cashier

kitchen team member

shift leader

bakery manager

associate buyer

Market of Choice

If you were lucky you started off your shift in a good spot. That being said there were more starting off bad times then good at MOC but that is entirely dependent upon your job title and work station. For those working in the Meat dept, bakery dept or Kitchen your day would be dictated and influenced by your co workers, did they come in? did they get last nights cleaning done? was the cleaning done properly? what do I have to catch up on? what do I have do redo?  Depending upon your department and the Head manager that runs said department will dictate the kind of help you might receive. For the people that open they might get help from the store manager in the early AM. For the most part when I asked for help from my store management I usually got it, from my department head not always.

 I was in a position that required me to be ready to go right at opening because I always had a customer waiting in line hoping to get an order in early and i politely made them wait while I finished last minute set up. If you got lucky you didn't have to deal with rude customers off the bat but we did get a LOT of customers who were very demanding, snotty, rude, and overall just not polite.

 Store managers only stepped in with these customers if an employee called for one to deal with a difficult customer, any time there was a negative comment card you would hear about it within a few hours and most of the issues were beyond ridiculous, am I supposed to apologize that we didn't have the ONE sweetener you ONLY use??? We had 8 sweeteners for piggly wiggly sake! People just got more and more demanding of "alternative options" and we would get them those options with absolutely NO profit then be told by management hours had to be cut, overtime was not allowed, and department managers would have to cover multiple positions and have a ridiculous amount of expectation thrown at them that was unrealistic.

 Praise for job well done was pretty rare, your got positive comments more from the direct crew you worked with rather than the people who ARE supposed to notice and make note of it. If department heads didn't pay attention enough reviews would be basic, bland, and not helpful for personal or company growth. Don't worry if you want attention though just mess something up! that gets every managers attention quickly from store management to department head. Gossip is King when it comes to grocery stores, one must be extremely careful what they say, who they say it to, and don't ever let something be heard out of context AND don't trust the person your speaking to either.......
Start pay was worthless for the amount of work and customer service expected, after six months you could get a raise if your review went well and they try and start you off low but if your department head vouches you it might be a higher raise. Attendance is pretty strict and you could lose your job over that pretty easy. Corporate was always a pain to deal with. On random days they would come in and it was like a health inspection everyone was paranoid, freaking out, and ready for the lecture that ultimately came after a visit. Most things we got to hear about were on how we could do better but very little on what was actually going good or how some things that did get changed are doing better, The biggest thing about this place is always how one could do better ...never any positive comments on changes made increasing sales or making products even look good. If anything positive popped up it was gone in seconds.

For the most part my time at MOC wasn't the most horrible thing ever but the things stated ^ are all things observed, seen, and voiced by other co-workers while I was there and even after leaving MOC. New hires always had more complaints than the old timers, as with everything people just get used to how things are and ignored things that irked them in the beginning. I met a lot of interesting and fun people. For the most part the job would be good for starting off and getting comfortable working with 1 on 1 customer service. If your looking for slow paced, no accountability work MOC is NOT for you. The biggest issue I personally had with MOC-Correcting behaviors of fellow co-workers. I'm sorry but YOU TOOK A JOB EFFING DO IT WHILE YOUR THERE! I had to speak to my department head MULTIPLE times because I LITERALLY was doing the work of 3 effin people in my department and had zero compensation for the lazy A** people that "worked" with me. I would come back from my days off and ALL the prep would be left to be done on my "Mondays." Only things to skirt by on my days off would get done..........Such BS but that'st most jobs ain't it?

Working at MOC is typically very busy. Depending on which department you work in. Bakery, kitchen, and produce tend to be more laid back, but they develop a huge surge in customers during holidays or events. Cashiers are constantly on the go, so are any and all grocery staff. 
Managers usually do their best to chip in, each one is different and you have 4 managers per store. They all work in a hierarchy system- each one answers to the next one up and if the head one quits they each get a promotion and their responsibilities shift. They are people so more often than not if they’re frustrated they’re probably going to show it in some way shape or form. Every manager will usually get ridiculed by half the staff and adored (in a professional sense) by the other half. Gossip and drama tend to be rather big among the coworkers in the company. That’s one thing I don’t like too much about working here. If something goes wrong it’s everyone’s business. You can even count on some of the customers knowing. 
PTO is earned by the workers themselves. It’s fine to call in sick as long as you have pto to cover it. If you don’t, you get an occurrence. The rule is you have to call in at least an hour before you’re scheduled to work. If you no show with no warning that’s 3 occurrences. After about 5-6 you get talked to. Any more than that and you’re likely going to be fired. If they suspend you that means you were fired they’re just waiting to file the paperwork. They take rules very seriously. They also don’t tell you when you’ve been written up, which is quite frustrating. It’d be nice if they gave you the opportunity to correct the problem so you don’t make the same mistake twice. If you get written up for 3 different problems you get fired. Some managers are more flexible and will help you change before that happens, but it’s rare.
The hardest part of the job is definitely the customers. Said every retail worker ever.. in my specific location they tend to be much kinder. However if you don’t know something about their question right off the top of your head they get mad, if you don’t act like they’re the most amazing thing to cross your path they get mad, when stocking or facing they’ll often invade your personal space with absolutely no warning. It gets rather creepy. They complain about everything- even with me and I’m generally quite good at handling them. I’ve seen a lot of customers do 99% of the talking while you just smile and nod work themselves up into a tiff then storm off. They’re also quite messy and do a lovely array of disgusting morbid things. I won’t go into detail. I get paid 50 cents above minimum wage and it’s my job to clean all of those morbid little messes. One thing you’ll hear from every worker here except for management is how underpaid they are. However, that could just be the economy. I believe I’m underpaid because of how much I have to see/touch/hear/talk to. 
In all fairness the apprentice clerk position at my store is very different than most stores. Here it’s more of a janitorial position. If you’re at the one on Willamette then all you do is face milk. It’s a similar story elsewhere. The turnover rate in this company is ridiculous. We burned through 5-7 different bakery staff all within a couple months. I don’t think I got to learn all of their names. Same with kitchen. We burned through cashiers too. Apparently others that try my position only last for a couple days or maybe a couple weeks. The fact that I made it past a month is an anomaly apparently. (According to the other guy with my job.)
Discounts and breaks could use a boost. For the first year the discount is 10% then it jumps to 15%. After 2 years it jumps to 20%. Paid breaks are only 10 minutes. You have the option of 30 or 1 hr breaks but you have go arrive that much earlier at work. 
All in all I like working with my coworkers and I like my bosses, I also like some of the nicer regulars we have. That’s about it though. I liked more before, but I’ve been here a year and I’m burned out. If it’s a starter job then yes, do try it. For the first year it’s actually really fun, work is satisfying and you get your fill of stories. It’s also very physically demanding so you get in a good workout. After that it turns into a daunting challenge. Still worth giving a shot though. It’s great for building experience. I’ve been offered promotions many times already. I turned them down for personal reasons, but the point is they’re really easy to acquire. Especially here. 

MOC is a hard company to work for it takes a lot of character or desperation.  

Its a specialty grocery store with more or less conventional benefits. The only difference is they may higher a little more full time employees than a place like QFC or safeway.   

There are no real perks, morale is often very low ,and turn over is extremely high. This is due to quality of average employee they hire-out of desperation and need for filling recruitment quotas. And corporate does literally nothing to help the woes of miserable employees.  And other things i am sure.

The Pros:  
Depending on where you live wages might be high (12.50+/hr), make sure  you ask for 15 hour. It will not be worth your time to work here if you are not making at least 15/hr.  And even then it might be a stretch.

Depending on where you work store management might be cool. I worked at a store where most of my store managers were great. A couple were annoying though.  They recognize a positive attitude and that can go a  long way at this place.  

Cool customers, once again depending on your where you work your customers might actually be pretty chill people who will be your friend, if you are a nice person. Talking to customers was probably the most fun part of the job.  

They will try to schedule you 2 days in a row off. sometimes I guess.

A 6% match on a 401k, pretty decent. If you are full time you get the 401k and their third party med/dental/vision and free life insurance valued at 10K. Talk about net worth!  But you can find this at other employers that just offer people so much more.

Out of date employee appreciation events-maybe once every 7 months ( I think this was new because everybody was leaving-most people hated working here) 
 
Really nice co-workers. Like anywhere, you'll meet some really great people who work hard and enjoy their job.  Your co-workers are what get you through mud. On a good day it felt like you were on a happy team and even on the bad days.  

Occasionally, a really fun place to work on the right day.

The Cons: 

Co-workers. This company has hired some really horrible people. This place attracts a real mixed bag. Some of my co-workers were fired for, sexual harassment, theft, physical fights, stints in prison, and most just stopped showing up one day. 

Extremely high turnover. a lot of folks on average last 4 months! Customers comment on it.

Managers and Managers in Training (MIT). My department head was awful. I don't why they put this person in charge. It was probably a rushed half thought out decision. Just like everything else in this company.  My dept. head  would scream and swear at employees, create power struggles with customers. And even tried to intimidate me at one point. I've had some MITs accuse my co-workers of theft and then proceed to  sit around and ogle women around the store. They hire some real yahoos as MITs they try to throw their weight around. 

Corporate. Some of these guys are cool, some are just patronizing and assume things about you. They can be obnoxious or condescending. It comes off as rude and just general feeling apathy towards their employees.They're just clueless. They have big lunches. They've also left scraps of food in the break room after their meetings for the employees. I don't know if that was the intention, but most assumed it was.
 
No real perks. You have to buy your uniform? Not a very friendly policy, no discount. No real mission or meaning to for employees to work towards. No real objective. Its just not  a great place to work. 

The shirts are hella goofy and dumb looking. I think if you wear shorts they have to be below the knee? What? 

The 401k -it doesnt kick in until a year after employment. The perks don't kick in until 3 months into your job. 

In the end just a mediocre company that is just behind the times. They're a little naive. They do offer great products. The policies are not innovative and provide no real reason for anyone to stick around. And come off as unfriendly. Most people think of MOC as the company that hates their employees.  

Through the awful times you do build great relationships with co-workers that are built from mutual pain and suffering. It's probably what keeps people around really. 

 You can and should just go pursue something else. Unless you've been unemployed or need a job or if your out on parole or something.

I loved working at some locations with this company. In their management training program, I worked a lot of flexible shifts and learned a great deal about assisting in many departments, which was helpful in my manager role later.  My training was cut short, as many manager's training is at this company, which was unfortunate as I was placed at a store with inner city difficulties most of their stores and managers don't experience, or at least not to the extent to which we experienced them; these issues being mainly the extremely high turnover of staff, internal and customer theft, HR issues when the HR Department was not available, safety concerns, law enforcement issues, etc.
They did train me for First Aid and CPR , though not OSHA regulations, food safety, or Liquor Service laws--those I learned on my own. 
This lack of training was the most difficult part of my job as a night manager, when there was little to no support as the day managers were unavailable at times or did not often reply to queries (they were probably asleep, as they had to be in by 5am or 6am).
I would have liked to have been given a bit more knowledge to do the job in the exceptional manner to which I am accustomed to working. 
The 4th manager position includes tasks from all areas of the store and the Front Office, as well as some HR functions, in addition to upholding policies and cleanliness standards, supervising and performance managing the staff, conflict resolution, and more. 
Many times, I was the only manager for 65+% of my shift and was expected to receive product, work freight, face the store solo, and supervise as well, on days with frequent call-outs, all while filling in where necessary, providing support to coworkers and exhibiting great customer service skills.
When I tried to call out sick  (1 day in nearly 1-1/2 years), I was told I needed to come to work--the other 3 managers had been scheduled that day already and there was no one else to cover; of course, I came in and worked. What option did they have, or leave me? 
The location at which I worked was also fairly dangerous once or twice a week , with addicts shooting up in the bathrooms or unstable, mentally ill persons either in the store or hanging around for bottle counts. One security guard for the building told me he wouldn't open up the door for those people--yet we had to because of the state bottle redemption requirements. Worse, MOC often hired small, young girls to count the bottles. 
The work was challenging and I provided exemplary leadership to the best of my ability almost every moment I worked. Nevertheless, corporate management took issue with the way I handled a LP event and terminated me a week before a major holiday, leaving my coworkers and their customers in a bad spot and me without a job. Not a great way to treat people. Thus, I would not recommend this company to a friend.

This is a fear driven company. My qualifications were perfect for the management position I was hired for but my experience with the corporate sales office was terrible! 
The most frequent comments I heard from day 1 of my employment (actually even through my interview process), was that Market of Choice cannot seem to keep people in management positions. I heard this from all levels of management, from other employees, from sales reps, and even from customers. If employee retention is an issue it seems the company would reflect on why they have such a problem with it rather than running off the next qualified hire like they did in my situation.
After a short period of effectively managing my department my sales manager decided to sideline me because of my leadership skills, even though I had very good results in sales, in customer service, and as a team player at my local store.
The management both in store and corporate side have an overall lack of proactive communication style, no follow through with their own intentions, and lack the ability to clearly demonstrate leadership. It seems everyone is afraid of the corporate offices and the store managers cannot effectively run their stores or manage their employees because of the fear of retribution. I was told their hands are tied!
Market of Choice values competition, within its own stores and within each department. They work against, rather than with, each other and have different departments actually competing for floor space. The same departments in different stores compete for margin of sales, and employees to compete for status within the company. It's a backwards concept if you want to instill loyalty in the "family" of stores. 
 It was evident from my first day of training that long term employees are happily involved in a culture of toxic gossip from the corporate level. I found the corporate staff frequently involved in immature and petty conversation instead of effectively training me,. This experience put me in an awkward position because I did not want to be involved in low level behavior.
Every attempt by me to communicate proactively with upper level management was discouraging and discouraged.
Effective and positive management is a Market of Choice shortcoming. I had every ability and intention to excel in my position and I worked diligently to build good connections with customers, sales reps, and with other employees but the corporate office was unprofessional and hostile. They wanted to set an example that I was lower in the "hierarchy" (that was actually said to me) and I needed to be taught how to bow down to gossipy people I did not respect. 
So in the end my hands were also tied and I was told I would be blind to the further development of my own department which obviously led to my resignation.

I wish these people would sell their stores to Walmart or Amazon so the exploitation was more professional. Instead, MOC is run by a group of tiny babies who prefer playing with the dooky in their diapers than actually learning how to use the toilet.

This is truly one of the weirdest, most unprofessional businesses I've ever worked for.  Their priorities are so far out of rational norms that there was a rumor in our store that MOC is a money laundering front.  It sounds crazy but,  as a theory, it explains a lot of the otherwise inexplicable behavior promoted by ownership. 

1. The level of waste in our department was unbelievable - truly.  100's of pounds of ingredients wasted because the workers were not following recipes.  This is bad enough, but the manager refused to train, reprimand, or just manage.  Instead, they constantly gossiped behind their backs about how incompetent they were. No one seemed to care about the waste.

2. Employees who were judged "not good" at their jobs weren't told how to do it right. Instead, they were fired for something stupid like wrong color socks. Although, not before the manager made sure they gossiped for months to everyone about how awful they were. No one seemed to care about training.

3. The pricing database used to make price labels is lousy with errors of all kinds - wrong price, wrong ingredients - and they never fixed the mistakes (or if they did it took forever). I never understood why the pricing database was not a priority.   Oddly, we were constantly being asked to make up prices. No one seemed to care about accurate ingredients lists or pricing - at all.

This is a bad business, owned by loser people, who hire low-rent managers to lie to customers (scratch baked goods -- really?) and employees (advancement to what?) about almost everything.

I recently quit after two months at the Corvallis Market of Choice, I was a kitchen clerk.

Not only was I told to lie to customers by my PIC (which I never did), I was commonly either yelled at or humiliated by my PIC for insignificant little things that were forgivable. e.g. prioritizing a safety hazard over a customer for 5 seconds. Sharing with everyone in the kitchen any mistake I made in my job duties and laughing at me. It was my first job and the only thing that I was doing sub-par was my sense of urgency and attentiveness according to my 30 day evaluation. 

Management is lazy, I was told that I would have to wash my rental chef coats for the first week until they ordered new ones that they would wash and store in the break room. Up until I quit at two months in they didn't order the coats. They wouldn't get me my correct size of latex free gloves due to an allergic reaction I have with latex so I was forced to use medium gloves that were very difficult to get on. 

There is massive turnover happening in the kitchen department; I estimate at least 7 people quit in the two month period that I was employed there. Reading these other reviews and my own personal experience I can't say that I'm surprised. Management put me on a 7 day work week and then a 6 day work week before I quit.

A good amount of my co-workers seemed very unhappy and unsatisfied with their job. Just about every week there was someone that was quitting or had left without a two week notice. I will say that I got a lot of experience with handling customers and developing a work ethic, but that came naturally and was not a result of training. I would not suggest working at Market of Choice.

This company will expect you to work yourself to death with no positive feedback always makes you feel like you are never doing enough. You go home exhausted from trying your best to get unrealistic long list and orders done sometimes working alone. The higher ups will watch the employees struggle and not help with tasks, managers will single out employees and pull them away to have “talks” with them while the whole department get to watch so embarrassing and dehumanizing. They treat there employees as replaceable and not worth anything that’s why they are always hiring new employees and turn over rate is extremely high meanwhile the other employees have to carry the weight of a short handed staff doing twice the labor… they Managment takes this out on the workers it all falls downhill and the management doesn’t take responsibility for this ongoing problem…. They don’t even give there employees a discount so if you work here you will spend your whole paycheck if you shop here because they charge so much it’s ridiculous how they treat there employees. They need a whole different way of operating this business or they won’t be in business long. It’s a known company to not work for in Oregon and that’s a sad thing. They build new stores when they can’t even fill the positions in there stores they already have. A money hungry company that is full of greed. They give a raise of a quarter a year if any raise at all raised there prices 30% and didn’t give employees a raise at all… how sad. Everyone who works in my department was looking for a way out . Long time employees of 10 + years they treat as they don’t need these employees are the backbone of this company and they don’t even show them any respect. 

A typical day in this roll includes making drinks, packaging baked goods, grabbing things from the case for customers, answering phone calls, and simple decorating of baked goods. This is a great place if you love having a variety of tasks, like talking to your coworkers, don't mind customer service, and like to make things look nice. For the most part, the managers are great (especially the bakery manager). They appreciate hard work, are kind, and want to help you thrive. The most difficult part of the job is being patient. Patient with customers, coworkers, and yourself. The most enjoyable part for me was decorating the sugar cookies (though not everyone felt the same way).

Tips: In whatever job you get, be careful not to get wrapped up in negativity. Talking poorly about people or the job may help you pass time, but you will be unhappy. Perspective is everything. Find presence in whatever task you are doing even if it is not fun. Do what needs to be done even if you don't want to. If someone else doesn't mind that task, by all means let your coworker handle it. If you don't mind doing a task that they hate, they will appreciate that you did it. But if everyone dislikes that task, just get it done so that resentment doesn't grow from one person always getting left with that task. You are a team. Lift each other up. Clean up after yourself, be kind, and when in doubt assume the best out of people, not the worst. If you made it this far, I'm sure you'll get the job. I hope you thrive in this position and learn from this experience. Best of Luck!

The good part about the job is that your coworkers have a mutual hate for how things are managed and it brings you closer together. I love my coworkers, but management gets on you for the most insignificant things and has the dumbest policies. There is no incentive to keep employees and they wonder why they have such a high turnover rate.

No discounts, no tips, if you want to see family around holidays it is never going to happen because they have blackout periods where you can't leave. We throw away pounds and pounds of food at night but if you sample anything without a manager's permission you'll get fired. They favor how long you have been there over how good of a job you do. They won't pay you holiday pay unless you've been there over 6 months. They will cut your hours when they don't make enough sales because to them, 32 hours is full time, so you suddenly lose a full day of pay even though you need that money. 

On that note, when sales are low, they will leave you understaffed and stressed out and the kitchen managers are never there at night (even though they're supposed to close every now and then) so they don't understand why things don't get done in those times. Sick time and vacation time is bundled into PTO so if you get sick, there goes your PTO that took so long to accrue. 

When you bring issues up to management they sound like they care but never do anything about it. And they deflect to things that aren't important.

The job is not hard. It is a grocery store. It's the perfect place if you don't care what you're doing and just need to make some money for a little bit.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Cashier 3 salaries reported	$15.83 per hour
Kitchen team member 3 salaries reported	$15.33 per hour
Shift leader 1 salary reported	$15.00 per hour
Bakery manager 1 salary reported	$30,000 per year
Associate buyer 1 salary reported	$25,000 per year

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