Pluspunten
None at all. None whatsoever.
Minpunten
“Knock, Knock.” “Who’s there?” “Acosta.” “‘Acosta’ who?” “Acosta lotta money to work here.” Unfortunately, it’s no joke. I was hired to start on a certain day only to have it pushed back two weeks for the sole reason that the company did not have its act together. That’s over a thousand dollars out of my pocket. But it only gets worse - much worse - and never better. Before I go any further, I have worked for fifteen companies - some fantastic, some not so great yet most of which had gone under for one reason or another - and working for this company was the absolute worst and by far the most dysfunctional. The training was terrible: assigned to an associate who, although friendly, well-meaning, and doing her best, was never trained on how to train nor do I believe it was her job nor was she given any sort of materials or even a checklist to go off of. The onsite training was less than one workday (I’m not kidding), extremely rushed to the point where I had to fight to get a question in edgewise, and, as I would find, incomplete - and the online training modules were usually disinformation. For over two months after I first started, I had to work without a name badge. As I would find, going into a supermarket’s stockroom (I merchandised Primo Water brands) without any identification typically inspired paranoia amongst the backroom staff - so you would be A(c)costed (maybe that’s where the name comes from?) every time you encountered someone new or who had a poor memory. In general, grocery store employees are miserable and have no problem spreading their misery. The advice I was given was “Don’t take it personally,” but I’m certain that the individual who proffered this tripe would have done just that had I treated them the same way. They’d already proven that for much less. As such, I had zero respect for this leadership. When my name badge finally came, it was one of those magnetized types - the kind that fall off easily when handling large pieces of merchandise. Adding to the aggravation was the utter and complete lack of support from IT and higher management who either disregarded (as in blatantly ignore) issues or passed the buck until the buck is hopefully forgotten about. This is interesting, because the employee is instructed to acknowledge every email sent within the same business day with some sort of response, yet I have lost count over the number of times I’ve sent an email containing time-sensitive requests for assistance or notifications (such as my voluntary resignation) with no response at all - carrying an air of aloofness and cattiness. Adding to the aggravation was being required to “pre-sell” product to various supermarket chains (that is, ALL the ones we were assigned to) for sales which never happened. Or, insist that the manager build “mandatory” displays which are never shown as being mandatory on their end nor does the product which is supposedly on sale appear as such in their flyers. Despite management asking you to email such instances to their attention (and I must have sent well over a hundred within a couple of months), the misinformation continued. While the company offers no (and by “no,” I mean absolutely zilch in terms of) support or assistance, they have no compunction in continuously asking their new-hires for more and more and more. It’s one thing to have a person lift reps of weight in order to build strength, but it’s another to add twenty more pounds, then fifty more pounds, then twenty-five more pounds, and so on with no one helping you keep the weight up until you break. Basically, what you’re looking at is a DIY, fend-for-yourself, thrown-to the wolves, trial-by-fire, 100% on-your-own, dump-fest experience with no support of any kind whatsoever for measly pay. And then there’s the hypocrisy. Another example of this is employees being told they cannot call out mid-day but this is precisely what management does, so no “Lead By Example” here. Incidentally, new-hires calling out of work was so frequent, it needed to be addressed during a weekly conference call - which were held every week and were basically like listening to a broken record for forty-five minutes to an hour. The solution? Tell the employees to stop calling out so much. Here’s a tip: if you have new-hires - employees who are trying to demonstrate a high commitment level - and they’re calling out with such frequency AS new-hires, the problem is NOT the new-hires; it is THE COMPANY which has burned and stressed them out to the point where they feel the NEED to. So, rather than do something - anything - to mitigate the unreasonable stress and abysmal morale, the answer is a cracked whip. I thought slavery had ended. So, no: there is no effective People Management 101 going on here. At all. In fact, everything about this operation is dysfunctional: training, managing, communication (which is apparently “so important!” but management doesn’t do it - aside from repeating the same information and demands over and over again expecting different results, I guess), tech (and you’re the first reason they think it’s not working, insulting you on top of this along with such banal recommendations as “try restarting it”), operations, directives (which are confusing, conflicting, and ever-changing) - everything. NOTHING is done right or works right the first time around. In short, this is a hypocritical dump-on and demand culture where everything is impulsive and reactive and never forward-thinking or proactive. And ALL the dysfunction is left for the new-hires to resolve with NO support from those above despite their lip-service. And, if by chance you make an infrequent mistake throughout this dysfunctional stress-mess, there’s something wrong with you. This is also interesting since management consistently erred and routinely made mistakes. (Ex.: They send out a spreadsheet to track Pavilions stores but it’s a list of Smart & Finals. You bring this to their attention by responding to the email within the same day and, you guessed it, no acknowledgment nor any correction.) I cannot be more clear about this: This company does not give a lick about its employees, only itself. It SAYS it does, but it doesn’t in actuality. And for the pay? C’mon… A multiple-choice question asked in an “anonymous” (I doubt it as I trust this company as far as I can throw it) survey was, “How likely are you to go above and beyond for the company?” Reading this caused me to laugh the one and only time I did on the job. One could answer “Strongly Agree,” “Agree,” “Disagree,” or “Strongly Disagree.” I have no idea who in their right mind would answer either of the first two choices unless they were ripe for a cult. “Why the ___ [your choice] would I?” is a question I’d like to ask them. I’d be interested to hear the answer - to see if they could come up with just ONE good reason I would because, in addition to receiving what was obligatory at best, I already was by performing multiple jobs - a visual merchandiser, a stocker, a salesperson, a unwitting con-artist, a Public Storage employee (for all the display fixtures and signage they inundate you with even though few stores want or could use them nor did we get their permission beforehand and for which they’re too cheap to rent a space to house, so you can kiss your home and car space goodbye), a shipper, a display warden, an allocations monitor, a tech guru, a photographer - all with no support from Day One and for less than $20/hour! Would YOU go “above and beyond” for YOU? Or, would you want to put a bag over your head? So, if you like panic attacks in the middle of the night, stress-related illness, insomnia, anxiety, high blood-pressure, a roommate who never leaves but rather invites more and more friends over to shack up in your home and automobile, cursing God on the daily, and a strong desire for a short life, this job is for you. The questionnaire also asked, “How likely are you to recommend this company to friends and family?” I’ll answer it like this: I would only recommend my position to arch-nemeses and to the ones who have been overseeing it so they can see for themselves what a living hell it is. Maybe then they’ll finally get their act together. But I doubt it because they think it’s all about them. It will be once their company goes under, and it will. I know from experience. It’s called “dysfunctional” for a reason: it doesn’t work and it breaks down. It deserves to. THIS ENTIRE EXPERIENCE WAS A COMPLETE ROLE-REVERSAL: NEW HIRES TAKING CARE OF THOSE WHO WERE SUPPOSED TO BE TAKING CARE OF THINGS YET DID NOTHING BUT EXPECT TO BE TAKEN CARE OF. They don’t even call you by the name you prefer to go by after asking. All this for two dollars over minimum wage. It’s actually LESS than that when you consider, again, places like Public Storage GET PAID to store large boxes on a monthly basis, carriers like UPS and FedEx GET PAID to receive and ship packages from one location to another, and supermarket District Managers GET PAID to monitor whether certain mandatory displays are up or not. Basically, Acosta nickels-and-dimes and exhausts its employees in every way conceivable ostensibly so that those above them up to and including investors can make a profit for doing next to nothing. I would describe this place as smug, incompetent, catty, aloof, passive-aggressive, hyper-sensitive, imposing, selfish, immature, buck-passing, and arrogant. Zero out of five stars, zero out of ten stars, zero out of one hundred stars, zero stars out of the galaxy. And if this review hurts anybody's feelings, just remember: "Don't Take It Personally."