Posted on 07/25/2011 1:52:36 PM PDT by pabianice
Late Friday afternoon, an employee of the Whole Foods Market in Toronto sent this epic resignation letter to the entire company. It's an alternatingly amusing, enlightening, and occasionally infuriating read — but a good read, nonetheless.
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Dear Whole Foods Market,
My experience at Whole Foods was like an increasingly sped up fall down a really long hill. That got rockier with every metre. And eventually, just really spiky ... With fire, acid and Nickleback music. I was hired about five or six years ago. I appreciated and respected what the company said it's philosophies were at that time. The "core values" essentially. However, it didn't take long to realize what complete and utter bullshit they are:
Oh, you don't recycle properly? (Caring about our communities and our environment)
Oh, you throw out enough food to feed a lot of hungry university students. (Caring about our communities and our environment)
Oh, you're asking me to put latex gloves on the sales floor so customers can throw a pair out for every handful of gummy bears they take? (Caring about our communities and our environment)
Oh, you've installed massive television screens all over the store, sucking up energy and polluting the environment with tacky advertisements. (Caring about our communities and our environment, Supporting team member happiness and excellence)
Oh, you waste an absurd amount of energy, ink and paper in your offices for useless bureaucratic nonsense. (Caring about our communities and our environment, Supporting team member happiness and excellence, )
Oh, you just write off 10-20% of the product that you buy for your bulk department because the bins look nice. (Caring about our communities and our environment).
Oh, you sometimes intentionally order too much just to guarantee a full shelf, knowing full well the product will most likely be thrown out? (Caring about our communities and our environment)
Oh, you don't actually audit or evaluate each product you sell? (Caring about our communities and our environment, We sell the highest quality natural and organic products available)
Oh, you force team members to come in to work, on their day off, once a month, at 7 in the morning, knowing a lot of them live an hour away and the TTC isn't completely running that early in the morning and then force feed them useless updates on the company and embarrassingly artificial pep talks ([Redacted] once compared Whole Foods Market to religion... had to throw that in there. That was definitely a "Did she really just say that moment.")? (Supporting team member happiness and excellence, Caring about our communities and our environment)/
Oh, you buy poorly made, ugly t-shirts for your employees that will just be thrown in the trash and pretend they're gifts when they're really just advertising tools? (Supporting team member happiness and excellence, Caring about our communities and our environment)
Oh, the food here is really quite awful on average? Almost everything that prepared foods makes is terrible. The pizza used to be pretty good but the slices have shrunk, the toppings are sparser and it's usually extremely overcooked. The sandwiches are the stuff of nightmares. (It's amazing what advertising can make people think. It can even trick their senses.) (We sell the highest quality natural and organic products available)
Oh, you let some customers abuse your employees and then actually reward the customers for their behaviour and then trample on the integrity and honour of your abused employees? (Supporting team member happiness and excellence)
Oh, you practice discrimination by offering "healthier" employees better discounts? And you think having different rules for new smoker employees versus old smoker employees is a good idea? (Supporting team member happiness and excellence)
Oh, you purchase products from Israel (Or any distant country) if they're slightly cheaper than local alternatives? (Caring about our communities and our environment)
Oh, you've somehow created the worst computer program I've ever used to run your entire buying system? IRMA is some Windows 95 era stuff, guys. I could design a significantly better interface in 30 minutes on a pad of paper. I know several students who could create a superior program in their spare time. Was someone actually hired to create that thing? Was it the Realplayer dudes? Even Captain Picard couldn't facepalm hard enough to express the amount of failure in that... that, thing... (Supporting team member happiness and excellence)
Oh, you push employees into greater responsibilities without compensation? Often having them essentially do all the work of a higher position without the pay? (Supporting team member happiness and excellence) Oh, you ambush employee's [sic] using two managers when you want to write someone up? No warning. No representation. All reasons and excuses fall on deaf ears. (Supporting team member happiness and excellence) Oh, you'd rather attempt to create some sort of fake "culture" with signs and forced meeting than let it happen naturally by letting employees socialize lightly as they work? (Supporting team member happiness and excellence)
Oh, you like to manage "systems" instead of people? You don't hold critical thinking and discretion in high regard? You encourage blindly following rules? I.e., no recourse in challenging write ups. Employees given cold shoulder when they attempt anything like this. (Supporting team member happiness and excellence) Oh, you want us to politely call and let you know if we'll be late... but you'll still write us up when we arrive? Kind of a dick move, guys. (Supporting team member happiness and excellence)
Oh, you actually think being 20 minutes late matters? You know Whole Foods Market is just a grocery store, right? (Supporting team member happiness and excellence) Oh, you don't believe inflation exists? Cost of living raises aren't given here? (Supporting team member happiness and excellence)
I notice a trend... Honestly, I could go on and on and fill out the details but since most people will just dismiss this email I should probably not put too much effort into it. I should have kept a blog…
Now the employees have lost a lot of their former power and the store is being sucked into some centralized monster. Quality is being thrown out in favour of the people at the top having to do a little less work. Competition is being destroyed and you're not even pushing that many healthy products. Every second endcap is potato chips or pop or some sort of salt filled snack (Promoting the health of our stakeholders through healthy eating education). A lot of the stuff in Whole Body doesn't even work or has absolutely no credible evidence to back any claims up. You're kind a faux hippy Wal-Mart now. Great. Job.
Is that at all like "Stems and seeds"?
“Maybe she can open a grocery store that will do all of those things.”
Yes ,She can incorporate all her Ideas and things should go Great.\s
If even half of what this idiot is rambling about was true, Whole Foods would go out of business on its own.
Liberals are so stupid it is amazing they can even breathe.
The letter in itself was one of the funniest things I have read for a long time.
Hiring her was a mitzvah. But no good deed goes unpunished...
*snicker*
It’s a form of gluten-free pretzels, high in fiber. Pretty tasty. IMO.
Yeah, I am sure the store experience varies. The one I have been to most is stocked with hippies that work in a hippy store and live in a hippy town with hippy customers.
Sadly I think it was real. I remember the discussion on various websites at the time. Even liberals thought she was DUMB. lol
BTW, how are your silkworms? ;)
Couldn’t even report to work on time. The letter reads like it was written by a modern day idiot who has no concept of both the business world and personal responsibility. With that kind of an attitude, I suspect the employee’s work performance left a lot to be desired. Makes me wonder why the employee’s boss at Whole Foods had not already terminated this incompetent whiner.
I actually rather like the sandwiches. (Roast turkey and avocado with bacon especially.) And fortunately, although a lot of the employees at the store I frequent look like the kind of folks you’d expect to see working at a Whole Foods (especially in the very liberal little coastal town in question), they’re pretty cool people normally. I have never, ever run into anybody like this person. Praise the Lord, child of God. This is apparently a male human being writing this opus, by the way. Considering he writes like a lesbian Michelle Shocked groupie with chronic PMS, I understand the confusion. And even before he started naming names, this quote came to mind:
“You know, my Dad told me once, ‘Bill, if more than three people in your life are utter, total a**holes, then maybe it’s you.’”
—Bill Whittle, ejectejecteject.com
Ain't America GREAT! Where else could you make oodles of money selling health and social consciousness to morons? GBA!
My biggest griPe with Whole Foods is that they refuse to offer plastic bagging. Eighty-four plastic bags can be recycled with the energy it takes to recycle a single paper bag. I am always quick to remind them that paper bags are destroying the planet and that if they really cared about the environment, then they would offer plastic.
Kinda like the kids who work at Barnes&Noble.
Epic whining.
I have actually shopped at Whole Foods market twice, in the two weekends after the boycott because the owner of Whole Foods said Obamacare was bad.
Oh, we don't have them anymore. Andrew Zimmern ate them... ;P
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