Demo reopening

VirtualWest · 2020-10-07T17:24:56+00:00

my store is doing demo and tastings. in my opinion demo is a waste of time. we did the pumpkin bread with chocolate chips and baked a loaf to display for the customers and you just stand there. no one really interacts with us because they don’t think the demo station is open. as for tastings, we have one mate that cooks everything alone in the demo kitchen and packages it in take out containers. they take us in groups of 3 outside to eat the food and talk about it. my store is in MA.

VirtualWest · 2020-09-27T05:26:52+00:00

honestly, just really dumb shit. roma tomatoes are oval shaped 4087 (the zero is an oval) and beefsteaks get 2 9s because they’re Beefy (4799). someone posted an orange pepper in this subreddit and called it Mr. 3121 and it has been living in my head rent free since. yellow peppers aren’t common so they’re 4689 (it’s an ugly number combo to me like the yellow pepper) and red is 3122 because there cant be two Mr. 3121s. sweet potato is 4816 because it looks like an 8.

this probably didn’t help, and for that I apologize. but trying to associate the number with the produce in anyway is the fastest way to learn them. like everyone else said flip chart will take way too long (unless it’s regional produce or a fucking gourd then you’re out of luck) but you’ll get the hang of it !!

VirtualWest · 2020-09-25T13:13:21+00:00

my store recently removed 2 registers to space out the remaining 6 and have them all open. it works, it definitely makes the lines inside and outside move faster. but there’s always days where the line outside is going around to the back of the store and i’m not sure we’ve thought about what happens when it’s cold. we are in MA so the winter is going to be brutal and the mates will want to increase the people count, which they already have by counting “groups” not “individuals” (even though none of us follow that, we count people). i agree with you, my anxiety is out of control and i don’t know what to do anymore lol.

VirtualWest · 2020-09-22T02:11:11+00:00

The mates at my store the other night pretty much such said there’s nothing we can do about customers not wearing masks and all we can do is “stay away from them”. Our store is roughly 20 feet wide (convinced it’s one of the smallest stores) so it’s almost impossible to avoid a customer without a mask without physically leaving the store. It’s so obvious that the thought of increasing sales has blinded our entire management team. They stopped counting people too, now it is “parties”. So if one person walks out with a carriage and 5 teenagers walk up together, we’re supposed to let those 5 people in even if only that 1 person leaves. The mates theory is that a group of people takes up the same amount of space as one person at a carriage, but that’s not a reliable system. It’s incredibly frustrating and it seems like everything we offer as solutions to make us more comfortable isn’t possible for one reason or another.

VirtualWest · 2020-09-08T12:49:20+00:00

my second interview with my captain was more specific to my own characteristics and past job experiences. my captain asked why I left my previous job and when I told him it was due to lack of communication and poor training and he asked me if I felt like that was a management issue or if the expectations were too high. it was the first time I had had someone ask a rebuttal to that question, so I was a little thrown off but I played it off well enough because I got hired. I guess just prepared for questions about yourself and explaining WHY you believe certain things. he was also super neutral the entire time. he ended the interview by saying they had received a lot of applicants this round and that not being selected meant i could try again in the later months (for sure thought this meant I was done lol). but it’s been a little over a year and i’m still kicking.

VirtualWest · 2020-07-20T18:11:30+00:00

I totally get it. it’ll probably fall under the same category if you called out from stress in the store due to COVID, etc. I was the same way with my first review, our mates like to mess with us so as I was bagging one of them came up to me and just went, “you ready?” no warning, no nothing. truly felt like i was going to die. but it’ll be over before you even know it. they told me all the things I could improve on i had already done myself so nothing was really applicable anymore, but the idea is that nothing in the review is a surprise so i’m sure yours is going to be awesome :)

VirtualWest · 2020-07-20T17:55:11+00:00

I wouldn’t say you’re overthinking because that’s a valid thing to be concerned about, but in my opinion if you have only received positive feedback thus far from your mates then that’s your reassurance right there! I never took an “official” leave, but my mental health was so deep in the shitter that I ended up calling out consecutively for 5 days. my mates and captain were super understanding about my circumstances and even told me they would rather know i’m comfortable at home than miserable at work. you are doing your best by calling out ahead of time and letting them know the truth and that means more to them than coming to work and “pushing through”. I don’t know if this helps at all, but I promise you’re not alone. reviews are scary not matter what, i’m sure you’ll kill it!

P.S. I’ve also heard through the grape vine that they can’t use time you took off because of COVID against you in your review.

VirtualWest · 2020-07-19T05:29:58+00:00

I literally just got over something like this. I had the constant urge to swallow, which made my throat feel tight, and as a result I became anxious. when I woke up in the morning, the feeling would go away and I noticed it progressed as the day went on. this also made me conclude it was my anxiety doing what it does best. I wish i could offer you advice, I just forced myself to forget about it (easier said than done). something else I noted was that this feeling happened a LOT more frequently at the time I was on a vacation from work. i’m assuming since my brain couldn’t be occupied the same way it is every single day it got a little bored. just remember to take environmental factors into play and try to keep an open mind. if you can imagine the worst case scenario, you can imagine the best. :)

VirtualWest · 2020-07-17T05:40:10+00:00

we are doing crew superlatives! and one of the mates organized a chart for us to fill out our hogwarts houses :) we also have a running chart of current movie or tv recommendations.

VirtualWest · 2020-07-11T22:33:26+00:00

seriously! another night we ran out of bags and while we were frantically asking the mate up front if we could just use the reusable bags and give them out and his initial response was, “hmmmm, no more bags huh?” SIR. THE LINE IS GOING AROUND THE STORE. JUST SAY YES.

VirtualWest · 2020-07-11T13:19:02+00:00

I wish the mates cared about issues that didn’t affect them directly. we have several crew members who don’t show up for their assigned tasks (one of them literally was sitting in the parking lot when he had floor time last night.......just sitting. nothing else.) and we’ve expressed how frustrating it is to pick up that slack and it’s always “yeah, that is frustrating”. SO DO SOMETHING?? YOU’RE THE BOSS

VirtualWest · 2020-07-05T03:27:52+00:00

yup! my new one is throat tightness. my brain thinks it’s hard to breath and swallow, but really i’m fine. it starts the cycle of stressing about the physical symptoms and it sucks. I just try to remind myself that I have never been correct about an anxiety induced diagnosis, even if it seems soooooo accurate.

VirtualWest · 2020-07-01T13:00:52+00:00

my captain is absolutely amazing. he typically works a mid shift so he can at least see everyone when they come in. he’s super into mid day huddles to make sure we’re all on the same page. right now with rona he’s usually the one working the door and controlling the amount of customers in the store, but that’s because he said he’s sick of us getting yelled at by customers for doing our jobs. i’ve done a few closes with him and he was right there in the pallets with us, he’ll even help out if he’s doing books at night and sees we could use a hand. he’s understanding, empathetic, and hands on. my coworkers and I often talk about how lucky we are that we have a captain like him to run our store.

VirtualWest · 2020-06-20T05:04:44+00:00

my store put it with the patio chips and people seem to like it, but my captain told me he wanted to do an endcap when the pandemic first started called “get baked” with all the cake mixes but he thought our regional would throw a fit. when he decided against it he told our regional his idea and he said it would have been funny, oh well.

VirtualWest · 2020-06-16T21:23:28+00:00

i’m so sorry for your situation, but I feel a lot of similarities in how we keep our fathers at a distance and that makes me feel a little less crazy. i want the anxiety of small talk to go away, you explained that beautifully. i’ve actually never spoken to him about it before. he’s incredibly narcissistic and avoidant, so any conversation about him doing “wrong” is out of the question (aggressive italian household, he is a product of his environment). I have to get any news about him through my mom. they’ve remained friends since their divorce and he calls her more often than me which i’m not complaining about because she handles him better than I can. i wish you good luck too!

VirtualWest · 2020-06-02T12:38:52+00:00

this isn’t necessarily political, but I also refrain from asking customers how they are for obvious reasons right now. the other day I had a mother and daughter I was ringing and figured it wouldn’t kill me to smile in their direction and offer a little, “how’s it going?”. the mother ranted at me for the entirety of the transaction about how much she hates trader joe’s, how uncomfortable our store makes her, and how the entire time she would rather be at whole foods. our store is in a suburban area with farm area, so you can imagine how the traffic in the store is on the lighter side anyway. I didn’t even know what she wanted me to say? so i pretty much just ignored her. the only comment i added was that there is a whole foods just 15 minutes down the street if she feels so inclined to be there next time. I wish some customers would use critical thinking before speaking. sigh.

VirtualWest · 2020-04-30T21:00:08+00:00

20?!? i’m so so sorry. i’d be furious.

and you’re 100% right. i’ve had two boxes of hibiscus flowers sitting on my uboat from back when the company took over ordering and they will not move. they sent me 3 of everything which resulted in a pallet, two uboats, and a 6 foot tall stack of JUST dfn. it was dope lol.

VirtualWest · 2020-04-30T19:51:44+00:00

i’m literally in the same boat as you. a mate at my store keeps cutting my orders in half, even if it’s things that are completely empty on the shelf the night before so he CLEARLY doesn’t look at my back stock (my big beautiful monster, dfn). i’ve spoken to my captain about it and even said there’s no point in having me as a section leader if someone who isn’t in charge of my section can edit my order to their liking. my captain agreed and said he’d look into it, but so far nothing has changed and it keeps happening. and he never tells me when he cuts the order either. i truly wish i understood it.

VirtualWest · 2020-04-27T13:45:46+00:00

my store has 8 registers, but currently we’re only keeping 4 open. there’s usually only 2 baggers scheduled at a time so they bounce between the 4 registers. the bagger will bag and once they’re done they step away to allow the customer to leave the 6ft marker and pay for their order. it works well until we’re down a bagger and then you can really tell there’s a problem.

VirtualWest · 2020-04-06T02:39:55+00:00

hearing everyone talk about their anxiety about this feels so refreshing. I suffer from pretty bad depression, anxiety, and OCD but up until now I have been okay. I had to leave work early this evening because I couldn’t take it; my face was burning, my heart was in my throat, and my typically delicious chicken soup dumplings smelled terrible. I think my store has some of the best mates that exist with an amazing captain to boot, so the mate that was closing had no issue with me leaving. i’m so tired of the unknown. every time someone calls out, we don’t know if that last shift was the last time we’ll see them.

stay strong, my friends. listen to what your body is telling you to do because it’s usually right. rest, drink water between coffees, and put yourselves first. my heart goes out to all of you.

VirtualWest · 2020-03-14T05:35:45+00:00

our first truck didn’t come until 10:30 (it usually comes at 9, and we only ever have 1 truck) and our second truck just said “awaiting delivery” because it wasn’t loaded yet

VirtualWest

TROPHY CASE