I worked at a Whole Foods a few years back (aka Whole Paycheck or Whole Fucks) as one of the random jobs I had while I was bumbling around aimlessly in my college town post-graduation. Seems like a good time now to share some of my experiences working for this place. I met some interesting people there, but in general grew to hate it like nearly every job I've had. It's just as bureaucratic and corporate a place to work at as anywhere else. I worked in food prep.
The store manager was some old ass dyke. Probably promoted for diversity reasons. On the first day she gave another young recruit and I an inspiring tale about how if we dedicated the next 20 years of our lives working at WFM, maybe one day we too could have a cushy management gig and own WFM stock. As far as I know her job seemed to be to walk around the store and issue basic commands while tasting various food. Other than that I never interacted with her much.
My supervisor was this old former military bastard who had the job to kill time and collect benefits I presume. The guy gave no fucks and never did anything food related despite being the team leader of the prepared foods department. He also loved to exclusively schedule me for back-to-back 'clopens' all the time (you close the store then open the store the next morning), probably because I was late all the time. Most of the people who worked there were dumbasses and degenerate losers, myself at the time among that group. The rest were good girls, old ladies and boring whole foods corporate people drinking the kool aid playing the game trying to move up the WFM career ladder. The kitchen staff was slowly replaced with Mexicans more and more as time went on. I think by the time I stopped working there half the kitchen and all the dishwashers only spoke Spanish. I worked there less than a year, but got the feeling that corporate WF was a lot different than the people who actually worked in the stores themselves.
Random thoughts about work there:
-the food there is no better than any generic casual dining place, just more expensive. Most of the food comes from bags and the most cooking anyone does in the back is toss a few ingredients into a skillet or throw something in the oven. Only good food we had there imo were the sandwiches, if you felt like paying $13 for a footlong.
-whole department (and store for that matter) was a bunch of potheads and drunks. I was buying bud at the time from a 'cook' in the back and eventually was regularly doing dabs on my lunch breaks with the pizza guys. felt like the only way to get through the job at the time was to be perpetually stoned.
-a few (nasty) sluts worked there. this one girl in bakery alone I knew had slept with at least 4 different guys in the store. One girl in my department came on to me several times saying we should hang out, but I rebuffed her for good reason. She ended up sleeping around with a few other guys in the department.
-Decent eye candy if you were working up front. Whole Foods is a hotbed for young sorority girls in yoga pants who like to waste Daddy's college fund on gluten-free sandwiches. Got a few numbers and used it as a chance to practice some banter game sometimes. I actually banged a girl who came up to me and gave me her number (she was only a 5 though but whatever) and went out for drinks with a solid 7 but blew the close.
-easy to steal food and other small items. You get a small discount, but really that shit is way overpriced and out of laziness I ate there often, wasting some of my unearned paycheck. Once I realized I could simply grab food and make a beeline to the break room instead of the check stand I really started to enjoy the food there a lot more. Also had a habit of swiping yerba mattes on my way in to work to get the day started with a little caffeine buzz.
I eventually ended up getting fired from WF but not for stealing funnily enough. Simply for compulsive and chronic tardiness. They had a 5 min grace period for tardiness, so as long as you clocked in <5 minutes late, you were fine. So naturally, I showed up 5-6 minutes late everyday. Not that anyone ever noticed until they checked the logs. I worked there maybe 8 months and probably showed up 'on-time' less than 10 times total. Finally, I racked up so many points that they were forced to fire me in their words.
The day itself was pretty great. I showed up 6 minutes late, swiped yerba matte in hand, and had it explained to me that if I had just waited 2 more days, that my points would have reset and I literally could have gone back to just chronically racking up tardies. Meanwhile, a guy in the kitchen who had shown up wasted and was caught drinking on the job several times was hardly disciplined. Absurd bureaucracy at its finest.
I saw the news on FB and laughed because it makes perfect sense. They are evolving into another generic corporate name and likely have already reached peak success. I know that the store I was working at was losing money for several years. Final thoughts? Fuck kombucha, gluten-free bread, $2 for avocado, vegan donuts and all that 365 shit. From a loving former employee of less than a year, thanks for the memories and good riddance Whole Fucks.
The store manager was some old ass dyke. Probably promoted for diversity reasons. On the first day she gave another young recruit and I an inspiring tale about how if we dedicated the next 20 years of our lives working at WFM, maybe one day we too could have a cushy management gig and own WFM stock. As far as I know her job seemed to be to walk around the store and issue basic commands while tasting various food. Other than that I never interacted with her much.
My supervisor was this old former military bastard who had the job to kill time and collect benefits I presume. The guy gave no fucks and never did anything food related despite being the team leader of the prepared foods department. He also loved to exclusively schedule me for back-to-back 'clopens' all the time (you close the store then open the store the next morning), probably because I was late all the time. Most of the people who worked there were dumbasses and degenerate losers, myself at the time among that group. The rest were good girls, old ladies and boring whole foods corporate people drinking the kool aid playing the game trying to move up the WFM career ladder. The kitchen staff was slowly replaced with Mexicans more and more as time went on. I think by the time I stopped working there half the kitchen and all the dishwashers only spoke Spanish. I worked there less than a year, but got the feeling that corporate WF was a lot different than the people who actually worked in the stores themselves.
Random thoughts about work there:
-the food there is no better than any generic casual dining place, just more expensive. Most of the food comes from bags and the most cooking anyone does in the back is toss a few ingredients into a skillet or throw something in the oven. Only good food we had there imo were the sandwiches, if you felt like paying $13 for a footlong.
-whole department (and store for that matter) was a bunch of potheads and drunks. I was buying bud at the time from a 'cook' in the back and eventually was regularly doing dabs on my lunch breaks with the pizza guys. felt like the only way to get through the job at the time was to be perpetually stoned.
-a few (nasty) sluts worked there. this one girl in bakery alone I knew had slept with at least 4 different guys in the store. One girl in my department came on to me several times saying we should hang out, but I rebuffed her for good reason. She ended up sleeping around with a few other guys in the department.
-Decent eye candy if you were working up front. Whole Foods is a hotbed for young sorority girls in yoga pants who like to waste Daddy's college fund on gluten-free sandwiches. Got a few numbers and used it as a chance to practice some banter game sometimes. I actually banged a girl who came up to me and gave me her number (she was only a 5 though but whatever) and went out for drinks with a solid 7 but blew the close.
-easy to steal food and other small items. You get a small discount, but really that shit is way overpriced and out of laziness I ate there often, wasting some of my unearned paycheck. Once I realized I could simply grab food and make a beeline to the break room instead of the check stand I really started to enjoy the food there a lot more. Also had a habit of swiping yerba mattes on my way in to work to get the day started with a little caffeine buzz.
I eventually ended up getting fired from WF but not for stealing funnily enough. Simply for compulsive and chronic tardiness. They had a 5 min grace period for tardiness, so as long as you clocked in <5 minutes late, you were fine. So naturally, I showed up 5-6 minutes late everyday. Not that anyone ever noticed until they checked the logs. I worked there maybe 8 months and probably showed up 'on-time' less than 10 times total. Finally, I racked up so many points that they were forced to fire me in their words.
The day itself was pretty great. I showed up 6 minutes late, swiped yerba matte in hand, and had it explained to me that if I had just waited 2 more days, that my points would have reset and I literally could have gone back to just chronically racking up tardies. Meanwhile, a guy in the kitchen who had shown up wasted and was caught drinking on the job several times was hardly disciplined. Absurd bureaucracy at its finest.
I saw the news on FB and laughed because it makes perfect sense. They are evolving into another generic corporate name and likely have already reached peak success. I know that the store I was working at was losing money for several years. Final thoughts? Fuck kombucha, gluten-free bread, $2 for avocado, vegan donuts and all that 365 shit. From a loving former employee of less than a year, thanks for the memories and good riddance Whole Fucks.