assistant store manager

local driver

truck driver

bakery manager

senior financial analyst

The Save Mart Companies

-The people you work with are often friendly and willing to answer questions if you need help with something
-Everyone hired on is a “part time employee,” but you can expect to work 40 hours a week, especially if you work in one of the departments rather than the front. Becoming a “full time employee” takes most people upward of 10 years. A friend of mine gained full time status after working for the company 13 years, then he quit a few months later at the age of 29. To my knowledge, the main difference between “full time” and “part time” employees, is that if one of each requests the same day off, the “full time employee” will get it, but if two “part time employees” do the same, whoever has more seniority will get the day off. 13 years with a company for an official title for “higher seniority” doesn’t seem worth your life. When working with less seniority, you can expect to work every weekend, unless you requested the weekend off first, and/or have seniority over anyone else who asked for the weekend off.  It is claimed and demonstrated often that full time employees, and employees with higher levels of seniority, have first pickings of shifts they want to work, but this was not my experience after 6 years.
-They will try to work with your school schedule, but by that, I mean I only got days off when I had evening classes, or mornings off when I had morning classes. For my first 6 years, I worked 40 hours a week (while maintaining “part-time” status), and would only have days off on the 2 days a week I had classes. With not many days open for any kind of mental rest, I had to re-take roughly half of the classes I took.  One semester I had joined a school sports team, which required weightlifting at 5am for a single semester. At this same time, our 4am shift person had moved away, and working the 4am shift would have put my entire week in a perfect balance of getting up at the same time every day and going to sleep at the same time every day with time on all but one  evening every single week to do homework. Being that I had near 6 1/2 years, and seniority over 2/3 of the department, I asked for this shift. Unfortunately I was very good at frying chicken, which is a shift that they struggled to find people to do well, so rather than change my schedule, they hired 3 (2 quit) people, and gave them the shift I wanted. This left me, between classes and homework, sleeping an average 5hours a night, and I failed my classes. Realizing that while working here, I was failing 2 of 3 classes every single semester, (this was the first semester in 5 years since I had dropped out of sports, so just simply working wasn’t leaving enough time for study) I applied for leave for the last few weeks of the semester. I was also denied this. So I quit. Haven’t failed a class since, and passed in 2 semesters what it would usually take me 2 years to pass. 
-One week paid vacation, two weeks after two years, and I believe 3 weeks after 5 years, but it is sometimes difficult to get the week you want off when most of your coworkers have many years seniority and they only allow one person per department to vacation at a time. 
-There we’re several years where my department manager was begging the store manager to allow us to hire more people into the department, and add another shift. There was a certain amount of work that was required to be finished between customers, and on heavier customer service days, this work would be set aside. At the end of the day, we weren’t allowed to leave things like cleaning unfinished, but weren’t allowed to leave late either. Rather than leave the department a mess and start off a whole new bad day from the next shift, the obvious choice was often to go home late and finish all the cleaning, which would upset the store manager, who would express his frustration with the department manager, who understood it was because we were chronically understaffed and continued to ask for more shifts and staff.  Eventually, after much back and fourth with the store manager about staffing shortages, our department manager cut her losses and quit, just after her 21st anniversary with the company. 
-I no longer work here, the store manager has since transferred, but finding reliable employees to work in the department I was in is rumored to be continually difficult


Overall, cool job for a teenager to bag groceries and pay for gas and whatever teens do, but working in the departments or as a checker is a 30-year trap that will keep you too unskilled to seek better employment

A typical day at save mart is exhausting. My title was a courtesy clerk. My daily duties involved: hourly sweeps, service outs, bathroom maintenance, bagging duties, and hourly cart duty. Expect after awhile my abilities were used to work in produce areas, bakery areas, alcohol and milk boxes. As a worker i always thirst for skills i wanted to obtain, and I constantly hoped for recognition to advance to higher positions, but was never fully given the opportunities. All customers at savemart would ask for me to help assist them out or in general just to help them grocery shop. The job was not hard it was just tiring. 

I had learned a lot during my time at Save Mart. I enhanced my hospitality and customer service skills to the fullest. I learned cashier duties hoping to advance ( but never was given the opportunity). I learned how to stock produce and clean products to prep them to be put out on display. From the bakery i learned how to take orders and decorate many different pastries and cakes. Baking is always fun to me so to experience that was great.  I learned how to receive loads ( which is not allowed) because of my job description, but because i had the skills and knowledge night management would let me. I learned this different types of liquor beverages to inform my customers whats best and different for every occasion they would attain.

Management was not up to par in the least, every so months a new manager would be transferred into the store. At the time i was working at Save Mart they had undergone the merger between Lucky's and Food Max. The upper management could have found a different method to be more efficient, especially for the workers that have been there 15+ years. Day time and Night time managers are all different some betters then others, but in this case i have learn to adapt to everyone's personality and work ethic. Management is not always fair, but i can understand with them trying to please hundreds of workers, but sometimes favoritism was a factor to advancement; not based on skills.

My co-workers came in every shape, personality, and work ethics. As the lowest member of the chain I had to give them the respect as higher authority, but sometimes they abuse that right. I am team work oriented to ensure our job gets completed, but i will not let a fellow worker get in the way of my work flow. I cannot carry the weight of a fallen worker, nor is it my position but managements. There is only so much help I can give before it enables me to perform at my duties. 

The hardest part of my job was not speaking up for myself. I felt i brought a lot to the company, but in return i never got to advance and grow into better opportunities to help advance the company. Also, because there is more than one manager on duty, cross communication happens and because i was the lowest on the chain often I would reap the repercussions. 

I enjoyed the different scenarios i play everyday. Learning never stops at any job, i always felt anyone who is determine can learn and improve at what ever position or any job provided. Sometimes people just want to excel and be happy.

What is the best part of working at the company?
I've met some very nice people there.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
There is always too much work to do, often with looming deadlines, and there is no one to help you get anything done.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Every day is worse than the last, as more and more work continues to be piled on, and the company is unable to attract or retain talent, so understaffing worsens constantly. The culture of Save Mart seems to be stuck in a 1950s post-war suburbia mindset, but with the current emphasis on bad work conditions and high turnover (instead of cultivating talent for a long-term career...). There has been zero innovation in decades, and now they don't know how to compete with the internet/delivery apps; they're trying to bolt this stuff on, now, but really have no plan for the future. Exec staff is not aware of actual conditions in stores, and have immensely unrealistic expectations of overworked, frustrated staff. The worst part is that none of that has to be that way, but through their ineptitude, they've basically chosen to let the company be a bad workplace.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Never enough time. Today I started by making "grab and go" sandwiches at 5am, then at 6am had to go pull 2 heavy pallets of food to my cooler, and one got stuck on the uneven floor and I had to get help to move it. Then, already behind, I stocked some very empty shelves and started (late) cooking rotisserie chickens. As my sandwiches were still sitting on the counter (some were waiting to go out), I went back to that, but then had to stop production again to take the rotisseries out of the oven and package them, and then I started frying chicken at around 8:30am. I was going to start making croissant sandwiches, but got sidetracked by going to lunch, helping customers, and stocking shelves, as I only had one co-worker the whole day. That's every day, more or less.

A typical day of work was unrewarding overall, but I truly admired my shift leaders and enjoyed interacting with and building personal relationships with regular customers.

I learned a tremendous deal about customer service and how to cater to customer wants/ needs, and how to help customers to have an enjoyable experience while shopping at Savemart.

My coworkers were for the most part friendly and I built relationships with many of them that flourished into relationships outside of the workplace.

The hardest part of the job would have to be the fact that I would always go the extra mile in terms of customer service, and this would rarely be acknowledged by the store managers (not shift leaders). There were numerous occasions where customers actually came back into the store to tell my manager that they truly appreciated how helpful and kind I was to them, and it was never, or rarely, acknowledged or appreciated.

The most enjoyable part of this job was mainly helping out the customers, and also my fellow employees were great people that made working there fun and enjoyable. It always made me happy to go above and beyond what most grocery baggers would do for customers and to see the smiles and appreciation that they gave me for doing so.

A typical day at Lucky starts at 5pm to 2am in the morning. It starts from looking at the schedule and making sure everyone would have his scheduled breaks, lunches and duties set on time. I would handle all customer service, while pulling 2000lbs. of produtcs at the warehouse and stocking at the shelf all at the same time. I hanlde 20 to 30 employees every single shifts, from safety, to production and incoming and outgoing transit of vendors. What I have learned from Luckys is time management, interpersonal skills, bookkeeping skills, team work and most of all enjoying the moment of what i have on my hand. I have learned how to drive the forklift and was given certification as well. Being a lady, seldom they could try that kind of adventure and I open to anything that I want to learn. Management wise, they may be right but not all the time. They have given me the chance to move up the ladder in Management and I am thankful for that. With regards to my co-workers, they are the BEST! I have trained the best employees with good working ethics. They know how to follow deadlines, we keep open communications, we help each other plus, we have developed a family like setting that we look up each others shoulders. I am proud of the night time! The most enjoyable part of my job are the customers that I have developed to be part of Lucky's family. They become familiar with me and I myself also became part of their family. I have known old cutomers to new customers from seldom to daily customers. I guess my smile and charm captured there hearts :). Plus it's nice to grow on a place where u are needed and love.

threw freight faster than the night crew manager, was trusted to be alone with store keys while still on probation, learned frozen learned bakery/deli, produce and ultimately became a cashier during the day sleep a little go back in at night sleep Work night crew the night then that morning would be the same  day I’d have be the closing cashier because as long as there’s an 8 hr gap you’re available. I was over worked and exhausted and thought “well it should payoff when I see my Checks”. All that work all that responsibility (I even learned aris: signage and printing and hanging new price tags) all that overtime all the fake smiles and small talk with managers and key carriers and promised growth opportunity and I still got a paycheck one week for $126.00. 
after two years of being underpaid.i left making a whopping 11.85 an hr. Only raises available are based on the hours you put in. When you do work a certain amount of hours and you feel like you’ve been slaving but receive a 10 cent raise and your boss that makes 50 times your earned income says “you’ve earned it”  pats you on the back it’s just like FORGET THIS. IM A SINGLE MOTHER AND I HAVE TO REPORT TO A SIGNIFICANTLY YOUNGER DUDE IN HIS EARLY 20s WHOS DATING the bosses DAUGHTER SO HE GETS 16 AN HR WHILE I CANT EVEN SEEM TO  BREAK 12 hr. BUT DOING THE SAME WORK IF NOT MORE WORK BECAUSE THAT DUDE IN CHARGE LIKES TO TAKE 30 MINUTE BREAKS THEN A LUNCH !!? BEFORE U KNOW IT YOURE DONE WITH AN ENTIRE TRUCK LOAD.

This job is great if you need to make money, or if you wanted a job where you could build your way up to being a manager, etc. The job is pretty self-explanatory: you help a customer with their purchases (whether that be guiding them through the store, bagging groceries, helping them out to their car, or being a clerk). The worst part of the job would have to be getting carts, if you're a service specialist. You're required to get them day or night, rain or snow or if you live in California, EXTREME HEAT. It is often stressful to get carts too, where if the store is busy and you or only one other person is working service specialist, the carts line up in the parking lot FAST, and things will start getting hectic as you struggle between trying to bag peoples groceries rapidly and going outside to get carts. You're also not allowed to accept tips, and if they catch you doing it after you've been warned about it, they can fire you (I haven't been fired because of this but I know it can happen). Another hard part of the job is dealing with old cranky customers that shop there and drunk people/ people on drugs, but I'm sure you have to deal with that a lot of places nowadays. If you have good co-workers the job becomes more enjoyable, but it also depends on who's in your area. Since there's not any skill required for this job, you can often work with slackers and it gets really annoying once you have to start picking it up, and not seeing them get punished for it. Anyways, I think the job is what you make of it and $13 an hour isn't bad, especially if it's a full time job.

The most enjoyable part of the job is connecting with team members while coaching and teaching them to grow and receiving their respect. This is from entry level through managers and the buck stopped there.

Unfortunately, the company only cares about the bottom line and does not actually care about people. There are rules and processes that I have helped develop for many years and I believe in treating team members fairly and consistently and always have had respect for doing so. 

Unfortunately seeing the issues and knowing that I have the skills to resolve most shortcomings, was not allowed .he director was only concerned with following his directives which failed and were the entire reason I was needed and transferred to this warehouse. Working 15 hour days was not enough, doing projects to restructure and better processes was not enough, increasing profits and margins was not enough, most requests for money to enhance safety and productivity were denied. Being used to develop, teach and educate others to complete needed tasks and methods of system processes and utilizing tools available, was not enough.

Terrible people on a personal level for a person working as a life time career.

The culture is depressing. Do  your job and don't ask questions. Just do as your told. Your opinion does not matter. Be open to having projects taken away, returned, changed and torn apart only to start over again because the managers decided their ideas were better.  The Managers in place don't want to promote from within. No advancement opportunities.The employees don't talk to each for fear of getting into trouble.  They must run everything through their managers as if they are not to be trusted - of course, who can trust any hourly worker.  The managers of each department don't let their employees work with other hourly workers outside of their department, if they need to. Hourly workers must go through their managers before working with other hourly workers from other departments  to get their jobs done. It is very top heavy. Too many chiefs with their fingers involved in every single part of one project. Take too long to make decision, because every little detail has to be approved by the biggest chief. If you like being told what to do, when to do it and how to do it and be a robot, then this is the place for you. If I could give this company a negative stars rating, I would.

As soon as I clocked in I had to make sure my tie was straight and my apron was neat, then I go to a cash register stand and proceed to checkout customers and their groceries. 

Here, being my first job, I learned good work ethic and putting the store first, customer service above all, cash handling, and helping others. 

The key carrier/supervisors were incredibly good managers working with employees and helping out as best they could. Unfortunately the store manager and the assistant store manager were not very good. The treatment of the employees was not very good. The head manager was quite strict and seemed like he didn't care about the people who worked for him. I even had a vacation cancelled without any notice ahead of time. 

The hardest part was balancing work and school. There were times when I had to change my schedule at work because I had school at a certain time, even though I gave them my school schedule.  

I enjoyed working with my coworkers because the fun we had made working bearable. I also liked being the reliable one to go in and cover a shift or help out when the store needed. I was known to call in to see if they needed me to go in early to work. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Assistant store manager 12 salaries reported	$26.52 per hour
Local driver 13 salaries reported	$85,000 per year
Truck driver 1 salary reported	$25.45 per hour
Bakery manager 9 salaries reported	$25.12 per hour
Senior financial analyst 2 salaries reported	$100,000 per year

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