bakery clerk

dairy associate

barista

management assistant

grocery associate

Harris Teeter

THE GOOD

- Lunch break. A 30-minute lunch break from 2-2:30pm.

- Generally* nice customers. You're more likely you endure uppity entitlement than belligerence or nastiness. 

- Low volume. Most stores average ~ 500/week

- Paid time off. You get 17 paid days off (PDOs). This is sick and vacation. However due to work schedules you don't have to actually take each day when you are on vacation.For example, I took a 9 day vacation and this cost me 4 PDOs.

- Maternity leave (?). During one year that I worked there four pharmacists were out on leave for three months. Their absence did not result in chaos. I don't know the specific benefits available.

- Health benefits. They have cigna which will offer a discount on premium for healthy behavior. This brought a $400/month plan down to $200/month. The company also has employee assistance benefits (EAP) which pays for 6 therapy sessions a year. If you visit a therapist once and they aren't a good fit that visit won't count toward your 6 sessions. This is nice because even with the most expensive plan the copay for a therapist is $30. 

-Profit sharing. Twice a year in September and March you receive a profit sharing check. For a pharmacist this brings home at least $1000 after taxes. 

THE BAD:

-401k match. They match 50 cents to the dollar up to 4%.

-Salary. Effective August 1 2018 full time is considered 32 hours.  All staff and floater pharmacists will work 32 hours. (Pharmacy managers still work 40 hours a week). This resulted in a 20% pay cut. Keep in mind, Harris Teeter already pays about 10% less than other retail chains. This put all staff pharmacists below $90k/year. 

- Management. They try their best. They are overworked and stretched thin. One pharmacist operation manager may have 30+ stores. That being said, they are bad with communication. Emails were frequently sent telling us to do a task but the email did not include how to do it or when it was due by.

- Extra responsibilities without extra pay. We were all required to do a flu clinic. We had to set these up ourself. They required at least 20 flu shots to be done. And we were not compensated for this time unless you met a list of specifications (must do 20 shots. Rate of 10 shots/hr per pharmacist working). If you met all these specifications and faxed your paperwork in you were paid for two hours. Of course the prep time and especially the billing done afterward took a substantial amount of time.

- High work load without help. Many tasks: MTM, Mirixa, Outcomes, MedSync, STAR ratings. The medicare B paperwork is all done in house and that's a lot of time. Thee was so much time-consuming tasks that are expected to be done on top of the fact that, you know, I have a pharmacy to run.

- Tech help. Most of the stores I work in do not have a tech. Of the stores with a tech, only about a third have a tech who is truly self sufficient and maximally effective. They do not currently have a tech training program so the pharmacist is responsible for training. Not everyone makes a good teacher. In addition Harris Teeter techs are required to be nationally certified and I believe they make less than other retail chains. I don't blame people for taking other jobs with less hoops to jump through and higher pay. Techs are hired by the store manager who 1) does not make this a priority and 2) doesn't really know what the pharmacy needs. Its great to have someone slow and friendly as a cashier, but not in the pharmacy. I have been stunned by the obviously poor-fit of several newly hired techs. 


THE UGLY

- The culture of the pharmacy reminds me of high school. If you don't want someone to know something: tell no one! There's a lot of gossip, talk behind peoples back, and pharmacists can be a little catty. A pharmacist will complain to the pharmacist operations manager about minutia which is then brought up to the pharmacist in question as, "well someone said this about you." Can these people not just tell you directly? Sorry, I forgot to do the return to stocks, Susan. You could have just told me that directly. 

- NOT a culture of safety. They have a program called "Quality Related Event," (QRE). An example could be the wrong drug form was dispensed (XL vs IR) or the directions were wrong. These events are documented and forwarded to the upper management. Three of these events in a rolling 6 months will result in probation. If a QRE event happens during probation, you will be terminated. If more than 6 events happen in a rolling 12 year period, you will be put on probation. If a QRE occurs while on probation, you will be terminated. This policy obviously motivates pharmacists to cover mistakes meaning no one can learn from them. This policy also creates a "back stabbing" mentality among pharmacists. If you report, you've made an enemy. 

- Complaints are taken very seriously. Compliments do not matter. Regardless of the context- it's purely based on a customers' perception- you can and will be terminated for complaints. You will be formally written up (constructive criticism) and based on progressive disciple, after a few of these write-ups you will be terminated. Complaints are handled personally by each person along the management hierarchy. But if someone compliments you, it falls through the cracks. And its not even easy to give compliments! They would need to call the 1-800 phone number (before 5pm) and give the information (or find the comments section on the HT website). This would then need to be forwarded to the store manager who would then send it to the pharmacy ops manager who would then need to issue some kind of kudos for this. Suffice it to say, this doesn't happen. 



Who this job is good for:

- Someone without debt or lots of financial obligations who wants to have more free time and have a job that's more on the background of their life

- A finically stable married mom. This job works if the extra income  becomes a luxury vs a necessity. Also the hours are less (32/week) and there are still benefits to go along with it. This job allows more work-life balance.

You can do nothing right if you work at this store. Management provides little instruction as to their expectations of you, then disciplines you for not living up to those expectations which were never communicated. Often times, "rules" (or standards which they developed on a whim) will be enforced with no rhyme or reason, depending on who the manager is, and how they're feeling that day. A minor infraction (such as a nigh-unnoticeable dress code violation) can get you written up, while ignoring your duties entirely can be somehow overlooked. The management structure is convoluted at Harris Teeter, leaving associates confused as to who and what they should be listening to, and leading to excessive micromanagement that makes even the most seasoned associates feel as if they're being treated like children.

Management can't even necessarily be blamed, though. They're penalized if they don't treat you this way, as they're working at the behest of their corporate overlords, who value profit above all. Record profits, and yet our bonus checks (one perk of working for this company) were cut, and our holiday gifts ($100 credit added to an associate's VIC card bi-annually) were slashed entirely. Overtime is almost entirely prohibited, and you'll be disciplined for receiving it, even if it was to help the store out - which happens frequently, given that the store is often understaffed for this same reason. Employees are left overworked and underpaid. Pay for the same jobs can vary drastically, and management will attempt to keep you hush-hush about it. Some people are paid relatively decently for the field, others are paid pennies. There is very little upward mobility, and the "raises" for such upward mobility are pitiful.  My location in particular didn't even provide Express Lane/Pickup selectors who worked over six hours the fifteen minute breaks standard for the company, and which were offered to all other departments. 

The Pickup department, for whatever reason, seems to get the short end of the stick. Even the supervisor is not provided the same benefits and title as those of other departments. Pickup associates are often required to help out other departments for which they have received no training when orders are slow, and will be disciplined for not wishing to do so, yet other departments (with the exception of some kind Front End associates, though not all) will not extend that same help to the Pickup department. In fact, some associates and managers from other departments who demand the help of the Express Lane will turn around and treat Express Lane/Pickup associates as a nuisance when they request help even for something within their department's jurisdiction. Managers from other departments with no understanding of your job duties will belittle your work ethic and complain to your supervisor, accusing you of being unproductive when you are completing tasks (especially those involving sitting) necessary for your job.

I have heard managers from multiple departments belittle their employees behind their backs. Good luck calling out, because you will be pressured to come in no matter how sick you are, and even if you stand your ground, your manager, regardless of department, often will be talking with other managers behind the scenes about how you're really just lazy and looking for excuses - no matter how much work you do while actually at the store. They will complain about your performance when you're not around, rather than communicating their issues with you, thus enabling poor performance, and leaving the associate confused and upset when this inevitably leads to disciplinary action that comes seemingly out of nowhere. Associates at Harris Teeter generally tend to be friendly with one another, yet, there is a culture of gossip and smack-talking behind the scenes. Management and other seasoned employees tend to be the worst about this, somehow. The environment is cliquey and unwelcoming to newcomers.

The "us vs. them" mentality extends past lower associates vs. management, and associates as a whole are frequently antagonized by customers. While this is unfortunately fairly standard in retail, Express Lane shoppers yet again are in a unique position to receive unfair treatment from customers. Express Lane shoppers are present on the floor for a majority of their day, and are expected by customers to fulfill tasks for which they, once more, have no training. They are also required to traverse the entirety of the store with a cart, usually one that is much larger than average, and are expected to maintain (often unrealistic) standards of speed in order to complete orders within certain timeframes. Far too often, this results in conflicts with customers who believe that you are trying to be rude to them by skirting around them, and, conversely, by being within the same space as them and waiting for them to finish for an extended period of time. The worst customers will take your actions as outright hostile, and I personally have been literally threatened for unintentionally being in someone's way. Fortunately, this is the one area in which management is helpful and understanding.

Associates as a whole are ultimately mistreated at this store from multiple different angles, and Express Lane/Pickup selectors, in particular, receive unique forms of mistreatment. There are some perks, but they exist only in opposition to the conditions described here (meaning they are the exception, rather than the norm, and are far outweighed by the negatives). Please do yourself a favor and DO NOT work here.

The work itself isn't bad at all, just quite repetitive but that can be nice sometimes. Management is very hit and miss between stores; I've worked with the best manager I'd ever imagine working for at a job, but I've also worked with some absolutely horrendous managers. Most of them tend to the narcissistic side and seem terrified of confrontation with associates, often letting problematic associates create a toxic environment to work in. Favoritism is rampant; if you don't bend over backwards for department managers or part of their 'clique', they will purposefully give you bad schedules and deny time off. I have had a few straight up say they do it to make the associate quit, because firing causes too much paperwork. You rarely see any appreciation from management, though upper corporate management will generally be kind and thank you for your work when they show up. Probably because you worked nearly to death to make the store look near perfect for their visit.

Health and safety are a joke. They are only followed when there are audits and then it's a mad rush to put the department into place. Equipment is often broken or so used it barely functions, getting a maintenance request to have to looked at is a feat in and of itself. Food safety is dubious in the least; raw meats and perishable items are left out of refrigeration for hours, cooler and freezer doors are left open and the plastic flaps used to help keep the cold in are either torn off or pushed out of the way. There is always a ton of ice build up in the freezers as they are left open and end up thawing and everything becoming a dripping wet mess. Food and trash are always all over the floor and only ever cleaned when the department closes or someone gets sick of it.
In the deli, knives are supposed to be stored in buckets that are clearly marked for 'knives only', yet they are always thrown into whatever container is around, regardless if it's clearly full of spoons and spatulas.
Almost no one knows how to properly wash dishes, everything is always coated in a film of grease from the rotisserie chickens. Piles of dishes are often left to sit out overnight as many refuse to help out or at the least clean the dishes they used. Hot foods are rarely temp checked before being packaged, and will sometimes sit out waiting to be packed or labeled before being put out for sale. Deli slicers are almost never cleaned throughout the day so they are usually coated in a mess of meat juices and seasonings.

The hours are not bad; overtime is very rare but often I know I will be working 9-10 hour shifts for most of the week and then have a mad dash to cut the overtime off. Departments are purposefully short-staffed making the shifts often hectic and nearly overwhelming. Getting breaks depends on your management; some are fine with you taking them, others will not let you take them at all, despite company policy.

Overall, it's not been the worst job, but it hasn't exactly been good either. While they are very good about letting associates move up by doing management training programs, the fact that as management you have no control over what store you work at is extremely unappealing (they can move you to any store within 50 miles without any notice). Communication is extremely poor, often important notices are not relayed to the appropriate associates, schedules are not released to the associates till the very end of the week even if they are made 3 weeks out.

Oh, and honestly the one thing that has basically ruined this job, is that management will not back an associate up when dealing with problematic customers. They have often told us to violate various corporate policies just to make one angry off customer happy. They put customers before their associates, allowing us to be verbally abused and assaulted then requiring us to still act gracious and apologetic. We are often made to feel less than human in the way we are allowed to be treated by some customers and management.

I was hired in January of 2015 to work as a full-time 3rd shift stock clerk. At the time I had just moved out on my own and was struggling to make ends meet with just one part-time job so I was forced to take on a second job. I was told upon being hired that I would not be full-time, despite being called in to interview for the full-time position, I would only be "promoted" if I showed I was a hard worker after 90 days of employment. For that 90 days I worked very hard stocking the shelves and pretty much was allowed free rein to roam around the store as I pleased. For the first week I was totally lost, no one spoke to me or approached me and I got the feeling everyone was too busy to train me so I just straightened shelves my first week there, having no idea what I was supposed to do. The staff was, for the most part, very unfriendly. I felt like if I missed a day they wouldn't even notice. Guess what, they didn't! The schedule was changed one week, I was not called and missed a day, no one called me, no one asked why I had not come in or asked if I was okay, my absence went completely unnoticed and I was not permitted to make up for the time I had lost and at this point I was living paycheck to paycheck and sometimes going two or three days without food ... I really needed the money!

After about a month stocking shelves I was placed on register for a few nights and it was quickly noted that I was very good on the registers. Before I knew it that was all I was doing and do you have any idea how utterly boring it is to run a register in the middle of the night? Most lazy people wouldn't complain and call it easy money but seeing as how I applied for a full-time stocking position and was now a part-time cashier ... I was not pleased and my superiors continued to barely speak to me, the only "training" I received was asking my fellow associates for help when I didn't know what to do. 

My 90 days came and went, I started asking about the full-time position and was finally told by the hiring manager that it was going to someone that had been with the company slightly longer than me. I was upset but understanding. However, not long after that I was told by three separate associates that the person who was promoted stood around all night on her phone and did NOTHING. Meanwhile I had been cleaning and maintaining everything they asked me to as well as tending to customers and the register and more and received absolutely no recognition while a complete slacker got the promotion ... I felt very undervalued as an employee and felt like I was killing myself working two jobs for nothing in return, all I wanted was to feel like part of the team. Fortunately a company I had been trying to get a job with for two years was blowing up my phone, wanting very badly to interview me for a badly needed full-time position, I felt like they actually wanted me so I happily resigned from my six month position at Harris Teeter. I highly doubt all of them are like this store, but this one needs some serious attention, I won't even shop at a Harris Teeter anymore.

The experience largely comes down to the culture at your particular store and the people you work with. I'd probably give a 3 or maybe a 3.5 if it weren't for my pharmacy manager being very good to work with and encouraging both personally and professionally. Pharmacy technician can be a very mentally engaging role depending on how much you put into your work and how involved you're willing to allow yourself to be vs letting the pharmacist handle most of the heavy lifting. If your pharmacy team is capable then you'll feel more encouraged to work harder as well, and if you enjoy learning just start asking questions so you don't feel like a piece of meat all day if a patient is wondering about something. The downside is that it requires national certification (they do reimburse the exam cost and provide the training) but given the amount and nature of work you'd be doing as a certified technician, it's definitely worth more than 15 or 16 an hour. Not so much the company's fault as it is the industry which doesn't seem to recognize the work that a good tech can bring. Yeah you can just have the pharmacist do half of those tasks themselves to save money, but they don't appreciate the added stress. Better pay encourages more of us to take on more responsibility/assist the pharmacist, and results in the entire department being less cranky overall. Corporate also likes to micromanage lots of unnecessary details in the day to day. Either way though it's better than CVS so you have to take what you get. If you have interest in Healthcare, health or business administration, or even information systems/technology, you can gain some practical skills and knowledge that you can carry with you later on. However I wouldn't stay more than a few years maximum for anything but the pay alone. I don't find it fair to require staff to earn and maintain a national license as a condition of employment just to make what you can get as a fast food cashier. The front desk clerks at the hospitals I call every day probably do less work than me for more money. Yes, the bonus checks are nice and you won't get those at most other places. However HT seems to use it as an excuse to keep wages low instead of actually paying what you should deserve. Besides, they were kind of small (around 250 t0 280, less than what I made working 30+ hours weekly) due to COVID payouts (which I also never received because of when I joined).

The typical work day: Since I started working here 4 years ago, I was expected to sink or swim. At one point I carried the whole bakery side by myself for 6-8 months, despite my pleas for a second decorator. I begged and begged for one but it took a bad day in front of corporate to get one. However, ONE single bad day got me banned from working as a cake decorator (I was asked how I was doing and I said "ok" and the person kept asking me "why just ok" and so I said that I wasn't feeling too well. Because I wasn't all smiles and unicorn rainbows, I got punished for it.)  I worked anywhere from 7-9 day work weeks and half of the time I didn't even get a lunch break. Even after moving from bakery to EVERYWHERE else in the whole department (often doing the work of 3 or more people), I was still forced to work 7-10 day work weeks even though I complained about it to HR. I started getting sick because of stress at work and even ended up in the emergency room quite a few times due to exhaustion, sickness and dehydration. In the past 2 months alone 14 people have quit. If you counted back from January, the number would probably be in the 20's. 
  I learned that the grass isn't always greener. Please don't be fooled by the smoke and mirrors. Management has their own agenda, and they don't care about anyone but themselves often scheduling themselves off during weekends, but they have a problem if someone else requests it. I learned that management would rather not schedule the proper amount of people and instead pile an unreasonable amount of tasks on the few people they have. The turnover rate is extremely high. 
   The job itself isn't that hard.  What makes it hard is trying to juggle all the expectations with so little people. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing everyday but expecting different results. This place is a prime example of it. 
  The most enjoyable part of the job though is making so many friends with the regulars. A lot of them are very enjoyable people and they don't just see you as an employee but as a person. One of my regulars even hooked me up with a security system and tons of discounts!
  Personally I think that the CEO or another corporate individual should try being an undercover boss. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't make it a day.

As with many companies, Harris Teeter has a lot of pros and cons. In many ways it's a nice place to work with a good atmosphere and most of the employees are pretty nice, but the individual work loads are very high due to lack of employees and hours. Harris Teeter has some excellent store branded products and often has great sale items. Local management is given limited control and it seems most things are micro managed from corporate headquarters no matter what the local needs might be. Expectations are very high and corporate expects everything to get done no matter what the work load while local management is pushed to see that it happens. No matter what you do it seems it's never enough. One of the worst things is that when business slows down, they start cutting hours with no regard for the employees needs or the fact that the same amount of work still has to get done everyday by somebody!!! Benefits are really quite good if you are full time, but part timers don't get so much but do receive some things like bonus checks. Part timers also get mis-treated when it comes to work hours which can be quite erratic. Harris Teeter hates giving anyone overtime hours. In my department most workers are always on overload, at least the ones that care about the job at all and try to do a good, quality job. Constantly shifting schedules are annoying and it's a bit difficult to get holidays off although if you really need certain days off for appointments and such you can usually get them which is helpful. I think that corporate really shoots themselves in the foot by stressing great product quality and great customer service while certainly NOT giving the stores enough staff and hours to actually do the job correctly. It seems pervasive to many of their stores from what I hear and read and is apparently just the way it is and it may be the same with most companies in the current economy. They have cut starting wages since I began working for the company in 2009. I'm told by long term employees that Harris Teeter use to be one of the very best stores in the industry to work for, but it appears they have taken on a somewhat different attitude in the last few years. At the end of the day the rank and file workers take what they can get in a fast paced, high stress atmosphere with a high work load which isn't really fair but that's the way it is. There's more pro and con but that's the good, the bad, and the ugly in a nutshell.

Harris Teeter is a decent first job. Perfect for a high school kid or someone who needs a job just to pass the time. I wouldn't recommend making Harris Teeter a career unless you plan on being an executive one day. I worked at multiple Harris Teeter locations during my 4 year tenure. Almost all management is poor. The ones who actually care get no support and are often ignored/under appreciated. Management crews genuinely do not care if you are over-worked, burnt out, or carrying the weight of other employees as long as the job gets done. Management often pawns off their responsibilities on those who are willing to say yes. Good employees are taken advantage of and often have to work overtime or in other departments to help pick up the slack. Certain areas of the store are prioritized over others. The departments that are deemed "less important" are ignored and/or brushed under the rug. Harris Teeter does not feel like a team. Unless corporate is expected to show up that day; then every single employee must drop what they're doing and pick up the slack to make the store seem functional and up to standard. Management only cares about fixing problems that directly affect them. High turnover rate at every location. I was drastically under-paid while having manager responsibilities and duties that were expected of me. My concerns were listened to but not acted upon. Issues that were well above my pay grade were expected to be solved by me. I could go on and on about this company. My entire Starbucks kiosk was threatened to be fired for accepting tips from customers. This company constantly tells it's employees that they are cared for and that it's a great place to work, but it is never proven or shown in actions. If I come in on my only day off to cover for someone, a slice of pizza from the pizza kiosk is not going to make me feel like it was worth while or that I'm "appreciated". The LAST thing Harris Teeter wants to do is compensate you. I was literally never given an incentive to stay with the company for 4 years. It was simply because I took pride in my job and I cared about my department. DO NOT make this a long-term job. This company will quite literally eat your soul.

On most weekends, grocery stores have every singe line open and ready to receive customers. Not this store. Harris Teeter in Severna Park, MD, was abysmal. There were weekends where I was the only cashier, with a line wrapped around the entire store. The store owner himself had to cashier on more than one occasion. This was due to the inability to: A. schedule enough people. B. Fire people who repeatedly skipped or missed work. And C. Care, even a little bit. 

This resulted in my own breaks being pushed back several hours, and dealing with aggravated customers one after the other. My complaints on lack of management did not go through and I felt invisible here. I made decent money but I was working 10-12 hour shifts with little assistance. 

This was also a location that had the cashiers loading and unloading groceries from customer carts (there was no conveyor belt). This only added on to the burden of the job. While this practice helps speed the line up in the short term, in the longterm it kills productivity. I would usually work up to six or seven hours before my break and by this point I had unloaded and reloaded hundreds of carts. I was tired and tense from this. This killed my productivity and put a physical strain on my body.   

Another major issue was people constantly calling out and or flat out skipping work. There were people who had called out or skipped over five times without any penalty. This put all of the other cashiers in a difficult position. We were working three times as hard to pick up the slack left by other cashiers. This was unacceptable. When I totaled my car (through no fault of my own) and considered going to the hospital they still encouraged me to come in because we were short staffed. I came in, my shirt covered in blood from the accident. They gave me a new shirt and told me to get to work. There was no sense of support or even a sense of acknowledgement. Only one manager cared, and I will never forget her kindness; it was kindness I would never experience here again. 

Some managers were there to vent to, this was only because they were not being treated like managers. They were doing work that was above their pay grade, while other managers remained behind the customer service desk while everyone else struggled. The attitude here is fend for yourself. There is very little support and I would not recommend this job to anyone looking for something long term.

I worked part time at the clayton harris teeter for almost 3 years. For the first year I was a cashier who got average pay, absolutely no respect,talked down on,rushed through everything, was not properly trained, got as many hours as I wanted but after the first year they stopped scheduling me as much so I started doing their 10hour overnight shift 4 to 5 days per week and it was awesomes because I needed as many hours possible to save up for a new car. I was 15 years old at this point breaking multiple labor laws, working 40+ hours per week and getting paid as if I was part time. I got tired of having so many hours and went to their produce department where I stayed for 1.5 years and at first I enjoyed the job much more than being a cashier but that is when I finally started to realize all of the problems within management and how many rules were being broken. I have just ended my job there but prior to leaving I had been begging for more hours for about 6 months because I was getting less than half of the hours I asked for. I couldn't hardly survive and get my bills paid during this time (18 years old) during the summer we received a new district manager who cut the h*** out of everyones hours and left many people unsatisfied and poorly treated/taken care of. Then they dropped me and almost all of the other par time employees down to 1 day per week so less than 6 hours a week. I was getting ready to quit but there was one assistant manager who told me that if there was an inconsistency in the way I do my job then they aren't going to schedule me. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and told him "yeah, my work has been inconsistent lately because I'm a closer and everytime I come in I am set up for failure because of the inconsistency that your other employees have and the inconsistency of communication in every department of the store..my manager in produce and all other managers were so bad at relaying expectations and communicating. I guess my overall take from working there for 3 years give or take a few months would be that this Harris teeter does NOT take care of their employees or respect them and have no problem replacing anybody, no problem overworking somebody. My new job is dollar general that pays over 2 dollars less per hour than Harris teeter does and it's still a job that's ten times better than working at Harris teeter because some people actually know how to treat their employees!!

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