Tempoary life as a Peon

[chris11]

Hey. In order to help pay for graduate school, living and such, I decided to get a job working at a local grocery store. My work mostly involves cleaning up the cutting room in the meat department, which is rather disgusting, but is better than working out front. I'm currently being paid minimum wage. What is obscene is that they expect absolute loyalty on behalf of their employees. They expect us to give them perfection every day, however, they have absolutlly no loyalty to their employees. Indeed, we brought up sales, and how do they reward us? By slicing the budget so that the people who requested more hours, and were told that they would get them, will actually get less hours than what they had before they made the request. I could talk about the social structure of the meat department, but it's pretty typical: if you haven't been working in the department for 20 years, you're a worm. Literally, if I were to screw up once in my clean up, regardless of how well I've cleaned before, I would loose my job. Further, with these cut backs in hours, I'll have less time to clean because the person working in seafood will be gone at 8pm-instead of 9; cleaning starts at 7pm (and usually takes 3 hours).

 

[nicole1]

I hate working in grocery. I worked in the bakery and I did cookie making and cleaning....after they left the place a mess for me to clean. I HATED it.

 

[Pookah]

Better than a not-temporary life as a peon right?

I know what you mean though. Also love the way in that type of setting that everyone loves to talk behind each others backs and gossip is pretty much the only form of conversation.

 

[Entangled]

Wow sounds like a lot like where I work! And do not get me started about my stores 'loyalty' policy!!! Its getting to the point where if another grocery store even barely appears in your peripheral vision they will fire you!

I've thought about maybe going someplace better, but looking at the pros and cons, I will stay where I'm at. Yeah the pay is lousy for the amount of work I do, but they allow flexible scheduling so I can attend school as well, and the people I work with are nice. Which for me is a really important thing. My last job--- ugh!! Not very nice people...

 

[AGR]

So far I always experienced something like this,they will always do whats best for them of course,its very rare that they will give you something,like my current job I win 100 yen more per hour than other people,I guess they like the way I work,but I cant have off days that are suposedly to be paid, no one can,its something we have to have by law,I am only working two days a week because of the earthquake,was suposed to get 60% per day that I dont work,but it wont exactly be 60%,its easy to be taken advantage off when you are in a country where you dont know the language very well or dont have much here,so maybe going back to my home country is looking like a great idea right now,I only dream of finding something I like to work and some decent money.

 

[chris11]

Better than a not-temporary life as a peon right?

I know what you mean though. Also love the way in that type of setting that everyone loves to talk behind each others backs and gossip is pretty much the only form of conversation.

I agree completly. But, some people actually enjoy working in grocery stores; is it the socilization?; the routine?;the fact that you're paid to be a mindless automaton?.

 

[chris11]

I hate working in grocery. I worked in the bakery and I did cookie making and cleaning....after they left the place a mess for me to clean. I HATED it.

Yeah, it seems obnoxious, especially when the mess is particularly difficult to clean and time is short.