management trainee

deli associate

front end manager

grocery manager

bakery manager

Jewel Osco

Jewel-Osco was a great place to work, there were many opportunities to grow and expand my horizon in knowledge. I was able to start off as a bagger and work my way up to a supervisor position in the matter of two and a half years. While working at Jewel-Osco I also became the Front-End trainer which included, bagger trainer and cashier trainer. I was also appointed the position of "code checker" which entited me to go throughout the store and check the codes on the food to make sure they were not expired.
A typical day at work as a cashier was always different I clocked in and went to the service desk and was told who to relieve for a break or to what register to get on. The fluidity of the day depended on the day of the week, normally the beginning of the week was relatively slow, and i would work in the mornings at the beginning of the week, and by the end of the week i was working at nights dealing with people in my age range. There were many days where it was so busy i had to stay later, but i was willing to do so so i can help bring the commotion of the store down.
As a "Front-end trainer" i was able to come in contact with all the incoming employees and deal with them and talk to them train them and share with them my knowledge and how to make their work experience worth it. Park of being a bagger trainer was to teach the incoming baggers how to do their job and show them that bagging is not the only thing that they would be doing, that there was so much more than just putting groceries into bags. While being a Cashier trainer i was able to talk to the employees and break down the  register, which was NCR, and show them all the different menus and options and open their eyes to different types of fraud that would come through and what to do in case they encountered these situations.
The things that i learned while working at jewel-osco was cash handling, how to deal with different people, how to meet their expectations so they would leave the store satisfied.   
I had some great co-workers, granted there were some people that you have to learn to deal with, but what job doesnt have people like that. Some other things i learned while working at Jewel was how to talk to  specific people and how to break things down so that they would learn things or understand my point of view.
The hardest part of my job would probably have to be the front end trainer. I say that because sometimes you have to take time to explain certain things and help them understand what your are doing and how to do the job efficiently and quickly without mistakes.
The most enjoyable part of the job was probably the job as a whole, i got to make friends with different customers and it even got to the point where certain customers would even be willing to wait in line for me to ring up their groceries, i always got compliments on how young i looked or how quickly, efficiently and careful i was with their groceries. I was able to solve problems nobody else could solve and help their shopping experience better.

My time at Jewel Osco was an adventure. Working in the deli department can turn you bitter from all the negative gossip you hear in the mornings, to having no help from mid morning to midday, and to having so much to do in so little time at closing. There were few employees I enjoyed working with, but most hid behind the sink “doing dishes”, making “sandwiches” that take 30minutes to make 60 of them and would take HOURS, would constantly take personal phone calls 3-5 times a day on the work phone to talk to her son, or hid behind the chicken sink all to avoid helping customers. I worked under 3 different managers and all were POOR. One of them would come in still drunk from the night before. I was not paid enough to fulfill a managers job as I was left in charge many times. I had been asked to go into the managers program multiple times but nothing ever happened with that. Breaks are not long enough, or some employees would “extend” their breaks by 10 minutes each 15 minute break or give themself an extra break. I had been assaulted by customers by having things thrown at me as I was helping another customer and told another customer waiting that someone would be with them in just a moment as I was serving my customer. We were told to use out of code meats for sandwiches, I always cut fresh because that is disgusting and unacceptable. I always felt like I was under stress 24/7 because of the amount of responsibility I was given. In the 4 years I worked there I only made $1.25 more, that’s a joke. You don’t get paid enough for everything the deli is asked of... waiting on customers, cooking chicken, prepping chicken, taking customer orders for trays, preparing trays, making salads for the case, making taco dips, sandwiches, wedges, etc and slicing for grab n go, on top of doing the managers job by putting the load away, restocking the cheeses, even doing prepack... oh and not to mention constantly getting yelled at to make pizzas. I will never forget the time where 1 of 3 fryers were working and I had back to back orders from 10am-5pm 96pc chicken each and this customer got in my face screaming at me as I explained to her orders are behind due to one of the fryers shutting down after I already spoke with her husband and he was completely okay with it, as it was going to take only 15minutes. I got in trouble by the assistant store manager because it was my fault... I can’t control the fryers that constantly break!! This customer ended up getting their chicken for free, 120pc, sent me crying after being on my feet for 7 hours with no break. Everyone always brought their bad days to the deli. All the customers wonder why employees are not friendly in the deli because they’re mean to us, we are treated poorly as employees and we don’t get paid enough for all the job requires. As much as there were a few good days and employees, this was one of the worst jobs ever.

Typical day at work
I would expect to be on cart pushing for 1-2 hours everyday I was there. I only worked 4 days for 4 hours. Also expected to be yelled at for things I did that my manger did not like, just because they felt like it. I would take all of the chores that would need to be completed and kind of left standing there then getting yelled at because there was nothing else to do.

What I learned?
don't ever work for Jewel again. They don't care about their employees.

Management
My manager had favorites and seemed to yell at me the most. About non sense, and things that should be covered by the Union in the first place. Like they had coats and boots for cart pushing during the snow but no gloves? That also goes for the gloves to clean the bathroom. The assistant mangers where nice and I got along with everyone.

My co-workers
They seemed to move slow. I have a witness that one co-worker just pushed the carts in the corral then walked away for the next person to collect. Or that it took someone more than 3 hours to put a small cart of re-shop away. Oh yeah if you use any other word for products that need to go back to the proper spot that are not overstock everyone looks at you like you are crazy. The cashiers ring up product so slow and it takes awhile for transactions because most cashiers are under 21 and they have to call when an alcohol purchase is in action which is almost every other transaction. When some of the baggers are over 21. Because that makes sense right? Lines would back up and this seemed to not be a priority as to other stores I have been at/ worked at. 

The hardest part of the job
This was pushing the carts, being that I personally am small it was difficult and was expected to move them and fast. Another hard part of the job is finding something to do while waiting for a customer. Keeping my mouth shut of how I felt when working there was pretty hard to, there where several times I felt like giving my apron up on the job because of how I was treated.

The most enjoyable part of the job
was that it was weekly pay, but it was so little it didn't even matter. 

I am in college and I have 2 kids and I don't live at home with my parents, I have bills to pay and things to get for my kids, this is not a good job if you are in the same situation. This is a good job for a high school student or a person who just graduated high school that are deciding what to do with their life. If you are experienced with being a cashier it will still take you awhile to get promoted because you have to serve your time which is why I left. I fell like they should ask if you want to join union or not because I never used their health insurance, and well the atmosphere didn't seem any better then anywhere else. At least everywhere else I am not paying for someone to treat me like I am worthless and to push carts.

A typical work day is what you expect. Clock in do the job you were trained for. For me, I was usually tasked with operating a cash register or working in ecommerce, also known as Ecom. The supervisors give you a rundown on what needs to be done before you head to the workspace.

For cashiering, it goes by pretty quick. Say hello to the customer, scan their items, ask if they have a Jewel account to save money on the app, then cash out their groceries. If anything goes wrong, or you get confused, the supervisors are more than happy to help. However, you can't be slow. One thing that isn't mentioned is that your time on each order is recorded. The higher up company beyond my managers will say there's a problem if you scan too slow. This isn't the worst, but if you run into a technical issue or waiting on the customer, it can bite you. Before I know it, I have your fifteen minutes break at the halfway point of my job, then clock out for the day. If you can get over the higher up company part I mentioned, the job is nice and starts to get comfy.

As for Ecom, it's more chaotic. Once I clock in and go get an Ecom cart, I sign into the Zebra device. These devices are what allows us to see Drive Up and Go orders, also known DUG orders. The people who work in Ecom must work as a team to get as much DUG orders complete on time per hour. These times are fair and have order slots to limit the orders Ecom has to do per day. From there, push the Ecom cart around to spots with the most items on the order, scan the listed items with a Zebra, bag the scanned items, then store the crates of items according to heating or refrigeration needs. On easy days, I personally love this job, but there is a catch. Customers are allowed to pay extra money for Express and Flash orders, bypassing the order limit. On special Ecom sale days like "Cyber Saturday," there are likely too many orders to keep up with even with a team of eight or ten people compared to the usual four or five. It's very easy to be overwhelmed if I get unlucky. But when I can keep up, I love this job.

Overall, I love this place but it has missing potential. Almost everyone in the building is amazing to work with, and the customers are very nice for the most part. The supervisors and managers are very caring and know when an employee is trying their best and I will always appreciate that. However, it's easy to get overwhelmed. If you manage stress poorly, you might not be the happiest here. But I do recommend it for people just starting out. Amazing entry level job and amazing people who work there.

I worked here upwards of 7 months part time as a cashier and bagger. Often times I was publicly addressed for my mistakes by my store director. In one case we were talking about the district's valentines sales, which I had helped floral with, and she mentioned we had gotten 3rd place and I asked which stores had gotten first and second. They happened to be stores in wealthy high populated areas by Chicago so I made the comment "Oh that's because they have better stores than us" in which my store director responded "Do you think before you talk?" and "You should use different words like "newer" instead" just for complimenting a fellow store of ours. All while in front of my coworkers and customers in front of the service desk, I cried to say the least. I do agree with my statement that those stores were better than ours though, the first week I was there I saw we had mold in the monster cooler and it took all the way until i left for it to be cleaned. Our customer bathrooms always smelled terrible, the lighting was poor and the doors had poor locks on them. We had multiple pot holes in the tile around the store that have been there since i was a kid, even with an old store that's just ridiculous to not fill them. The worst part I would have to say, is the amount of expired items i pulled off the shelves, i was a bagger at the time and at night when we slowed down i would take a cart and go through the first 2 aisles and pull down everything that was bad, it would go from basket to small cart to a full cart in less than an hour, i was disgusted to say the least. When i told my store director, she appeared to get upset that i was taking things down rather than facing them, these were items that were months out of code, sometimes even a year out of code. In my 7 months I had multiple UTI's (chronic condition) and without a good doctor's note I was unable to get a water bottle at my register no matter what. In the jewel osco rules you have to get a signature from HR to have a waterbottle while working which takes over a week which was enough time for my antibiotics to kick in and deemed the doctor's note and water bottle useless. I have to say i had a very unsatisfactory experience here and my attempt to make our store better for customers just ended up with me getting in trouble because it "wasnt my job", but it also wasnt anyone elses.

A typical day at work starts with you consulting the manager or schedule to see your assigned task. You quickly realize that there is a great possibility that you will not get your work done, no matter how hard you try, because there is not enough staff and a lot of customers. Curveballs are also thrown at you left and right: what is correct for a given task today (e.g., how to make an item) is completely wrong tomorrow, and you are given NO heads-up, no training: you’re just supposed to know this, and the managers will often condescend to you or get on you about it, equipment that by all means SHOULD be set up for you do your task is often not (and it’s your fault -there is no actual accountability, especially for management; if you are a part timer, it all begins and ends with you), and you often leave stressed and frustrated- even when you have the drive to finish and succeed.

Management is a HUGE problem at this store: they work 80-100 hour weeks, especially at peak times (holidays, school on/off), yet not much seems to get accomplished beyond gossip, long lunches and telling the deli crew that they aren’t doing enough, while standing there and doing nothing. Favoritism is rife, and their treatment of employees can be downright insulting at times.

Workplace culture is nonexistent beyond a high school mentality that often means only the favored ones succeed at moving up or truly excelling. It is all pressure, pressure, pressure. The stress is overwhelming. It often feels like you are not cared for.

The hardest part of the job is the lack of help, the lack of satisfaction, the constant stress and pressure, and ZERO communication in any kind of helpful manner. The union is, in my experience, there in name only, and I didn’t feel represented by them.

The most enjoyable part of the job was that when you WERE trained, it was very thorough. You left knowing the full scope of the job and what it entailed. You did have opportunities for further training, but they were not often offered; you had to seek them out, and it was worth it. 

I learned a lot from this job - conflict resolution, how to better serve and interact with my customers, multitasking in a Herculean way, and most importantly: how not to treat people that you call your teammates.

A typical day at work:
To start off your day, you remove all the out-of-code products from the floor and replace it with new items.  Then breads, danishes, etc. need to be baked to have all the displays filled and ready for customers to buy the product.  After the floor is filled, other tasks are started such as special order cakes completed, cookies baked, and so on.  It is all about time management and knowing what to do next to successfully keep product available for customers to purchase.

What You Learned:
I have learned so much from this job.  I've learned about time management, problem solving, correcting mistakes that you have done, and how teamwork can make a large task seem small when each person takes a task.

Management:
The management at the store I work at is phenomenal. The department managers are understanding and are there if there is a problem or situation that needs to be addressed and will always answer questions in their fullest.  The store directors are great.  They are there to answer questions that you may have, problems that may have come up, and sometimes just there to get to know you better.

Your Co-Workers:
The co-workers in the department are great.  They are very responsive when asked if they can complete a task, and aren't afraid to ask questions if there is something that they don't understand.  There is definitely no such thing as a "dumb question" here, and that is stressed to new employees, so that they aren't afraid to ask questions that may have been thought of.

The hardest Part of the job:
For me the hardest part of the job is telling a customer that we are out of a product due to it not getting to us, or that is was only seasonal.  It's hard to see the disappointment in their face when they realize that that the product that they enjoyed so much won't be found.

The most enjoyable part of the job:
The most enjoyable part of the job for me is when I hand a customer the special order cake that they ordered and it exceeds their expectations.  I just love seeing the joy in their face knowing the the person it is meant for is going to love it as much as they do.

I worked as a bagger, a floral assistant, and a cashier while I was there (floral being the most enjoyable of them all). 
As a bagger, you'll be bagging groceries, pushing in carts, cleaning just about everything, helping people to their car, and occasionally being sent to help a different department to keep you busy.
As a cashier, you'll be bagging, handling transactions, keeping the registers clean and organized, and sometimes they'll switch you to bagger if it's not busy.
Floral is more versatile. Usually the manager gives you a list of things to do and after you do them, just clean and organize. If you're a fast worker, you'll finish the list in no time. You'll be taking orders for balloons and flowers, taking care of the plants, and blowing up the balloons. I also learned how to make corsages since I worked around homecoming time.
When I started working there, It was the start of the recession and there was a lot of shifting around going on with the managers, so I can't blame them for that. I think I saw 4 different managers while I was there and when I went back recently, there was another man in the position who I didn't know. Take that as you will.
I really liked my co-workers. Since it was the recession, no one was leaving their jobs, so I got to know everyone really well. The people up-front change often (they're mostly high school and college kids), but there's always something going on. It's a very friendly environment.
The hardest part was dealing with angry customers, as it is in every retail job. Floral was nice because nobody goes to get flowers or balloons angry. If you do work at Spring Grove, it's a small town so you get to know the regular customers pretty fast. The better they know you, the less likely they are to yell at you for how much grapes cost, so it gets better with time.
I've said it once and I'll say it again, though, the people were great. If I could just pick them all up and take them with me to all my jobs, I would. There's a lot of room for growth now and it's definitely good as a first/part-time job. The full-timers seem to like it as well. I remember wanting to leave so badly only to realize how much I missed it once I left.

I work in Chef's Kitchen at Jewel-Osco. As for job details, it's hard work because we are responsible for so many operations. We work fry shop so we are constantly roasting chickens, frying chicken, making soup, etc. We also have to keep hourly temp logs. We also make sandwiches, party trays, we cater and have to fulfill those orders as well. We also have to keep the case stocked with meats and cheeses as well as make salads for the salad case. On top of all this we are also constantly cleaning, answering the phone, and helping customers on the counter. So it can be quite exhausting. The good thing is because there's so much to be done everyday you are rarely bored. Your time is filled up pretty much from the beginning to the end of your shift. It teaches you about using your time efficiently and multi-tasking. 

As for customers, majority of them are friendly and easy to please. However you will occasionally run into a customer with a bad attitude and the drawback of that is Jewel has adopted a "customer is always right" attitude which I cannot disagree with more. Sometimes the customer isn't right.

Also you work in an area in which you have to be able to communicate and get along with your co-workers. We work as a team in Chef's Kitchen. I lucked out and work with people I like pretty well. But I'm sure it could be worse if you had co-workers you don't like. 

The pay is okay, but I personally believe we aren't paid enough for the workload we have. 

Management is the biggest issue with Jewel-Osco. Not all of the managers are bad but they play favoritism. If they don't like you they will just cut your hours. Because you're in a Union it's difficult for them to just fire you, so instead they'll do other things like cut your hours or mess up your schedule.

Also they're supposed to comply with requested days off but they will give you a hard time especially if we're understaffed. Also closing Chef's Kitchen is a pain! And there's never enough closers so it takes forever!

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Management trainee 39 salaries reported	$17.44 per hour
Deli associate 71 salaries reported	$16.04 per hour
Front end manager 36 salaries reported	$16.63 per hour
Grocery manager 46 salaries reported	$18.16 per hour
Bakery manager 24 salaries reported	$16.36 per hour

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