Any produce clerks here?

>where the lead micromanages every minute of the day, produce is very free.
Not at my store. My produce manager is extremely strict and will get you moved to another department or never give you any hours if you can't move fast enough or rotate.

Things that should get done don't get done without a mean ass manager. I hate him but he is the reason the produce department at my store flourishes. We have a few slackers who fuck everything up and he always comes in at 4 AM and repairs the department because of lazy faggots.

yeah my produce manager was chill AF and nothing got done without the higher ups telling him to do it, and then he just did it himself

also I fucking hate those co-workers who don't rotate and are just plain lazy

I guess your workers are just shit. Granted, most of the produce employees at my place were middle aged men who didn't mess around.

I'm a young full time produce clerk and I hear old timers say all the time that the next gen of produce workers (me) won't be able to fill their shoes but in reality, although a lot of young employees are VERY lazy, there are enough young good capable workers like me to surpass them. A lot of the old timers are outdated and will be retiring soon. The only problem is that when young produce clerks get promoted, they tend to be the DUDE WEEDLMAO kids. Oh well.

>I hear old timers say all the time that the next gen of produce workers (me) won't be able to fill their shoes

lol nigga they are fucking retail monkeys. hurr take the lettuce from the back and put it in the cooler. wow. how will anyone ever learn to do that? old ass faggots acting like they out here winning WW2 at work 'n shit.

>muh craft
>muh skill
>muh experience

>take the lettuce from the back and put it in the cooler
nigger what?

yep. bald motherfucker came in early every morning and didnt stop running around the entire day. bitched at every single kid working with him like he was their dad. left as fast as he got there though. he was out the fuckin door at noon.

tbf the kids working there were futureless drug addicts who didnt care at all. he wanted to fire them so bad but store manager was a nice guy. one of the produce guys rammed someones taillight out when helping with carts. he fucked with the electric pallet jacks and ruined thousands of dollars in food. took extra 10 min on breaks, popped pills in the back, was high all the time, and just a genuine shithead.

no idea why produce managers even put up with that shit and fix all the fuckups. must be getting a fat paycheck.

i worked grocery so idk what you guys do at night but the guys in produce after 4pm did absolutely nothing. literally stood around in the back on their phones until the truck came in then worked for like an hour.

lucky as fuck all the managers were cool and let you slack as long as the store ran.

not necessarily produce but do your stores have some floater employees? like they arent managers but they arent low level either?

we have this short bitch in grocery who does fuck all. she flirts with the managers and doesnt stock shit but the other managers were clear with me that shes not my manager. always hung out in the office or walked around. she was like 4'9 and couldnt lift anything anyway. she used to bring tight dresses and heels to change into after her shift to go party.

one day she told a grocer to do something and he checked with the manager first. she freaked out and starting shouting and cursing him out for not listening to her.

yall got crazies in your stores?

>truck arrives Saturday morning
>no more produce deliveries until Monday AM

working through the weekend was hell sometimes trying to shift things around to hide empty spots on the racks.

is that you? i work at pcc bothell

take the lettuce that got delivered and put it in the cooler, you mong

some of us work at places with refrig storage, especially if there's a working kitchen attatched

How is working in a grocery store? I pump gas and its getting cold out and im tired of it and looking for something new.

so this is where all the other grocery people are
t. bagger, cart fetcher, unshopper, floor cleaner, recycling maintenance guy...

Working in a deli is hell. Cashiering makes you realize how stupid the general population is.

I was a produce buyer for Whole Foods in manhattan. AMA faggots

>when young produce clerks get promoted, they tend to be the DUDE WEEDLMAO kids
Well yeah, they want to promote people who are going to be stuck there forever.

Retired manager for Sprouts.

The amount of work in produce definitely varies widely between our stores, and it's definitely a lot more lax at other companies such as Safeway or a lot of Walmarts.

On one hand many of the managers and higher ups for produce use outdated way on how to efficiently run the department, however there is a much higher number of lazy shits that get hired into produce who think they are hot shit but only provide 30% of whats required.

With all that said it really is a great place to work as far as grocery stores go, and one of the few areas that you should even (happily) make a career out of. You also get first dibs on the healthiest foods around, and can learn a lot in the process. Also helps build social skills, as Sprouts is very heavy on social interaction.

In produce, you either laugh or cry.

I have worked in produce for about 18 years. Clerk, Manager, Salesmen, Buyer, Operations, Logistics...you name it. Retail and wholesale here. Get in deep and dirty, don't stop until your back hurts and your brain bleeds.

It's a fair and rewarding business. It does get rough but you always learn something new. And the days FLY BY.

I buy produce and work in an office BUT I'm just as attentive to detail as I was when running a department.

I walk the coolers and identify fuck ups(something misrotated in the slot for example.) I double check all paperwork and in some cases triple check(the last thing you need is an accounts payable person handing you discrepancies in fucking billing) and I always pick up the fucking phone(you will alleviate so many issues just by doing this.)

Identify the issues, carefully bring the issues up to management or your team, show them the right way to do things, move on but always monitor. Correct issues as they go. It's difficult but it's part of leadership. You and your career will only flourish because of your attentive but fair management style.

If you rub someone's face in the shit(either by being a rat or a backstabber) then you end up working at some shithouse because every exciting and progressive opportunity knows all about your fuckboy moves. Just be upfront with your needs to everyone and limit surprises. Surprise fuck ups piss EVERYONE OFF.

If you are buying produce for your department, always ask for a better price. You should get market updates at least once a week from your vendors. Ask why something is higher than the week before. Ask for Ad Lids for a particular week(maximum cost on an item for that week) and run an instore or printed flyer special. Go back a couple of days and ask for a buck or two more. Make some fucking money for your departments!

I love this industry. I have funny characters around me every day and I laugh. I do not allow myself to cry.

When I see produce departments like that, I don't understand how the department can sustain that much product. All those limes, apples, pears, etc. aren't going to sell fast enough before they start getting older and the next poor lad has to rotate all of that. Those produce departments must be the busiest in the city at all hours of the day or a lot of that shit is going into the trash.

at least for PCC in wa state, we compost them and sell the compost to customers/organic farmers. the good produce goes to the food bank. so none of it is wasted really

We do the same thing at Kroger.

How big was your department physically? How was dealing with unloading deliveries in Manhattan? Must've been a bitch. Did you do special orders there?

I would never buy from a store that employs negros.

I worked at a grocery store for a couple months in 2012. Complete shit job. Managers don't respect you at all and treat you like shit while they act like they're royalty. Dude you run a grocery store fuck off.

I'm a cook now. Chefs value our hard work and let us do our thing. Having a good boss makes a big difference.
Maybe just my experience but I feel like that's how it is at most grocery stores. I'd rather work fast food

I've worked produce at big stores (Harris Teeter), as well as a medium sized chain in the DC area, and also a small independent food co-op. The big stores are fun because you have tons of shit to do, and can afford to give customers special deals, like marking down ugly produce.

At the small food co-op I work at now, it's nice because we buy stuff from local farms, and everything is organic (meme or not, it's good stuff), but our margins have to be much larger because we're so small, so I can't afford to give people special deals. However when I do the orders, it's much easier because of how small we are.

I like produce a lot, and you I love talking to regulars, and making the department pretty. Gonna be sad when I have to move on to a new job with my >STEM degree

Dairy stocker here.

Honestly it might just be a combination of the store and the staff, but this is a really relaxed job. Get to hide out in the cooler and not deal with people, and I do my shopping on breaks.

Definitely not something I want to do forever, but it's a good job.

former produce clerk at BJ's here
only did it as a summer thing, it was alright
feel free to ask about it

its definitely the combination
I was a dairy stocker and fucking hated it since I was stuck closing and people want me to do everything
I had to stock frozen, then stock the shit day shift left out, then organize everything (forgot the specific name where you line them up), then keep an eye on dairy and eggs which wasn't bad except I was the only one who rotated eggs, then take the milk off the pallets, then get rid of the throw aways which were always piling up since nobody else did them
it was really shitty

depends on the store entirely. the poorer stores tend to be a lot more relaxed imo. i worked at a discount grocery store for minimum wage and the managers were cool but made sure the store ran. they let you slack off and if you worked close, you essentially didnt do shit. also worked at a rich store in an upper class area where i made double minimum wage for the same job. every manager tried to be a hero and acted like they were on wall street like you sound like a complete tool. its fuckin fruit calm down. theres no need to go autistically capitalist pig on your customers. fruits already expensive enough, youre not an investor on the stock market

>McGangbanger

Bruh, those were my shit back in the day.

The only alteration I ever made was taking the middle buns out

>left alone to stock in the evenings
>hide in the freezer and snack on berries every once in a while

Best shifts
Was chill af sometimes. Only had one or two bad customers and the others I wouldn't mind going out of my way to help.

>How big was your department physically?
Like square footage? I can't remember. We did have about 65 people working in the produce department alone. The manhattan stores are small but do insane amounts of business. When I worked for Whole Foods I think 6 out of the top 10 highest grossing stores were NYC stores.

>How was dealing with unloading deliveries in Manhattan? Must've been a bitch.
It was a bitch. The truck would park on the street and a forklift would unload pallets onto the sidewalk. If the forklift broke(which it did frequently) we would get everyone from other departments to help physically unload piece by piece.

Did you do special orders there?
I'd order whatever people asked for if I could find it. We had our main distribution center in Connecticut, but there is a huge distribution company in the Bronx I could get pretty much anything from if they didn't try to Jew me too hard on price.

Meant to give you that one

Wait, are you implying that you have people hired just to stand near a bunch of fruits and vegetables and tell you "yes sir that's a banana. Let me pick it up for you and put it in your basket."?
What the fuck?

Not at all you fucking retard

My brother makes more than me working the produce section at a union grocery store than I do as a paramedic.

That might have more to do with the field you chose than what he chose.

I'm in the same situation.

Worked at a grocery store for 7 years. Great job. Did just about everything besides deli and bakery. Produce was by far the best.