“A deeply troubled company is always the fault of the CEO, the board of directors, and the controlling stockholders who appoint these worthies,” he writes. “It is never the fault of the frontline troops.”
How true that is. I've noticed that the lower-level employees of a terrible company can always get an interview: no one blames them for it. Unless they stayed there long enough to become a lifer. Moral: if you're at a garbage company, get out while you can.
Trader Joe's stores are always full, even at times when "regular" supermarkets are mostly empty. Moreover, you almost never have to wait a long time to check out. It's really a miracle how good they are.
> Trader Joe's stores are always full, even at times when "regular" supermarkets are mostly empty.
They actually employ a neat UX trick to make it appear this way! When a product is sold out, they'll remove the sign for it and rearrange the existing products to fill the space, making it seem like there's nothing missing.
I realized this when I visited once and the entire spice shelf consisted of one spice (onion salt), spread across like 5 shelves.
Clearly they do a lot of things right from a people perspective. [I'm sure there are exceptions.] They also seem to have picked a set of constraints that work well for them and their customers in (relatively upscale?) urban locations.
Also a very deliberate rollout strategy. I remember when they were I think only in California. There was a time when I was going out to Orange County a lot and our engineering manager one day doing some vaguely crazy driving to get to a Trader Joe's before heading back east on a plane.
Whew boy do I have some stories that might shatter your view of trader joe's being a good company.
Prime example: my store captain, Jeff, got busted having an affair with a crew member that he was a direct supervisor of. Granted, Jeff was an asshole from the day I met him, he did everything he could to hold up my (and many others) promotions and pay raises just because he could, but the thing that got him finally fired was dipping his pen in the company ink.
I was personally denied safety equipment multiple times, like lift belts and new blades for my box cutter.
I know of a another store Captain that got fired for kicking out customers that weren't wearing masks when they tried to come in.
TJ's is extremely anti-union and anti-union propaganda is posted all over the employee areas and handbook.
Trader Joe's corporate will turn a blind eye to ANYTHING, as long as a customer doesn't complain or it doesn't open up the company to some kind of liability. It was a super cool company up until about 20 years ago when Bane took over as CEO. Since then it has been a cavalcade of hiring shitty management and unsustainable growth. TJ's has lost it's original weltanschauung and Joe Coloumbe would be horrified to see how the company is run now.
> Moreover, you almost never have to wait a long time to check out.
Uh, maybe in your store, at the time of day you go shopping?
Our store has probably ten checkout lines and all the time if I go at the wrong time of day, I'm standing in line for several minutes. Even when they were limiting #'s in the stores for pandemic reasons checkout lines were stretching into the aisles. Other times I stroll in and it's a ghost town, same time of day, same day of the week I usually go.
I know I'm in the minority but I mostly don't get Trader Joe's. The food is mostly mediocre at best. I guess you're saved from the "tyranny of choice" by only having one of each item but if you don't like "Joe's spaghetti sauce" there's no other option vs a normal supermarket that will have several brands, one of which might match your tastes more than another. Maybe that old saying that Americans see food as fuel, vs French that see food as pleasure, means that most Americans don't care about taste so whatever they get from TJ's is fine?
Further, the fact that, other than wine, the entire store is only "Trader Joe's" brand seems like it's working to put 1000s of small businesses out of business (the 1000s of brands that stock normal markets).
> but if you don't like "Joe's spaghetti sauce" there's no other option vs a normal supermarket that will have several brands, one of which might match your tastes more than another
Worse, I really liked one of the "Joe's spaghetti sauce"s, and recently it disappeared without warning, which is really common for items at Trader Joe's. You have to treat anything that isn't exactly something you could buy elsewhere as a limited time offer.
The cheese and prepared food sections (salads, wraps, cooked chicken etc) are both extremely cheap compared to regular grocery stores, and of decent quality. A slice of brie is almost double the price in safeway from TJs. OTOH meat is more expensive (but higher quality). However I don’t know of anyone that only uses Trader Joe’s for groceries, for the same reasons you outlined.
The bigger problem is just how sort of homogenized the US grocery system is, and with such vast distances to cover and the expectation to have basically the exact same things on the shelf quality takes a huge dive, and often the prices are not great. Even in areas like California or Washington with very large agricultural footprints “local” means almost nothing in a chain grocery store.
Trader Joe’s has the same prices nationally, so in NYC they are very cheap.
For example, their jarred tomato sauce, which is pretty good quality, is $1.99 - the grocery store closest to me has bad tomato sauce starting at $4.99, the pretty good ones are more like $6.99 to $8.99.
While not everything is this good of a deal, this is what makes it worth dealing with their crazy lines and limited selection!
I've never been that interested in accounts of the lives of entrepreneurs. It strikes me as a genre akin to the autobiographies (or commissioned biographies) of autocrats. This review makes me want to read this book though
As a genre they sell poorly, really poorly. worse than even no-name amazon authors of fan fiction and erotica. As it turns out, CEOs are not that interesting , nor are their lives. Their accomplishments may be impressive but this doesn't always make for interesting reading.
Aldi's is probably good example of optimizing for a different set of constraints. I use Trader Joe's a lot when I can; there isn't one especially near me. But there's an Aldi's right down the road--which I popped my head in once but have never bought at.
[+] [-] wirelesspotat|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlbertCory|4 years ago|reply
“A deeply troubled company is always the fault of the CEO, the board of directors, and the controlling stockholders who appoint these worthies,” he writes. “It is never the fault of the frontline troops.”
How true that is. I've noticed that the lower-level employees of a terrible company can always get an interview: no one blames them for it. Unless they stayed there long enough to become a lifer. Moral: if you're at a garbage company, get out while you can.
Trader Joe's stores are always full, even at times when "regular" supermarkets are mostly empty. Moreover, you almost never have to wait a long time to check out. It's really a miracle how good they are.
[+] [-] warning26|4 years ago|reply
They actually employ a neat UX trick to make it appear this way! When a product is sold out, they'll remove the sign for it and rearrange the existing products to fill the space, making it seem like there's nothing missing.
I realized this when I visited once and the entire spice shelf consisted of one spice (onion salt), spread across like 5 shelves.
[+] [-] ghaff|4 years ago|reply
Also a very deliberate rollout strategy. I remember when they were I think only in California. There was a time when I was going out to Orange County a lot and our engineering manager one day doing some vaguely crazy driving to get to a Trader Joe's before heading back east on a plane.
[+] [-] irateswami|4 years ago|reply
Prime example: my store captain, Jeff, got busted having an affair with a crew member that he was a direct supervisor of. Granted, Jeff was an asshole from the day I met him, he did everything he could to hold up my (and many others) promotions and pay raises just because he could, but the thing that got him finally fired was dipping his pen in the company ink.
I was personally denied safety equipment multiple times, like lift belts and new blades for my box cutter.
I know of a another store Captain that got fired for kicking out customers that weren't wearing masks when they tried to come in.
TJ's is extremely anti-union and anti-union propaganda is posted all over the employee areas and handbook.
Trader Joe's corporate will turn a blind eye to ANYTHING, as long as a customer doesn't complain or it doesn't open up the company to some kind of liability. It was a super cool company up until about 20 years ago when Bane took over as CEO. Since then it has been a cavalcade of hiring shitty management and unsustainable growth. TJ's has lost it's original weltanschauung and Joe Coloumbe would be horrified to see how the company is run now.
[+] [-] paulpauper|4 years ago|reply
I have been to many food stores over the past year, not once encountered stores being empty. The stuff I want is always there.
[+] [-] Wowfunhappy|4 years ago|reply
Haha, I take it you haven't been to the ones in Manhattan?
I would go to Trader Joe's much more often if not for the mandatory 15+ minutes of waiting in line.
[+] [-] KennyBlanken|4 years ago|reply
> Moreover, you almost never have to wait a long time to check out.
Uh, maybe in your store, at the time of day you go shopping?
Our store has probably ten checkout lines and all the time if I go at the wrong time of day, I'm standing in line for several minutes. Even when they were limiting #'s in the stores for pandemic reasons checkout lines were stretching into the aisles. Other times I stroll in and it's a ghost town, same time of day, same day of the week I usually go.
[+] [-] pronlover723|4 years ago|reply
Further, the fact that, other than wine, the entire store is only "Trader Joe's" brand seems like it's working to put 1000s of small businesses out of business (the 1000s of brands that stock normal markets).
[+] [-] gs17|4 years ago|reply
Worse, I really liked one of the "Joe's spaghetti sauce"s, and recently it disappeared without warning, which is really common for items at Trader Joe's. You have to treat anything that isn't exactly something you could buy elsewhere as a limited time offer.
[+] [-] taurath|4 years ago|reply
The bigger problem is just how sort of homogenized the US grocery system is, and with such vast distances to cover and the expectation to have basically the exact same things on the shelf quality takes a huge dive, and often the prices are not great. Even in areas like California or Washington with very large agricultural footprints “local” means almost nothing in a chain grocery store.
[+] [-] zimzam|4 years ago|reply
For example, their jarred tomato sauce, which is pretty good quality, is $1.99 - the grocery store closest to me has bad tomato sauce starting at $4.99, the pretty good ones are more like $6.99 to $8.99.
While not everything is this good of a deal, this is what makes it worth dealing with their crazy lines and limited selection!
[+] [-] advael|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulpauper|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] setpatchaddress|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghaff|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxk42|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wffurr|4 years ago|reply
If you’re looking for the rest of Trader Joe’s story, then that’s what’s in the rest of the book.
[+] [-] screature2|4 years ago|reply
I thought The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket by Benjamin Lorr was pretty good.
[+] [-] sjg007|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MarcoZavala|4 years ago|reply
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