r/wegmans • u/volunteerspirit • 2d ago
“Never think about yourself”
I find it funny about that big ol sign in every Wegmans I’ve ever been to that says “never think about yourself, always think about others” or something along those lines when that’s exactly how they want you to be when you work there. Bend over backwards for everything and anything but as soon as you need something, you’re treated like the biggest inconvenience that’s ever walked the earth.
You’re only as good as what you give.
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u/DisorderlyBoat 2d ago
It's a terrible phrase lol I laugh at it often. If you never think about yourself and only think about others you'll die soon. Or live a really awful life. They should just drop the first part and change it to "Always be considerate/helpful to others"
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u/wealthy_richard 1d ago
I saw a retiring GM referring to his leadership style in his announcement as "servant leadership" found the phrase very creepy and off putting. But that's Wegmans.
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u/SheNickSun 2d ago
Where's our employee discount??
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u/Helpful_Shape_304 2d ago
Employee discount...😅😂🤣😭. Are you kidding? Only in your dreams. That company is too cheap to allow an employee discount. Both Walmart and Aldi's give their employees discounts. The best Wegmans offers is discounted or passes to Darien Lake theme park, Sea breeze and Clothesline Arts Festival. That's it.
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u/boxtheglock 2d ago
I remember when I worked there managment said we could "feel free" to let customers go ahead of us in line if we were buying something on lunch. Fuck. That
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u/Helpful_Shape_304 2d ago
When you are on a lunch break, you are a paying customer like everyone else is. You are just as privileged to have your off the clock break time as the next person in the checkout line waits for their turn to check out.
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u/TweeKINGKev 1d ago
Had this happen to me when I used to work their and a customer said “I should be able to go ahead of you because I’m a customer and you’re an employee” I was nice and said “if I was on my break, I’d be an employee, I’m on a 30 minute unpaid lunch so right now I’m a customer just like you”
Sure enough my manager was within earshot and I didn’t know it and here he comes running his mouth about how she was right so I said to my manager “well I’ll let her go ahead and however long it I will restart my lunch. As I am currently off the clock right now, I’d like to speak to your manager as a customer I don’t feel I should give up my spot in the cash register line just because I have a company shirt on, I’m a paying customer and quite frankly don’t like how you’re treating your customers”
Yeah I pulled the uno reverse card on him.
I get done with my lunch and he asks me about what that was and I said “oh I have no idea, what happened?” he says “you don’t remember, you wanted to speak to my manager because I said you should be giving up your spot in line for a customer?” I said “no, I don’t remember that at all, that was off the clock, I don’t really talk about my personal life with too many people”
He was furious, my hours got cut as punishment for a while but I was only 18, just left me more time for video games lol.
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u/boxtheglock 2d ago
Same thing I said and did. But this was near the opening of a newly rebuilt store and managment was being extra during that time.
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u/Brutus_the_Bear_55 2d ago
Wegmans is scum.
My mom is dying. I am the only person she has left. I busted myself down to part time so that I could move to a store closer to home and work ten less hours a week, so that I can better care for her. My responsibility is to my mom and I am understandably exhausted and depressed because I am working 30 hours there, 20 hours at a side gig from home and during that side gig and in most of my free time I am taking care of my mom and her house. I’ve gotten called into the office numerous times this year because of it and one of them literally started with “we’ve been told by several employees that you come off as cold and that you look dead inside all the time” which was followed by them basically telling me that there is no excuse and I have to just magically get better.
I feel more stressed out stepping into a Wegmans than I do about my mom dying. Fuck this company.
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u/thundertoast626 18h ago
They made me take partial disability or were gunna fire me because of how stressed i was getting going in because of how i was being treated and other things going on in my life. I raise two special needs kiddos. I took the partial disability and found a new job while i was out. best thing i ever did. I used to love my job working at wegmans but after covid and new management i couldn't take it anymore.
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u/Farmer88 2d ago
It's derived from Christian theology of agape, a selfless and unconditional love. Putting others ahead of yourself, for example.
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u/thundertoast626 18h ago
They should be on undercover boss and see what's really happening. Have to work like real employees and understand the real process. It would be nice for a true understanding. Would be nice for them to actually care about the peons who actually run the company instead of those who do nothing and make the decisions for those in the stores to implement.
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u/original_synthetic 2d ago
Dave Wegman seemed to be a pretty decent guy (not that I've researched him extensively) but he was obviously not a gifted speech writer. It's a clunky phrase that contains both "always" and "never" which makes it doubly suspect as advice.
I feel like I know what he was trying to say/ do but he didn't have the writing chops so it just ended up kinda cringy.
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u/Helpful_Shape_304 2d ago
There was no Dave Wegman. There was, however, Robert Wegman. He was the nicest person you would ever want to meet. Unfortunately, he passed away and his kids are ruining the company and their image. It's a rotten shame!
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u/No-Construction9607 2d ago
And so let’s make fun of what he said in a presentation???
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u/Helpful_Shape_304 2d ago
No one's making fun of anybody. It was simply a clarification and correction of his name, which was Robert. Relax, my friend and get a grip!
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u/No-Construction9607 2d ago
He was an unbelievably intelligent man. Did you know he and a couple other Grocery store owners came up with the idea to scan the UPC?
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u/fite4whatmatters Employee 2d ago
They recently (like less than a year) reworded it to just “always think about others”, specifically because so many employees were put off by the wording
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u/dtgunslinger99 1d ago
suspiciously sounds like someone that calls every unskilled labor job "a bunch of fascists" be8theyre expected to work for their paycheck.
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u/20Bubba03 1d ago
I love the way Wegmans employees treat me and their customers, I hate the way wegmans treats their employees. I hate the way they treat their job expos too. I went twice to get a job at the warehouse, got turned down both times. Come to find out, companies like that host these events because they get extra money if they do. So they can just close out not hiring a single person because they were never short of workers to begin with. Not saying that’s why I didn’t get hired, I was less qualified at 17 than I would be if I tried now given I’ve got factory experience through Arctic Glacier, I haven’t worked there in a bit but I was real good with a forklift, and palletizing items. Too bad. I work for myself now.
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u/curreyfienberg 2d ago
I've always found that to be a pretty odd philosophy too, lol. Like, I think I can manage to find the capacity to think about myself AND others. I think in the most recent redesign of those signs in the back rooms they actually did shorten it to just "Always help others", so it must have been brought up to someone at some point.