bakery manager

produce manager

food preparation worker

meat cutter

customer service manager

Tops Friendly Markets

Definitely the worst company I have ever worked for. I was already lied to in my interview. I was hired to be a part time overnight donut fryer and was going to be cross trained on night crew to be a stock clerk some nights to obtain more hours, but that never happened. After almost a year I was still working only 16 hours a week. No one in the bakery followed any basic hygiene practices such as hand washing or wearing gloves, which is bad enough. My manager actually told me before they get an inspection they will just let the water run so it gets hotter faster and the inspector will THINK we're washing our hands. My manager would walk around with snotty tissues she was using in her pocket, pull one out and blow her nose, and stick it back in her pocket and then touch various food items with her bare hands. When I was still training I dropped a muffin on the floor and asked what I should do with it and I was told there was nothing wrong with it and I should put it in the case for sale. Going against my conscience I did and felt very guilty. Anytime I was alone I tossed food if it hit the floor, but when management was around I was forced to serve unsafe food. In my year at Tops I saw countless amounts of food be dropped on the floor and served. Frozen food wasn't even safe. My manager would keep expired food on the floor in hopes of selling it at a discount and I watched her on multiple occasions re-label things that were expiring soon and mark them for another 5 days. On top of all of this, the job environment was very stressful. My manager would start complaining the second she walked about what horrible workers we had and how they didn't do anything they should have. Then tell me how much work she had to do and rush me to get done with my work so I could help her. (After rushing and being in the process of helping her, she would leave the bakery and stand around chatting with other department heads) Her daughter also worked in the bakery and she would do the same thing when she got there. The two of them together was horrible and it was non stop gossiping and complaining. It would get pretty nasty at times and all I wondered was what they were saying about me when I went home.

The store overall was being run into the ground. The store manager hides in his office all day and he won't even make a phone call on his own. The workload is very unfair throughout the store. I've seen the night crew dripping with sweat after putting up a huge load and management will tell them they could have gotten more done. Then I'll see cashiers playing on their cell phones and listening to headphones while waiting on customers and management will walk by and not say a thing.

I ended up quitting this job because I mentioned to the managers daughter that the donut person that is there there other 5 nights as week was doing a poor job cleaning up our donut table and when I came in everything was sticky and gross. Her reply: "If you don't like it, then quit. Nobody cares." So I quit right then and left. That was about 2 weeks ago and I've heard that 2 other donuts fryers have walked out since I quit.

To sum things up, if you're a hard worked tops will always expect you to do more and more, and if you're lazy you'll be able to skate by forever without being reprimanded. So if you are a hard worker, please look somewhere else because they will just take advantage of you and then tell you how replaceable you are.

I did not stay working here for long but learned what I did not want in a workplace.  If the TOPS I worked at had better management, would have made working there a ton better. From my interview to my first week, things were rough. The manager at my store who was doing the interviews forgot he had my interview that day, so I waited almost two hours. The interview was quick, not very formal, and not many questions. At most, it lasted 10 minutes, and we sat at one of the tables in the deli department of the store. Skip forward a little bit, and I had my first day/ orientation day. The orientation included pizza which was nice, paperwork, videos, and quick quizzes. The quizzes didn't count for anything but mainly were on the videos we watched after getting through the videos about workplace etiquette and basic customer service things. We had a chance to go on the cash registers. Before they opened the register for customers, the CSL who did the orientation explained the cash register a little bit. Then the cash register was open for customers. At my orientation, 3 of the people who were there applied for cashiering, so we took one person was cashing,  one bagging, and one just watching. Then we would rotate so we each had a chance to use the cash register and get the feel of bagging. None of us really felt prepared. Not enough was covered during the orientation to feel comfortable. And due to the lack of training from that day on, it was tough because when a problem did occur, or we came across something we weren't taught in orientation, like how to do checks and food stamps, it was very difficult to get a managers attention even with the blinking light, they just wouldn't pay attention, and when you would ask a question, you would normally get a short blunt response. Not being able to get a manager's help, especially when you need it for a void in a timely matter with a customer also waiting, causes the customers to lose patience and get upset. In general majority of the customers at my store were not very nice, and it just takes a lot out of you. The managers also clearly had their favorite employees, and not everyone was always treated the same, on top of that, our break was pretty dirty and gross. The best part of working here is the ability to move up in the company. The pay isn't great, though, so even if you move up, your pay probably won't be that much better for the amount of work expected of you. Also, the hours were pretty flexible, so good for students but varied frequently. Also, I would get a call pretty often asking me if I would come in on my day off pretty often.  Overall it was a learning experience, especially when dealing with tough customers and management, but I would not work here ever again. It was very hard to feel motivated to come to work. 

terrible job. weekly hours are inconsistent. some weeks i would have 7 hours and others would be 22. everytime i would show up i would feel ill like i am going to collapse. breaks are too short for some shifts. the worst shifts are 5 and a half hours which is only 30 minutes away from 15 to 20 minute break. Pay is garbage, associates especially front end  deserve more than minimum wage. You have the so called union that takes 20 dollars from you every week as well as federal and state taxes. I was payed 144 for a 22 hour week. The worst shifts are closing shifts where you have to do garbage and deal with the smell of de*th in the backroom. One shift where I did garbage it was pouring so I smelled like a wet dog that went dumpster diving. My shoes were soaked for almost 2 days. I will admit it is my responsibility determining what I wear to work, but I could have at least deserved more then what I had to deal with. The WORST part of being a cart attendant is people who always assume that you can take care of their cart when you already have 2 different carts you have to take care of. Dont get me started with the 5 different carts there are. the worst are the small carts that are hard to handle. One day I scratched my bumper after losing control. I will never forget one day where I worked one one side for 20 minutes with all the small carts in the store (7 or 8 in total) and by the time I got back there was only 1 left. All the old ladies would be complaining that theres no small carts when I would just bring some in, and I get yelled at by CSL that theres no small carts.  One of the bad things of working at tops is management basically breathing down behind your neck. I swear to god you can get written up for the smallest things or doing your job inefficiently. They expect 1,000,000% from me. When I can only do so much before I am about to blow a fuse. I have yet to have a day where I am going to lose it and storm out. I have yet to find a new job, but anything is better than here.
To sum up working at tops
Overworked
Underpayed
Very little breaks
Overall garbage place to work at

My daily responsibilities are to open the department, unload the truck and serve customers. I enjoy setting up the department in the morning, making the meat, cheese and salad displays look as presentable and desirable as possible. After the department is set, I unload the new product from the truck and rotate the older items out. While setting the cases and rotation the product, I serve customers. The steady stream of shoppers makes the day enjoyable and I have learned how to better my conversation skills. There are many regulars that I look forward to seeing throughout the day. 
The people who started off as my co-workers have become my friends and are a great group of people to spend my time with, inside the workplace as well as outside. The management, on the other hand, could use some work. Unfortunately, most of the managers in my particular store seem to spend the majority of their day avoiding work rather than doing it. They are responsible for ordering the product yet we tend to run out of stock of one or two items almost every day. They rarely take action on worker complaints and often leave one person running an entire department. I personally am confident enough to run my department alone but I see others struggle and understand, even share their frustration.  The hardest part of my job is seeing the flaws and weakness in management. I tend to pick up the slack and work twice as hard to keep things running smoothly. What keeps me working so hard is my pride in my work. When my shift is over and I head home, I know that I have left my department clean and set up for the next shift.  I have been encouraged by my immediate supervisor, the store manager and the district manager to apply for an associate management position and I believe I would do well if I did. 
Overall, I love my job, co workers and though I don’t agree with some of the management styles, I get along very well with everyone I work with.


Some locations have bad management and some have good management. I worked at three different locations, and only the last location I worked at had really good management and my coworkers were like family (I wish I could give a shout-out to the store I'm talking about but I'm not supposed to mention names, but if you currently work at that location and see this review, know that Little H is proud of you!). As long as you get one of the stores with good management, it'll be very difficult to be unhappy in the workplace. Fair warning though, even though the management may be awesome, there will always be a coworker that is difficult to work with, but if you ignore that troublemaker, it makes things easier. The only things I miss about working for the company are my old coworkers and the regular customers we got; they're good people. I, however, do not miss the stress I always got (that's just me - others might deal with stress better). I would recommend the company for at least a start-up job, but maybe not as an entire career as you'll just be paid minimum wage unless you're a higher-up employee. I worked for the company for six and a half years before I left, and it was definitely a good starter job despite any drawbacks.

A typical day at work for me depending on the day of the week would begin with reading daily emails, reviewing the hotline, and checking the sales from the day prior. After I would then fill out the purchase log, both the hard copy and computer based copy. After I would cull through the produce department and begin filling the department. I would then begin to breakdown the load and code date all of the new incoming product. From there I would check in the load making sure all of the product we were billed for did indeed come in. If the product did not come in I would then fill out an incident entry report. An incident entry report would also be filled out for poor quality products. Next I would continue to fill the department, or cut and clean greens, or cut and prepare fruit for the day. After I would finish up any paper work that is needed including any transfers, purchases logs, 380s, incident entry reports, inventory, shrink logs, KLT, or CODs. 
I have learned a wide variety of tasks since starting my job with Tops Markets in 2006. From being a part time cart associate to becoming an assistant produce manager. I have learned all of the required tasks needed to be a manager, from the basic qualities needed to be a good associate to the paper work/book work and being ready for inspections. My job overall I find very enjoyable, I really enjoy working with people and enjoy the book work required with the job. The most difficult part of the job would have to be the delegation of work. The reasoning for this is due to the age of my part timers. They tend to be a little restricted in some of the work they would be delegated due to age being too young or too old, so more work may fall on myself and the produce manager.

Management is terrible. They treat you like garbage and assume you do nothing but stand around and talk all day when they don't see what work you have currently done. Being too busy helping customers instead of getting production done was never good enough. They lie through their teeth and talk major junk behind people's backs. In the 3 years I spent there, everyone who has ever left that place has all left for the exact same reasons and it is mostly due to how poorly we are all treated and seen at that store. Managers are treated as the second coming of Christ and we are all worthless. The store manager thinks his opinion cannot be equal to harassment and he has insulted people who meet corporate dress code for how they look. Never got a raise in my entire time there despite winning sales competitions and helping anywhere they needed me. They counted minimum wage going up as your raise. The only good manager that store has had was actually promoted and he was seen as an incompetent one by the store manager's standards. He thinks good managers are ones who are jerks and need to step it down instead of treating people like they are human and making sure production and help is going smoothly. They rarely want to get their hands dirty doing work beyond setting up displays and end caps and it can take them 8 hours to set up a single display because they are too busy wandering the store waiting for an employee to make a mistake so they can power trip and nail them to the cross. 

In the end, their philosophy comes off as "I'm the manager, what I say is law. You are the lowest of the low and know nothing at any given time and know nothing about anything. You have to do what I say because I'm the manager. Once you exhaust your usefulness we will toss you aside like yesterday's garbage."

for a company as "great" as they claim to be and promises of "full time work" its a wonder they are always hiring.  sat through the training with so many promises of full time potential and benefits and the whole speal. out 1st day on the floor, a handful of "full time" workers suddenly  were needed from the part timers that were hired. it was the overnight shift which I wasn't able to do so I was fine with keeping my shift I had at the time. the more I talked with employees currently there the more I began to see the wool they keep pulling over the potential employees eyes to get them to "stay" come to find out your "full time" just gives you greater benefits because they call it a "full time not guaranteed" status, meaning you get full time benefits, but are not guaranteed full time hours.  you get your 2-3 days in and then you are on call for the rest of the week as they need you. so on week you may work a full 40 hours and the next 3 weeks you might only get 16 hours. but still have to pay for your benefits if you elect to get them plus your union dues, plus taxes. it would be a great 2nd job or something for someone one who has a spouse that Is a millionaire and you are looking for something to get you out of the house and moving and stay active. but you cannot make a living working at this place unless you are stupid and stick around and wait for one of the old timers to die and hope that everyone in front of you quits in the mean time so you can get a full time spot.  to work is fast and can be a challenge at times but as long as you can stack your pallets and don't mispick stuff you shouldn't have to kill yourself to get your job done. there is an incentive program if you really hustle your butt, but some people just don't care and take their time and they seem to make it there.

They hire virtually anyone who applies and then wonder why they have such poor employees. The registers are ancient and barely work and the store looks dingy often. The store failed the health inspection due to rat infestation and it has been ongoing, with 0 change, for multiple months. The managers all practice selective enforcement of rules based on which employees they like/dislike, and in general do not follow the standards that they force teenage/underpaid people to follow rigidly. A culture based entirely around managers making themselves look good to corporate and delegating any actual work far away from themselves.  No bonuses, no discounts, and pointless rules/changes enforced that tank quality of life (cashiers cannot have water, break room moved from normal room into tiny space to accommodate infrequent corporate visitors etc.) Managers are hired from outside the company who have 0 knowledge of the store functions/policies and will flatly refuse to get involved in helping during holiday rushes or defending employees from belligerent customers. The current hiring manager is a big0t who has made multiple remarks about different protected groups, the store manager is fully aware of the numerous complaints and has made 0 effort to reprimand or demote this person. Let me repeat that; the person who hires, for every department, is actively and openly discriminat0ry and over the course of 2+ years nothing is done. The union is pretty good, otherwise working for tops is a net-negative in the extreme. 

Tops Friendly Markets is a good fit for a student looking for part-time work while taking classes. It’s a great place to learn how to use a cashier and be managed by respectful, team oriented managers for the first time. 
Unfortunately, they rarely hire full-time employees, often hovering associates’ hours right under the required amount to be considered. This means you are unlikely to get benefits. There have been several reliable people working here for years hoping to be considered for a full time slot. 

Another issue I have is they absolutely take advantage of young college students/teenagers who do not know their rights in the workplace. The Union representative did not inform any of us that we had New York State paid sick leave during the pandemic. 
If they notice you’re even slightly capable they will give you many more responsibilities that you did not agree to when hired and will give you little to no compensation for them. If they notice you are a competent cashier they will place you behind the customer service desk. This is where you will pretend to be a manager, a secretary, and perform thousands of dollars worth of Western Union transactions. 
There is a significant risk in doing WU transactions because if you accidentally assist in money laundering you may be held accountable in court. That is not worth being paid 11-12 dollars an hour, getting the same rate as scanning soft drinks and potato chips with no legal risk. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Bakery manager 17 salaries reported	$17.91 per hour
Produce manager 9 salaries reported	$19.44 per hour
Food preparation worker 7 salaries reported	$17.30 per hour
Meat cutter 11 salaries reported	$23.03 per hour
Customer service manager 9 salaries reported	$17.89 per hour

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