truck driver

plant operator

customer service representative

warehouse worker

agronomist

Wilbur-Ellis Company

This used to be a great place to work.  Has slowly turned into a horror show with lack of communication, changes being made without input from the employees it directly effects, more work, less pay.  A lot of employees no longer feel valued at all, since our contributions to the success of this company have been ignored and under-appreciated.  

The support teams no longer do their jobs correctly, leaving the branches that rely on them out of luck.  More responsibilities and deadlines, and more useless technology being implemented without discussion, making your everyday tasks much much harder.

Lot of employees doing the jobs of 2+ people, without pay raises.  They keep promoting horrible managers to made up positions, and when branches lose employees, they are not replaced and instead the workload is spread around among those who remain, whose workload is already unmanageable.  Again, this is done WITHOUT monetary compensation for the extra workload.

Corporate has their favorites, and they LOVE brown-nosers, so as long as you are kissing the correct behinds, you will be promoted, even if you have a major lack of skills and talent.  The wrong people keep getting promoted and they are not great for the company as a whole.

During busy season (April-July usually) the work life balance is horrendous.  You will work 55+ hour weeks, without help.  You will barely see your family, you will work every weekend.  There will be no extra money if you are salaried, and there will be minimal appreciation from your managers for this lack of personal time.

Be very wary.

a typical day at work, will depend on the season, slow season will be warehouse work, spring summer fall will be mostly driving with some warehouse.

what you believe you learned, I learned alot about agricultur, they helped me get my tanker and hazmat endorsement. 

management, Grade A  everyone there is helpful willing to work with you on things and help you learn the bussiness.

workplace culture, it's great there's time for working and there's a little bit of jooking around it's a good culture. 

the hardest part of the job, Leaving to go to another job for more pay. At Wilbur-Ellis honestly nothing you do there is difficult to do. Certain things maybe repetitive but it's not hard to do.

the most enjoyable part of the job everything about the job the company culture the people that work there I honestly don't have a single negative thing to say. 

Typical day at work is random blips of being super slammed otherwise steady/slow. I have learned quite a bit production wise with this being my second job ever. Management ties into workplace culture. More often than not we get treated like it’s our fault when problems happen at the location I’m working. Sometimes it makes us act negatively to each other. Other times we look at each other like we’re all on a sinking ship. Hardest part of the job is keeping spirits high and when equipment goes down. Most enjoyable part of the job is producing a lot together as a team when you start falling behind in production.

First off the job title/description is misleading. I write up orders that the salesman gives me, coordinate dispatching orders, receive new product in, ensure facility bills are paid, submit customer invoices for payment, answer phones. Doesn't sound like a lot, but it really is especially when there are 5 steps to processing a single order unless it's a fertilizer order then it's 8 steps. 

My training was minimal at best. Even though my trainer was here for a month before quitting they barely showed me anything. When I asked for assistance with anything new I was treated like a burden. Worst new hire experience by far.

Pay is alright but not great. Communication is horrible. I have been blamed for things I did not do and thankfully had documentation proving it wasn't me. 

Some people may like this job but it's not for me. If I wasn't already planning on starting a new job next year I would already be gone.

I love the people I work with in my local distribution branch, but corporate has bloated into a massive monster that I believe is unsustainable. Way too many departments, way too much micromanagement, pushing towards retail, leaving large distribution hubs in the dust. Lots of ineffective and inefficient changes to processes, too many systems being integrated with no understanding of why it’s needed, or what is the desired effect or accomplishment. Way too much of a push towards integrating technology into something where it is really not needed. Feels like they are trying to automate everything to get rid of the employees. Lots of turnover recently, people are nervous. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
The employees at the locations who do the hard work.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Management and lack in a flow of information.  There are too many people involved in decision making and a clear divide between corporate and those in the field.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Remotely, there are silos that everyone sticks to and it's hard for info to flow smoothly. At the locations, there is a lot of change and expectations to do more with less and there is very little support or understanding from those at the top.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Stressful and spending most of your time finding answers to problems since there are very few if any policies.

This used to be a great company to work for.  However, now it is a company that promotes "brown nosers" and those that can not perform their daily tasks.  It allows those I would call "lazy" to enter into management because of "who they are friends with" not based on your success or knowledge of how you perform your job.  Do you job and you are not recognized but instead looked down upon.  I have witness many of promotions of people due to the hard work of others ethics and ideas, not of their own.

Overall my experience here taught me a lot about hard work. Here load order sheets were given out and as a warehouse worker. I was expected to efficiently and quickly load trucks for delivery. It can be stressful at first but after repetition, it becomes second nature and isn't too stressful. Days are sometimes long but tend to go by quickly. I did like the culture while I was there. It was a great summer job while I was in school. Pay was good at first but raises seem to occur only so often and sometimes it was unnoticeable.Overall I liked my time there and would recommend it to someone who is familiar with forklifts, consistent manual labor and needs a summer job.

Although I had to leave my employment with Wilbur Ellis I would have to say that they are a great company to work for. They are growing as a company and I expect in the near future they will be gaining market share and becoming one of the leaders in the agricultural field. 

I regret that I had to leave my employment with them as quickly as I did, but I learned a great deal in the short time I was with them. 

I found that I was able to lead a team of employees, that I selected, to operate a new location and was able to provide our growers with the service that they had been accustomed to receiving. I was able to bring my knowledge that I had gained from previous employment and help establish a new location that was completely functional within just a few short months.

Typical day at work was taking orders from the branch offices in the northern division, these orders would be place with vendors and shipped in most cases the same day. Vendor invoices came to me and I matched them to the purchase orders and made sure that pricing etc. was correct then approved the invoices for payment. These were sent to our corporate office in Seattle for processing.

My co-workers were wonderful, only had two, my boss was the VP of Purchasing for Wilbur Ellis Company. He was very fair, very funny and strict.

Doing the newsletter was the hardest part of my position, trying to find something of interest to everyone in agricultural and turf & ornamental industry can be tough.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Truck driver 86 salaries reported	$27.12 per hour
Plant operator 18 salaries reported	$19.05 per hour
Customer service representative 17 salaries reported	$21.76 per hour
Warehouse worker 24 salaries reported	$20.65 per hour
Agronomist 24 salaries reported	$91,414 per year

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