Working minimum wage for eight months, and disliking your job takes a toll, thus I chose to write about Piggly Wiggly in Hartland. “Shopping the Pig” is supporting a company that treats their employees badly and gives them barely enough money for the job they do. First, I’ll discuss the specifics of the job. I am not familiar with any job there besides being a cashier since that’s all they had me doing.

Being a cashier at Piggly Wiggly was boring and a stressful job. I would never leave the register, and I would never be able to talk to anyone but customers. I was trained to fake a happy personality when dealing with customers, and whenever they were not around, I would be able to see the other cashier’s real feelings slip out. The other employees at Piggly Wiggly were always upset, and I could easily tell that they were faking being happy for customers. There were always the main managers who left a good first impression, then crushed it a few weeks into the job, by taking off their metaphorical mask and becoming mean and rude. There were also cashiers who would talk negatively about customers after the customer was taken care of, and it clearly shows how bad of an environment The Pig has.

Another topic on the specifics of working at the pig is the low payment, while the job required me to stand in place all day, never sitting, which can cause knee and leg pain. I received one raise while working at The Pig and it was a 25 cent raise to get me $7.50 an hour, and even though it is not minimum wage, it was still a very low payment for the people I would have to deal with and the occasional stress caused by too many customers. In order to receive a break during my shift, I would have to work four hours, and I would get my break around three hours into the shift. This wasn’t a horrible plan for the system at The Pig, but it became very annoying to have to go through a shift hungry, only to go to my break and not have enough time or money to buy food and be able to eat it. For a grocery store, it seems odd that someone working there wouldn’t be able to go a full shift without getting hungry.

Another disadvantage of the cashier job at Piggly Wiggly would be how filthy the building is, and by the end of the shift, I would feel like I was choking on dust because of the dirt littered on the grocery store’s floor. The experience as a customer seems normal, but everything bad about Piggly Wiggly is under the surface, and only commonly noticed by the workers there. I would recommend The Pig from a customer perspective, although it seems dirty. I do not recommend The Pig for a job, and I hope whoever works there next likes the job more than I did.