meat cutter

Fresh Street Market

I left Fresh Street about 7 months ago now, in pursuit of another job. This was my first ever job, and, after working for other companies, I realized how unpleasant my experience was. It baffles me that, apparently, nothing has changed since then.

With Union Fees, it's likely you will earn less than minimum wage. 
The workplace is a fun environment for the most part, due to the wide variety of coworkers and backgrounds. 
The management, however, can be messy and inexperienced; and often not on the side of the workers when it comes to obviously fabricated customer complaints and unrealistic demands. While some managers are put-together and helpful, others are rude and condescending. 
The jobs are straight forward and easy to pick up- if the training was sufficient, which it sometimes is not.
It is a bustling and creative workplace, but too much is expected in comparison to the wage offered, and there is little to no wage advancement. Therefore, many workers feel either burnt out, or simply do the bare minimum.
There are no benefits available to younger workers, and there are no worker benefits regarding buying store products other than small coupons- the store is far more interested in keeping the customers happy than their coworkers.
Union rules expect much in terms of availability and you are given a ridiculously small amount of holidays.
The job itself is often very enjoyable. Coworkers from the same departments work closely together, which leads to enjoyable shifts. The music is repetitive but holidays are fun and festive.

Working at fresh street was great. The break room had couches, televisions, coffee makers, sinks, clean counters, dishwasher, clean cutlery, 3 microwaves, a toaster, a fridge, a couch in front of a satelite TV. 2 desktop computers with high speed internet. Most days samples or extra food from upstairs was brought down from the different departments for people to enjoy free of charge. Everyone would always be smiling, everyone saying hello to everyone. Management were very professional and took their jobs very seriously. I learned a lot about the processing, cooking, sanitation of being in a seafood department. My co-workers were a good group of guys, we also mingled with the joining meat department a lot. Best part of the job is the rewarding feeling you get when someone compliments your display case you've been working so hard on, or just general customer service. Hardest part of the job was definatley the Sunday case clean. We close 2 hours early and start tearing down all the ice and take out all the fish, scrub everything down. messy work. But at the end of the day, you walk out those doors and  your friends that live close by are always waiting for you to go down to the neighboring beaches or grab some dinner.

This market is trendy and focuses on locally sourced healthy foods.  A day in my job would be customer service first and then keeping the department going.  This included the deli case, cheeses, olives, fresh salads, sandwich bar, soup bar, chicken rotisserie (48 bird capacity), fresh pizzas, take home ready dinners & we had a grill that operated 12 hours of the day.  In all a very big operation.
I don't think the management worked together within the department.  Sometimes the communication was not great between the management and service staff.
I loved the layout and atmosphere that the market created.
The hardest part of the job was I wasn't able to perform all the physical aspects of my job due to an automobile accident, and we tried to work at a modified capacity as well.
In all when I walk through Fresh Street Market I do miss the atmosphere and happy exchange with our repeat customers.

The management is very understanding and they help you with whatever you need, it’s a type of environment where managers and coworkers will have to be respectful and kind to everyone in the workplace. Everyone is friendly including majority of customers, it’s always clean and healthy environment to work in, the pay is all right and reasonable for a part-time students or full-time students who are looking for a side job as for full-time workers you would have to work up to being paid about $20 an hour. 

Management in the deli (and at times, the whole store in general) is not the best. At times unprofessional. Work itself was not bad at all, it was just repetitive. I learned great customer service skills and decent work safe skills. My favourite part was working with people I enjoy being around that actually did their jobs; some people are very lazy. At our location it is mostly high school/uni students. The music they play in store is trash. There are lots of regulars who come in every few times a week which is kind of nice.

Good if you want to do it for a short while as management starts getting passive aggressive with hours as time progresses. I worked there for around 9 months and started to feel drained and angry every time I got to work. That was what the environment became. It was like we, as employees, were putting on a show for customers, smiling and laughing, whilst knowing we were understaffed and exhausted. The management would also have a bit of favoritism amongst employees which would get a bit frustrating. However, the wonderful co-workers and pay made everything a bit more bearable. 

The management is understanding and considerate towards what you have going on outside of work, in my experience, the days could feel pretty long depending on who you're working with for the day, (like anywhere) but other than a few extreme exceptions, staff is made up of a bunch of fantastic people. Mostly a younger crowd, friendly customers and a good environment. Pay starts higher than minimum wage which is a bonus because most grocery stores don't.

Great place to work part-time, consistent hours every week, friendly co-workers and customers made every shift enjoyable. Beware the UFCW (the Union) as it prevents raises and caps minimum wage, not to mention takes a decent portion out of every pay check (works out to about 1$ every hour going to the union).

Worked grill for almost a year and my god was it bad. I would've quit way sooner from stress and bad management but the people I worked with were absolutely amazing. Management was laughable like I'd be working and my manager would come up to me telling me I'm doing it wrong and then proceed to be a health code violation. There's a reason the other grill people teach you and not the manager.

Hardest part of the job was my department's management team. They would sometimes have unclear expectation and they would also order things we did not need while leaving certain products empty. The rest of the store had nice managers who did their jobs well and were friendly and fun to joke around with. Enjoyed the variety of customers and learning from them about how to deal with different personality types.

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