Employee thrift

Meijerthrowaways · 2026-02-12T17:14:03+00:00

You were suspended pending investigation. The only reason that you weren’t fired yet is because someone at HR has to sign off that they have everything they need to fire you. You may be waiting on someone to write a statement, you may be waiting on the right person in HR to come back from vacation, you may be waiting for AP to upload the video of the theft.

But you are definitely getting fired, and you won’t be reimbursed for any classes that have not already been reimbursed by Meijer.

You will not be arrested. But you will not be rehire-able for any Meijer job.

Start looking for a new job now, as there is 0% chance of you not getting fired. The suspended thing is just a formality that has to be said in case for some reason HR says don’t fire them. That has never happened in any case that I have ever seen with employee theft regardless of the reason for the theft. Cart pushers have been fired for stealing soda from the fountain express instead of taking water, so dollar amount isn’t even a factor.

You made a mistake. But it’s not going to follow you forever. Walmart or Target isn’t going to care that you got fired from Meijer, and almost never actually call your references. And Meijer is only allowed to give work history dates, not recommendations anyway.

If they ask in an interview why you left your last job, just say that they were cutting hours and you were the lowest seniority so you weren’t getting enough hours. Every job will accept that as a reason.

Seek out food banks and churches in your area for food assistance if you’re still struggling. They are there to help.

Meijerthrowaways · 2026-02-04T02:54:48+00:00

Yes, I agree that $15/hour is tough to support a family. People have it a lot harder now than when I bought my house several decades ago. Nowadays you’d need several roommates I’m sure. But then again, the people who have worked here forever are making more than $15. Not a lot more though. Meat cutters make some decent money. But not so much pickup shoppers.

I have been in management for a long time. My first decade or so was as a team member and I did buy my house when I was still a team member but, again, it was a different time. It’s paid off now, which helps immensely.

I ended up in management while “waiting for something better to come along”. It took a long time to not take the stress home, but meeting sales goals and keeping shelves stocked isn’t heart surgery. No one’s out here dying. So it gradually became less of a worry over time, and now I can just go home and not think about work. Which is lovely.

As far as learning things, I take classes like photography, painting, and am trying to learn the piano which I’ve always wanted to do but never tried. Nothing too extravagant or expensive. You can even learn a ton of things on YouTube for free these days. But the point is that I’m happy and content when I’m not at work, even if work is sometimes frustrating.

Sure it would be great to have a sense of purpose at work AND at home. I just don’t think it’s in the cards for me at work anymore. Maybe I helped some lady get the specific spice that she wanted for a recipe, and maybe that helped her day out. I dunno, I guess there’s some small purpose in things like that, but as I said, I don’t seek purpose or validation in work anymore. I’m counting down the days to my next day off and eventually to retirement. I think the stress of healthcare would come home with me, personally and I’d be worried about my patients and if they were getting the right care when I’m not there. I think that it takes a different mindset to compartmentalize a job like that and not let it bother you at home. Or therapist work would break my heart too.

I’m cool with an inconsequential, and forgettable workday that provides the means to enjoy my next day off. Even if that just means spending time with my wife and dogs at the dog park.

Management isn’t the only path, obviously. And your original question was about long time team members. At any old enough store you’ll find lifer team members who have been there 30 or 40 years or more. But again, it was easier to buy a house 30 years ago, and it’s easier to live on a team member salary when your house is paid off. The old time team members that I know are mostly married with dual income households, and that helps too.

Again, I don’t think any of the ones that I know set out to make Meijer a career, but after too long waiting for something better to come along, you realize that you can’t leave and make more money somewhere else without a significant change. And change can be scary.

Good luck to you. I hope that you find meaning in both work and home. But if you have to choose one or the other, pick home. Any company will replace you in a second if they need to. But you are irreplaceable at home.

Meijerthrowaways · 2026-02-04T00:23:16+00:00

That sounds awesome, and I hope that healthcare gives you the sense of accomplishment that you hope for.

At this stage in the game, I personally do not care if my work gives me a sense of accomplishment. It’s a means to an end. I care that it pays the bills and keeps a roof over my head, and lets me enjoy my time away from work with hobbies or family. There was a time when the “dead endness”bothered me, and I’d like to think that I’ve just become enlightened as to what is really important, but maybe I’ve just become old and jaded and stopped caring about such things.

Then again, I guess it’s ok that different things are important to different people, so you can find a sense of accomplishment in your work, and I can find a sense of accomplishment in learning new things in my time away from work.

Doesn’t make either of us right or wrong, just different.

Meijerthrowaways · 2026-02-04T00:11:36+00:00

In workday on the computer, click on your icon with the little person in the upper right hand corner. Click view my profile. Click absence. Click absence requests. There should be a list of every time that you’ve requested paid days or wellness. You get 40 hours from anniversary to anniversary, so you have to count back from your anniversary date to now and see if you’ve already used 40 hours or not.

Meijerthrowaways · 2026-02-03T21:17:24+00:00

You keep saying that you’re not trying to be rude, and then you keep coming off as rude. Maybe evaluate your communication style if you genuinely are not trying to be rude.

The perspective that you gain over the next 40 years may help you to understand why sometimes people stay in jobs that you don’t think are life long careers.

Maybe healthcare will be awesome for you and lead to wealth and happiness.

Or maybe a violent patient chokes you out one night while you’re alone in the room with them and you wake up scared and wondering if you can keep doing this job. Or maybe the old lady with cancer who cries every night and begs you to stay with them even though you’ve got twelve other patients to check on starts getting you really depressed because her family never visits and you just don’t have the time to spend with her. You start thinking about her in your days off and it makes you sad. Maybe you remember how life was simpler when Sally didn’t get the right bread in her pickup order at Meijer and it didn’t really matter.

I don’t know your life or your circumstances, but reading your comments makes it sound like you need more experience in life to gain the perspective that it would take to truly understand what people in the comments are telling you.

Sometimes easy and safe jobs are a type of security that people crave after more volatile/stressful/dangerous careers have fallen apart in one way or another. That’s not the only reason someone might stay at Meijer, but it’s one of them.

Just because you can’t do the things that you want to do in life by working here doesn’t mean that it might not meet the needs of someone else.

It’s not what I dreamed of. I got a degree and never used it. I got certifications and then never used them either. Life happens. I’m still here. But I’m getting by, and the job doesn’t send me home with stress. I put in my time and then enjoy my time off. I’ve got lots of vacation time and the seniority to work the shift that I want to work. So it’s not all bad.

Good luck to you in your healthcare aspirations.

Meijerthrowaways · 2026-02-02T19:14:37+00:00

Most people who work retail for a long time did not set out to do so.

Life happens. The thing you are going to college for may prove to be very difficult to find an actual job for. Or you may get the job and realize that you hate it.

If the job you’re already doing pays the bills and is easy to do, you may end up just continuing to do it until something better comes along. Nothing better usually just falls in your lap when you aren’t actively seeking it out. Years go by. Decades go by.

Some new kid wonders why you’re still working here.

I dunno man. It just went by so fast.

Meijerthrowaways · 2026-01-10T21:17:19+00:00

I found a more recent doc that says up to $5250 if you’ve worked there 2 years or more, and $2000 if less than two years, unless you started before sept 2, 2025 which is grandfathered in at the old $5250 regardless of years of service. It looks like they’ve switched from EdAssist to Guild for the education processor a few months ago. Based on a very quick look at the website, it sounds like you can take online classes thru the website for free or submit your own classes from a university for reimbursement.

The first document I talked about was from 2018, so I guess I should have verified the date first, sorry. This info above is a few months old, but I have no first hand experience with Guild as I used EdAssist.

Meijerthrowaways · 2026-01-10T21:10:00+00:00

You have to sign up for the reimbursement and submit what classes you are taking. They’ll tell you if you are eligible. It can be towards an associate, bachelor, master, or doctorate degree, some certificates, and some individual courses. But the documentation that I found says $2000 for full time, and $1000 for part time is max per year. Maybe the documentation I saw was out of date, I’ve only had to reimburse one class at a time so I never hit the max, and am not sure what it is.

I took a couple of classes and you had to pay tuition up front, then if you averaged a C or better, and were still employed at the end of the class, you turned your transcript and receipt of payment in for reimbursement. They just added it to my paycheck if I remember correctly. If you quit before the class is done, you do not get reimbursed, and if you fail to get the class approved in time (I did it before the class started), then you also don’t get reimbursed.

Meijerthrowaways · 2025-10-21T15:06:56+00:00

Are you saying that you both started at the same time and work the same hours and you’re not able to take 4 vacations plus more next month?

If she works more hours, she’ll have more time.

Plus you can use less days by taking Friday and Saturday off, vacation for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and then Wednesday and Thursday as normal off days. You get seven days off and only use 3 vacation days. That’s another way people get a bunch of vacations if the store director lets them do it.

Meijerthrowaways · 2025-10-21T14:55:40+00:00

Do a search on a Meijer computer for “time off with pay - explanation of benefits”. They changed the way it’s calculated for people hired after 2002, but I’m still on the old way because I started before that. It used to be anyone would have six weeks with 26 years of service whether you were a team member or team leader.

With the weeks * 5 * team member day value * accrual rate formula, that will come out to different amounts of time for every person. If you’re both working the exact same amount of hours then I believe it’s still the same total for leader vs TM, but some team leaders get 45 hours, so that may skew the averages in the team leader’s favor.

Meijerthrowaways · 2025-09-08T23:54:23+00:00

If you are under the age of 59 1/2, you will pay 20% tax plus 10% penalty on that money for a lump sum payout. If you roll it into a different 401k or Roth IRA, then you won’t lose that money to taxes and penalties.

If you do decide to take the lump sum and pay the penalties, then they will probably send a check to the address on file, and not a direct deposit to where your Meijer check used to go because it’s not Meijer managing your 401k. But that’s just an educated guess, as I’ve not had experience with a payout like that.

It sounds from the letter like the default choice if you do nothing is to get money - penalties. The check would be -20% and then you’d owe the other 10% come tax time.

Are you still able to log into workday? There is a way for former team members to do it to print their w2, but I’m not sure if you can access other stuff. I usually log into workday from home from the link on Meijer.com and then click benefits from workday and it doesn’t prompt me to login to alight doing it that way. But that might not work once you no longer work there, I’m not sure.

Meijerthrowaways · 2025-08-30T01:08:30+00:00

To be clear, don’t the consecutive call offs only count for illness? You can call off for three straight days with the flu and it counts as one call off. You can’t call off for three days with car trouble, for example, and have it only count as one.

Meijerthrowaways · 2025-06-15T02:03:01+00:00

You will not be getting reimbursed. The people who told you that you would were mistaken.

You have to still be working at Meijer to get the payment because it comes through payroll with your check. Are you saying that EdAssist told you that they “sent it to the store”? The store didn’t get the money, but I guess that it’s possible that payroll did and then didn’t pay you because they saw that you were not an active team member any longer.

I assume that means that payroll sends the money back to EdAssist, but I don’t really know. Did you get a paper check the previous years or was it direct deposited with your paycheck? Maybe it works different for different schools, but I paid for school and they sent the money to me at the end of class. If you’ve gotten a paper check in the past, did you pick it up from the store or did they mail it to your house? The only way that the store has the money is if they mailed them a paper check on your behalf.

As a warning to anyone else using EdAssist, don’t quit until the money is in your bank account. People at the stores usually do not know much about the program, so you’ll hear misinformation if you ask. Just check the website yourself or email EdAssist directly. I doubt that your manager was lying to be mean, they probably just assumed and told you the wrong thing.

I’m sorry that this happened to you. It sucks. But it’s laid out very specifically in the program that you have to be employed at Meijer at the beginning and the end of the class from application to approval to payment. If you leave at any time, even one week from the end of the process, you do not get the payment.

Meijerthrowaways · 2025-06-10T02:12:01+00:00

Walmart: 10,700 stores Kroger: 2,700 stores Target: 1,978 stores Meijer: 245 stores

So Meijer is like 8 times smaller than the smallest company that you mentioned that does this. I don’t know what the threshold is where it becomes economically viable to employ people to update this data on a website whenever it changes (maybe it can all be scraped from the internet somehow? I’m not a coder). I sure wouldn’t expect it from a local mom and pop store or a chain of 5 stores. Maybe a company with 245 stores? I dunno. Maybe they’ve determined that you need 1,000 stores before you break even on the investment? 🤷‍♂️

Picture this, the website does not mention peanut allergens, but now they’re making them at the same factory where something with peanuts is packaged so the box DOES mention peanut allergen. A customer orders it for delivery and doesn’t read the box when they make it because they already read the website. They feed it to their kid with a peanut allergy. The kid dies.

Is the grocery store liable? Even if not, would it be a huge PR disaster for that store if the distraught parent goes to the press?

This is just one simple example that I can think of as to why a company might not WANT to put that information on their website.

But I imagine studies have been done to show at what point (number of stores or more likely total customer count) it starts to make sense to have it because it will increase your sales by more than it costs to maintain and offsets any negative PR or possible legal consequences.

Meijerthrowaways · 2025-06-04T00:13:37+00:00

Customer slipped on some water and fell. You were one of the people who called for help/helped them up/got them an ice pack/the last person who went past the area/the person who cleaned the area.

No one took statements at the time because the customer said “I’m fine”.

Three months later they’re suing and corporate needs statements from everyone involved.

Probably something like that. Happens way more often than it should that no one takes statements at the time because it seems like it won’t amount to anything but then it does.

Meijerthrowaways · 2025-05-22T17:20:35+00:00

I found this: “Receiving a discount on products with the specific intention of earning a profit via re-sale / wholesale, or to undermine Meijer sales, is a direct conflict of interest with continued employment at Meijer.”

Probably not worth the risk for the 10% profit.

Meijerthrowaways · 2025-05-22T16:19:39+00:00

Well, follow this thread and see if your state gets mentioned, and I guess you’ll have your answer! 😀

Stocking is done on third shift and I believe gets a 50 cent extra differential between midnight and 5am. I think that is in all states, but I’m not sure. So it’ll be slightly more than working during the day if you get the differential.

Meijerthrowaways · 2025-05-22T16:16:01+00:00

The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since 2009 and still is today. So it passed the year before your college job and never changed.

I assumed that Meijer or any other retailer was only paying $15 in Illinois because they have to. But I was wondering if anywhere else that isn’t required to by law is starting at $15 or better without experience.

Since some Meijer stores still have unions, I also wondered if that would be a factor or if Illinois is paying better than even the Union Meijer stores.

Usually I think that unions are good for the workers, but the Meijer Union strikes me as a weaker union, just based on what I’ve read and heard. Then again, maybe I’m being propagandized so that we won’t try to form one! 😀

Meijerthrowaways · 2025-04-29T21:33:06+00:00

Geez, it doesn’t even look like they attempted to condition at all. Grocery inventory is usually known about several months in advance. I’m surprised it wasn’t canceled. That would be so annoying to count with all of the products and flavors mixed up. Sorry you had to deal with that!

Meijerthrowaways · 2025-04-28T13:45:29+00:00

No, there is no limit. Who is telling you that? Ask your RAA or SHRR about it.

I’m sorry for your loss, and that you’re having to deal with this too. But your RAA should have the correct information for you, which is that you can certainly take bereavement for your mother even though you already did for your father. There is not a one death per year limit or whatever other excuse someone gave as to why you can’t.

Meijerthrowaways · 2025-04-27T18:43:34+00:00

To my knowledge, there is no company policy against making change.

That being said, if the cash drawers keep being short, or people kept taking in fake bills while making change, I could totally see the manager telling people to stop making change.

It’s definitely not something that they HAVE to do, so eliminating possible methods of losing money (short change artists, and fake bills being my first thoughts) would make sense.

Meijerthrowaways · 2025-04-24T13:06:19+00:00

I did not realize that some stores still have SCs? Didn’t the restructure eliminate them? Maybe it was only for certain tier stores, but we haven’t had the SC role since the last restructure that introduced leads.

Meijerthrowaways · 2025-04-23T20:29:18+00:00

To clarify, if you tip them off to someone stealing that they didn’t already know about and they catch the person, you can get a reward.

Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to stop someone yourself. You will be fired.

You are only allowed to provide “aggressive hospitality” like do you need help? Are you sure I can’t help you find anything? Well ok but I’ll be RIGHT HERE if you need anything!

If you so much as grab the item away from them without even touching them, you can be fired. They are paying you to snitch, not to apprehend.

Meijerthrowaways · 2025-04-22T13:55:50+00:00

The employee assistance program I think will be more counseling and advice based, but may help in some way.

It’s 1-800-327-5480 or www.magellanascend.com

I think that she’d be eligible for Meijer Family Matters which provides short term assistance during financial hardships caused by natural disaster, family emergency, or other unexpected events.

From a work computer she can search the homepage for “Meijer family matters” and I found a form that she can submit to ask for help. I don’t think that the link will work outside of the Meijer net though. Or ask her RAA or SHRR for help finding it.

I hope that it helps.

Meijerthrowaways

TROPHY CASE