always so full of California transplants and curious old ladies and everyone they knew times ten, that meant a full 8 hours of one after the next people coming through my lane. Never a pause. After you thank them and give out the receipt, you flip this light switch for five minutes waiting for the line judge at the other end to send down the next custy. All that stuff was a pain in the ass but mainly I just couldn't reconcile the fact that double-bagging the groceries every time meant you needed to invest in stronger bags. You know? That was basically indicative of the entire relationship between company and employee: they don't really care about being nice and know you're going to quit sooner or later anyway. At my interview we talked about how I could escape the dreary desk job and be active at work. But I still sat at a computer all day; now I just wasn't allowed to sit. No one cared if I wanted to shuffle onto the produce or dairy department. Before I got there, the words "cigarette break" weren't uttered at the store. Powerless against my insane addiction to butts, I muttered something about not being able to work under such cig-less afternoons and was 3 minutes every two hours the end of the world? After some deliberation and references to the NYC Clean Air Act, I was granted tentative cig permission but still got dirty looks every time I asked. And thats an abbreviated version of why Trader Blows.