This company has some major positives, such as the compensation rate which of course is much higher than normal retail chains, and of course the benefits. One would assume that this would equal out to a respectful and optimistic work environment, but boy, was I very mistaken.
I’ve worked in retail my entire life, and have seen and dealt with some of the most ludicrous situations you can fathom when it comes to the standard corporate retail scheme. However, ALDI takes the cake for the most brutal, outlandish, blatantly brainless work ethics I have ever experienced.
First of all their POS system is dreadful and needs modernized but ALDI loves to cut corners, which is why their prices are so low. Unfortunately, these cut corners are cut in the area of aiding the employees in doing their job properly, as in the cut corners make it much more complicated for the employees to do their job appropriately in the subhuman ridiculous speeds that ALDI expects them to complete the work in.
The buttons on the POS literally make no sense, and you are give next to no training on the POS, and thrown on it. You are timed and expected to throw items across the register at staggering, detrimental and worrying speeds that do nothing but aggravate you and the customer. Customers don’t like you throwing their groceries into the buggy, obviously, and as a cashier it’s totally ludicrous to have to basically slam groceries as fast as you can just to meet some sort of mythical “ring speed” that again does nothing but frustrate the customers. Not to mention customers are constantly wanting refunds because they feel that you threw the items in the cart, little do they know that you are required to basically throw them in there. Wait until you get a Watermelon or heavy items. Obviously you can’t really throw that, you have to pick the heavy item up. Which ruins your ring speed and gets you in trouble. WHOEVER came up with the idea of ‘ring speed” has obviously never had to endure it.
Mentioning Watermelons, all of Aldi’s produce has no scan code so they give you a enormous dim-witted list of produce and some non produce items to commit to memory. YES memorize. They are too cheap to label their produce, so you have to ring everything up at supersonic speeds, not damage anything AND remember over 50 numeral codes for produce and non produce items, punch them into this backwards POS system, and hope that your ring speed doesn’t get you in trouble. Customer Service? Bah, forget it. RING SPEED RING SPEED RING SPEED! Pray to the ring speed god.
Now the POS system is from the ice age, so logically if you do happen to punch anything incorrectly with your pathetic, nonexistent training you are beyond screwed. You have to buzz the manager up, your ring speed dwindling by the second, and then they have to fix it, which they hate to do. It’s exceedingly easy to do this because the POS was made by some corporate genius who doesn’t understand why modern POS systems are more competent than typewriters.
Once you’ve dealt with this scenario, it’s on to the stocking catastrophe. Every day the store gets a truck at 5am, which is when your day starts, and here’s why you have amazing benefits. You are expected to unload this massive truck of mixed palettes within a couple of hours, and stock the shelves as fast as you can, basically running. You are given next to no pallet jack training, and the isles are small which results in a hot mess. Eventually you get the pallet jack down, however being expected to haul and lift and stock heavy pallets like potatoes, watermelons, canned goods etc. in no time at all really puts damage on the body. I met people who had been there two weeks with back issues already. If you don’t finish the job, you are expected to do this work while customers are in the store which means attempting to move heavy pallet jacks around elderly and small children somehow without someone running in front of you, paired with already crammed isles and of course your expected superhuman speed.
If you unload everything on time, get ready, your body is already aching because you’ve just ran a marathon basically and now you’ve got to throw things in carts at the same speed. And come your day off, you will most likely get called in because someone else physically can’t do it that day. You are expected to come in on your day off too.
The speed issue and rate at which this store wants you to work, due to it refusing to hire the crew it ACTUALLY needs and would be efficient to get the work done in the time Aldi wants, is why you get paid great and have benefits. They are basically compensating you for doing the work of more than two people, and it is simply not worth it.
