shop supervisor

shop manager

maintenance engineer

truck driver

night team member

Greggs

I've worked for Greggs for several months now and it started off bad and has only somehow got worse(the interview is intended for people of less than average intelligence) however this is often how you are treated in work and when being trained you are merely told about the majority of elements regarding your day to day activities. Which include serving customers(you are not told about how to identify the pasties from one another, so when you first start this is a nightmare to learn), excessive cleaning, bake off, chasing pigeons from the shop. If you are willing to literally break a heavy sweat by making sandwiches then they will put you there also. I know that previous statement sounds lazy as F*** but anyone who has worked at a busy shop will know that the amounts specified are frequently impossible, so hope you have one of the good managers on. Which come few and far between. 

The training period overall is done in stages and they told me to finish my whole paperwork on the first day...So extra time to get your head around stuff is not an option. There is very little praise given by managers, even though every shop has reduced its staff to keep costs down and profits up(recession), you are therefore doing the jobs of 2 maybe 3 people during a day, so if you like your slacking time this definitely, i repeat definitely isn't the job for you unless your in a village with a population of 300, also wouldn't recommend this as a first job, firstly because the tempo will be a shock to you and secondly my first job was nerve racking for me at the start, so i wouldn't want to have anyone experience this on their first outing. 

The induction day lasted two hours which was in a nearby region, they have trainer who skims over pages and then shows you a 45 minute video about a former CEO from 2002 explaining Greggs.The trainer completes basic paperwork with you as a group before offering you free stuff, probably to keep you motivated after that video. 4 were late to the induction and 2 didn't show entirely, I can see now why they were in no rush to attend. Overall it was a rather pointless affliction, that I gained nothing from other than a free chicken bake.

Favouritism is rife, managers and other colleagues know each other out of work more often than not so you will be given the tougher jobs if its just you and them in, which is more common than you may predict as because i mentioned before the reduction of staff means that there may only be 3 people working during a day. One the manager the other is their friend...your not going come out on top.

You can be sent to anywhere in the region sometimes with a little notice, sometimes overnight and the rota is always subject to change so if your happy about landing some more hours and you think your hard work has finally paid off, you will be bitterly disappointed when one of the managers friends get the shift because you have been sent to a shop 50 miles away at a 6.30 start. No one has fixed hours except the managers who will always get themselves down for 30+ a week, only if they feel like doing less hours, will more hours be given to the lower down staff, but if your not top of the pecking order *i.e.* their friend then this will not effect you. 

Having been sent literally all around my region however, i can see that several of these factors may not be existent in a nicer shop, honestly a lot of your working day is made up of being around your colleagues so i believe that If i was working in a better shop I would not be saying some of things i have, however on the whole i have had marginally better experiences in other shops. Other shop managers have also commented on my rather fast pace, this is because if your in a busier store you don't get much if any more staff so different stores all have their own tempos. A shop in a busy town centre may have to serve an unlimited amount of customers more than the quieter shops.

Hygiene and cleanliness goes as soon as your out of customer view as the back room will often be littered with food from the sandwich maker, full bin bags and other waste is also left here until the end of that day, jam doughnuts and sausage rolls are bagged up by hand even if you have just been changing an outside bin(yeah i could go wash them but my manager would then tell me off for not doing the task fast enough and then comment on my 'dry' attitude upon explanation). However the company likes to uphold a 'high' level of hygiene by never cleaning the shelving display the pasties go on and threatening to fine you if you rinse a mug in a hand wash sink.( I think it was £100 wages dock the 'I've got a bit of power'  supervisor said)

I've met staff that have to attend work an hour early(unpaid - 5-6AM) in order to do all the jobs necessary for opening and i've often had to stay when closing(The air condition switches off immediatly so if its a hot day you will have sweat pouring from your face within 5 mins) managers also often stay for hours unpaid(i assume anyway), so if you think you have a nice short day you may also be mistaken.

Overall a bad company that expresses values about caring for employees and pension etc. You are there to make them money and clean their shop, nothing more and if you don't like it your job will be threatened immediately. At best use it as a money maker or as a stepping stone job to move onto something better, I know that you have probably read a few good reviews and probably haven't even read this far, but if you have thank you for reading and this is just an honest review about my employer.

Wish i had looked at reviews before i joined Greggs as I had other opportunities at the time, i happily take 50p less an hour or something than do this S***.I'm no bum and hard working day works do not scare me, but this is a joke of a company.

Greggs used to be a great place to work many, many years ago but that's all changed over maybe the past 6 or so years.
You used to be able to come in & be left to get on with your job without any complaint but now you're pulled up on every little thing.
The workload, the expectations, the constant pressure and stress from this job are just not even worth your time or energy.
You were never told when i first started that while serving customers questions need to be asked in a specific way and in a specific order as back then you were able and allowed to serve customers without all that, and there was no 2 minute rule to keep to, were now you're expected to serve every single customer in that time limit, which is unrealistic and not possible.  
Due to the company wanting you to serve in this way you feel 'robotic' asking the same questions, completing a sale in the same order, day in, day out, and I've had this said to me by people in this company and although this can be quite hurtful to people it's the companies way of serving that has you repeating yourself like a robot.
You never used to be criticized for doing the job like you are now and it's for every little thing, no matter how small it is.
The job had me feeling very low and depressed, at one point i had my character judged and despite the way you get treated you're expected to be all smiley and act as if you're made up to be there.
Staff are not treated fairly, Shop Managers, anyone in the management team and area managers are all each others favorite and all stick together, if you aren't in that little group and you don't suck up to them then they want you out or in another sense (if your face doesn't fit). As these are all so friendly with each other if a team member says anything against them as in they don't agree with something they've said or they simply try to defend themselves or express an opinion they don't like that, they want you to fully agree to everything they've said and not have your own opinion.
You get belittled and made to feel like total rubbish and can often become hurt and upset by what people have said to you or what's been discussed about you.. (which i did) they use sly tactics such as a staff member being made to have these constant STAGE meetings were you get told straight away that if it gets to STAGE 3 you will be sacked.This consisted of numerous people watching you doing your job, which makes you feel uncomfortable being there, i was watched by (training officers, shop managers, the area manager, other management staff) constantly and they all criticize in every which way how you do your job.
At every one of these meetings there will always be a new thing for them to be on your case about, something they've said to you in one meeting can be okay in the next as they have something else to criticize you for until they work their way back to the same problems they discussed in previous meetings and all you've actually been doing is coming in and doing your job as best as you can do it, despite all the effort you put in nothing is ever fast enough or good enough for them.
They don't care how all this makes you feel, they don't care that all this upsets you, stresses you out and affects your mental health and well-being. I always dreaded the thought of going into work as i'd never know what i was walking in to, i felt uncomfortable being there and with how i was treated personally and for the number of years i endured it, i felt i had no option but to leave in order to make sure my physical and mental health didn't suffer further.
You'll find the majority of shop managers and members of the management team will like to sit out in the back a lot, either on the computer or on their phones and as they are very pally with each other they get away with doing so, and team members are left alone to do the vast majority of the tasks. You'll also find shop managers make plenty of mistakes or don't do the job correctly but this will always be swept under the rug because they are favored by the area managers. I was a team member and made sure all my tasks were completed and yet i was penalized for anything and everything even though i did my job. It's like being back at school and having the school bully constantly giving you grief.
The way some staff members are treated is a disgrace!
You're just another number/body in the shop you're in to this company and the people in it and if you are a team member, they have such a high turnover of staff that they won't worry about getting rid of you if that's on their agenda.
All they care about is profit and figures, from the way i was treated it was clear that they don't care about their staffs opinions, health, feelings etc. and i wouldn't recommend them to anyone as i'd hate for anyone to go through the same thing i did.
For me, i felt i had no choice but to leave before i was sacked as i knew that's what was coming if i stayed and by conducting these meetings as they did, that was all to push me to the point were i'd had enough and would eventually leave anyway (which is what ended up happening) My health would have continued to suffer, which because my stress levels were very high was bad as soon as this all started.
In all honesty am glad to see the back of the job, there was no thanks for all the work i'd done over the years, there was no concern for my well-being or how this all affected me and am glad to be away from people who don't appreciate someone who works hard and just gets on with the job, people who just like to make their staff feel worthless.

Greggs. Once a renowned jewel of the North East, idolised by many as an embodiment of the region in being down-to-earth and overall canny, like your local high-street bakers from once upon a time. I can categorically tell you; this is not the case. 

I spent nearly a decade working for the company, first in the shops before moving into the supply chain side for the past few years up until recently. I’ve also known, and still know, people from other areas of the business such as the head office/admin side who have detailed similar experiences to my own, in other words; the company has grown to be rife with issues across the board with no sign of improvement anytime soon. The hardest question is where to begin? There are many issues that I’ll detail in no particular order.

Well first of all: Over the past ten years, and possibly longer, Greggsies has succumbed to the monster that is greed, morphing over time from the decent local bakers it used to be, with better working conditions for its staff, into a corporate behemoth intent on only three things: money, money, and more money. And yes, companies do need to make a profit, but the problem is that Greggs will use this blinding pursuit of profit to steadily take more advantage of its workers as time goes by. To give some rough examples; people who are new to the company and recently joined will be forced to take appalling shift hours, some as ridiculous as 2pm - 10pm, then having to work a Saturday morning. In some areas, those who didn’t have to work weekends are now forced to do so, without any consultation with the affected staff first. But you can bet your bottom dollar that the management of the affected staff will rarely have to work such ridiculous hours themselves. I remember many years ago at another factory they were hiring new people but paying them three/four grand less than those already working there, doing the exact same work. As the company becomes more beholden to the shareholders each passing year; it becomes more authoritarian, using excuses like “needs of the business” to justify their behaviour.

If you’re a good worker, you get rewarded with one thing in particular: extra work. Should you prove yourself to be capable and able to handle a workload, you’ll be expected to take on more work but not be paid extra for it, I’ve seen and heard this happening more times than I can count, especially in the head office/admin side of things, where the work of three people can and will be unfairly piled onto one person who is decent at their job. But again; “needs of the business” and all that. Yet for taking on the extra work, you’ll be paid the same amount as people who do vastly less work than you. 

“The Greggs Way” is a laughable term you’ll hear spouted from management and upstairs people. The idea being that the company expects high standards from all it’s employees, in work practice, cleaning, quality of service to customers, etc. A pity they won’t supply enough staff or spend the required amount on resources to keep these standards though, they’ll scrimp and squeeze and only let you get by with whatever they can, as a result the standards fall, the professionalism becomes lax, and as soon as there’s some sort of inspection from an authority; that’s when the pressure builds and suddenly everyone is running around like headless chickens. The cycle repeats endlessly. Oh and that’s one of the reasons they keep reporting about their excellent profits; because they don’t spend the money where it’s needed to improve the business.

Management. In a sane world you’d have people in charge who have done the job themselves and know what’s required, what limitations there are, and how they should behave. To be fair there are people in management roles who fit this bill at Greggs, but they are becoming more scarce. Nowadays you’ll find people who aren’t suited for the job of leading others ascending into the roles because their faces fit, are unexperienced in the jobs they are telling others to do, and show levels of unprofessionalism it defies belief. Argue the merits of these kinds of people however you like; but the fact remains that having such unsuitable people in power means they will expect more and more work from the staff without understanding the limits of peoples abilities, and any objections to their way of running things will fall on deaf ears majority of the time.

The food waste is astronomical. I’ve seen literal skip-fulls of food thrown away on a daily basis and it breaks the heart. 

Nepotism and favouritism is rife. 

Despite the negatives of the company there is good things to take away from my time there; I’ve met wonderful people who I’ve worked alongside and some who I still remain in contact with, the whole experience has been eye-opening for me and allowed me to understand where I want to go in life, and my time in the shops showed me the true nature of how some people behave despicably towards service staff. I’ve grown in my time there and changed, to the point where I was able to realise my self worth and figure the place was not up to my standards anymore.

Overall; if you’re thinking of applying and joining the company, I would highly recommend that you don’t. If you do: make sure you join the union, don’t be afraid to go on strike if and when the time calls for it, don’t let people (management or otherwise) take advantage of you, don’t be afraid to say “no”, stand firm agains corruption and never, EVER, work too hard and burn yourself out for them. Because believe me; they are not worth it. 

I have been working at the company for coming up to 6 years. Firstly it was okay, you know it was a job and I enjoyed having the weekly pay as I never experienced it before. 

Let me just say, a trainee at this place basically means you are a full time worker and will be expected to perform up to the same standard after just a few weeks of reading from a book and looking at presentations on a computer. You will be constantly assured to “ask for help” and when you do so you get greeted with an attitude by management almost as if you are wasting their time.

Moving on to team member, this pretty much means you are running the shop whilst the manager does management things such as till lifts, change etc. You are left on your own often times to make sure customers are served, ensure there are sandwiches, products in the oven available all whilst trying to maintain a general cleanliness to the shop, after doing all this you will not get praised by your manager, you are more likely to get critiqued over the one minor thing you may have missed out on, rather than get a well done for the 100 things you did well. 

Moving into my job as a senior sales member, this is the biggest load of ... ever. You are basically a manager, you do all the managers jobs, you are left to train staff, wake up at 4am in the morning to open the shop, usually do all day shifts, make sure everything is to standard, all of this for an extra 50p an hour. I don’t mind the extra pay, but when you are doing the job of someone who gets £22k a year for an extra 50p it starts to become a joke. You constantly feel worried about things you may have missed as you constantly get bombarded with “Greggs way”. You never get complimented or praised, it is always negative feedback, you are constantly under the threat of “counselling” which is Greggs way of disciplinary procedures. The funny thing is, it’s one rule for you and different rules for others. If your face doesn’t  fit with the manager you are doomed from the start. 

A more favoured worker could do something wrong and it’s maybe just a quick chat about it you know, a sort of “don’t do it again” and say if I did the exact same mistake it would be “this needs to stop or else next time it will be a counselling” 

The managers try to befriend you and then talk about you behind your back. They enjoy to blame their own failings onto you just because you are a part of “management”.

The favouritism goes up to the area managers also, they all have their favourites and as I said, if your face doesn’t fit it’s game over from the get go. I am actively seeking to leave this company because the bully tactics and constant negativity has left me feeling drained and anxious to show up to work.

They make you feel like you are a bad person for calling in sick, you never get any holidays you want because the manager probably has plans so they will make up an excuse of not having the staff to cover you. You work every weekend including sundays, on your days off you will more than likely be called to see if you can come in, at this point I do not answer my phone on my days off.

The job is just a soul draining one, you leave feeling unsatisfied and degraded every shift, the lack of support and encouragement to work to your highest standard leaves you doing the bare minimum just to get through the shift, the management are bullies and love to try to maintain their authority over you and take the chance to throw a dig at you to knock you down any chance they get. The customers are disrespectful, you are working 5 jobs at once, you are expected to do everything super fast whilst the managers take 10 times as long to do the same task. The whole company is just based on “if your face fits” 

It is why they employ younger people the majority of the time these days, they expect the young workers to be timid and to just follow along what the management says like a good little doggy. 

I would not recommend this company to anyone.

I worked as team member in Greggs, Swansea, on a permanent part-time contract, in its busiest shop measured by footfall. The first time I worked interacting with members of the public. Working there was one of the most stressful things i ever did. Mentally as well as phisically.

I would typically work early mornings as I told the hiring manager i could make it even though there were no public transport for 5 am starts, however due to the fact that there was so much to do you had to sweat to get everything done and ready for opening. In fact I would typically start 10/15 mins earlier (unpaid) to get everything done to the required standards for 6 am openings. This included switching on the coffee machines, testing them, to make sure that they worked properly, and fill them with coffee beans if necessary. Then I would help delivery driver unload deliveries. Pretty much everything on sale and available in shop such a pasties, cups, drinks, crisps, breads. Put everything away tidy. Then tray up sausage rolls to pack before opening, up to 10 trays! Then baguettes over 20 trays! Then sausage, bacon and eggs for morning rolls. Finally clean counters, mop, sweep. Wait for sausage rolls and baguettes to finish cook, then pack up all sausage rolls to be put on display after they were cooked and labelling them, and send the baguettes upstairs for the sandwich team to frantically get them all done by 11 am! Fill the fridges with the fresh items i.e. unpack drinks, milk and meats. 

Space was at such premium that the first few weeks there I panicked as I had to rush to clear up all the trolleys, cages of delivery as fast as possible to get any work done as I had 1 hour to make the shop look spotless and ready for hungry customers! I had all these responsibility to only earn 9 pound for that hour (night rate)..

Greggs runs a policy that the customer is always right, so you would have to listen to the customers and make sure that you went as far as possible fulfilling their requests, even if they were wrong i.e. with change etc, or condiment instructions. And smile at them. Even though they only just cared about getting their order, and some pretending not to even ackowledge your existence.

When shop opens, I'd be making breakfast rolls using appropriate tongues and knife. Some customers were picky i.e. they wanted crispy bits, fat taken off, more sauce, little sauce etc. extra milk in coffee. And usually there were only 2 of us serving, so I felt under pressure to serve customers as fast as possible, so that others wouldn't start getting impatient waiting in the queue! Breakfast stopped at 11 am. 

You had to be very proactive, keep an eye on everything i.e. was the sugar stands for coffee clean? Was the drinks compartment well stocked? Were the bins too full? Were there more pasties to be put on trays ready for bake-off? Were the coffee machine filled with coffee beans? 

As you were serving customers, and if you had some free time make sure that it gets done. this was the case throughout the day

During afternoon we would cook more savoury treats such as pizzas. and again we were not allowed to keep things heated after they came out of the oven. So some people complained that it was cold, or if it was straight out of oven that it was too hot, some would buy it then come back asking for refunds etc. This was a daily occurence. A real cause of stress.

Before closing, we start cleaning bins, counters and pretty much everything that was used, to make sure that we could leave on time. 

Given the little pay for the amount of work expectations placed. It is not an experience I'd like to repeat. I felt bordeline exploited. This is how they keep healthy profits.

I would only recommend this job to someone who can handle and put up with constant pressure, stress, and complaints from disgrunted, mentally disturbed, penny-pinching customers.

To begin with, the job seemed great because of the good pay and the 50% discount. The online training was very comprehensive, too. However, it all goes down hill from here...

To start with, the company seem entirely unappreciative of when you have been genuinely ill and are unable to come in for just one shift. Upon saying what was wrong with me, my manager took it upon themselves to decide what was wrong with me instead. I would have thought that if they were a fully qualified doctor, they wouldn't be working in Greggs making sandwiches, but there we go.

If you want a social life, don't work at Greggs. You will be asked to do numerous 5:30am starts a week, meaning no matter what day of the week it is, you feel obliged to go to bed early for the sake of waking up ridiculously early the next morning to make bacon rolls and feel like rubbish because you can't do your job fast enough and set up the shop in half an hour. Despite your contracted hours, managers will repeatedly put you on the rota for many more hours, even if you explicitly state being very busy and highly unlikely to be able to do them. It's almost an unwritten rule that you will inevitably end up picking up the slack when the shop becomes understaffed; without even a simple word of warning you will be put on the most awful hours which you feel too worried to ask to change or say you aren't available for. 

The job itself is incredibly fast paced and you constantly feel under pressure to work to such a high but fast standard. Under the watchful observation of a manager from the corner to see if you're serving a customer fast enough, you consequentially end up panicking because of the scrutiny and the pressure. Insignificant things are made into a major issue if they're not done fast enough or exactly perfect, making you feel like a robot doing repeated steps with absolutely no room to make human mistakes. However, the actual nature of the job is very easy once you get used to it, but there's too much pressure on team members to learn everything within a short space of time and to perfectly complete things in a fast manner when team members are sometimes left on their own to serve a growing queue of customers. This became more of an issue when the shop was understaffed and targets subsequently resulted in other team members being too busy making sandwiches out the back to assist with serving.

A major issue was the way that certain members of staff made me feel uncomfortable. Dirty looks, rude comments and a general awkward atmosphere contributed to making me feel worthless and inadequate. This as a whole was incredibly subtle but just enough to make me worry about coming into work some days, wondering how uncomfortable and awkward my shift was going to be. Generally speaking, the people are most likely overworked, tremendously stressed and prone to having outbursts of outwardly displayed annoyance at anyone and everything that comes their way. This is a great shame because I truly believe that the people you work makes or breaks a job. Unfortunately, in this case, I feel like certain people in this workplace could have done with a huge pick me up, less bitchiness, a great deal of general kindness towards others, respect for other people's feelings and an awareness that making rude comments or glances is not an ideal way to make colleagues feel. That being said, a handful of the people I met at Greggs were fantastic, kind people and made some shifts enjoyable. 

I can imagine there are many worse jobs out there. This one, however, is the worst I have encountered in my own personal experience. Take away the unsociable hours and the on and off bitchiness of the staff, however, and the job is entirely okay.

Greggs employs bubbly people. It's a good workplace to make friends however it does have some major flaws. 
Customers :
During my time I experienced multiple occasions where I was left to feel horrible for days on end. Customers are unpredictable and would say disgusting remarks about me and other young members of the team. 
It's something you know is going to happen in customer service but you underestimate just how frequently it's said. 
Then there is the lovely frequent customers who everybody in the team is kind to and looks forward to seeing. They tend to brighten your day.
Management:
The clocks five minutes fast so that you stay extra to accommodate for any lateness from other staff. (Unpaid)
You have to wait for the managers at the end of close meaning you can wait 30 minutes plus dependent on their work load.
The rotas are inconsistent. You rarely have the same shifts twice and the time or dates you're in can change only a few days before. 
Holiday is little to none and there are no bonuses for working the horrid Christmas eves, boxing days and new years. 
Most of the team had been threatened with a disciplinary and made to cry. 
I hadn't got two days off in a row my entire time working there. Management seem to forget that there's a life outside of work and pile the workload onto you.
There was a noticed pattern of management taking a week of sick then a week of holiday. This meant the team members had to take the fall and work extra shifts to accommodate. 

GREGGS company : 
The contract.... 
I don't even know how to describe the contract. It is the most vague item I've ever seen. I say seen, I had to email to get my contract. 
I didn't even KNOW I had a contract .
My manager certainly never read out the full of it if they even read any and it was so vague.
I would like to see it be read by a lawyer because it just astounded me.
For example, (not sure what I can legally day off of it but here we go) there's a sentence and it says you cannot work another job that competes with greggs. Perfect fine but what on earth competes with greggs. 
All fast food chains? Anything on just eat? Is it just exclusively bakery's? Who on earth is coming at greggs. They have no rivals. Unless they mean the independent family run bakeries which is understandable. 
It's not like you can even get another job whilst at greggs because you only find out when you're working days before and you tend to work 24/7.

Covid. Their measures are not exactly the best. There could be anywhere between 2-6 of us all crammed out the front serving in a row.
A few colleagues did get covid and I was extremely paranoid as I was working so tightly with them. 
They follow to current guidelines of if you have your booster you're fine. Even if your dad or mum has covid it doesn't matter you can come in and risk customers .
They don't check or ask for lateral flows. They just expect you to do it and tell them if you get it. So that's worrying in its own right. A couple sandwich makers wear their masks wrong or not at all. I doubt there's monitoring on food safety or even courses in it that the sandwich makers have to take.

Conclusion:
If you can, work elsewhere. The coworkers are lovely but they don't make it work the mental torment of a close or the dread of a horrible customer. 
Management can be 50/50. My independent experience doesn't answer for every greggs but from the greggs I've worked at around and the managers I've met I can see they all act the same.
I didn't enjoy my time and was very happy to be going but I will miss the pay because it's quite good.





Typical day at work would be; arrive at the shop, turn on all the equipment which would be the ovens, coffee machine, refrigerators, dishwasher and computer in the office, then start probe checking the temperatures of all the equipment to makke sure they fall within the correct temperatures for food preperation and storeage, check in the daily deliveries for display and preperation and see if there are any shortages or overs or if any items are damaged or out of date. Then i would place the daily sandwich order and print off for the person on sandwich production that morning, whilst checking the safe and putting the tills out ready for business. Then i would continue on finishing the temperatures and fill out and sign off the legal cleaning schedules and visual checks for the morning. Next i would start to put all the delivered products out on display to the highest standard possible to attract the eye of the customers and make the shop look as full and appetizing as possible. 20 minutes before the opening of the store i would fill the coffee machine with beans and milk, and check that the coffee is pouring from the machine at the correct time to ensure the coffee is of the highest standard, not to bitter or too weak. Also i would fill the oven with pasties and bacon and sausage for the breakfast lines so these are ready and fresh when the doors open. Whilst this is going on two members of staff will be producing the sandwiches and putting these out on display as and when they are made (ideal speed of production would be 55 sandwiches per hour). Then i would open the doors and procede to serve the customers warmly and friendly and replenish stock when and where is necessary. The other daily tasks once more members of staff have arrived would be to start the breaks and delegate certain jobs to staff, such as being in charge of cooking the pasties and merchandising stocks whilst the management team place stock orders and arrange change for the tills from the bank and cashing up. The final daily tasks would include date checks on items, general cleaning duties, replenishing stocks in drink cabinets and crisp displays ready for the next day, closing down the tills and cashing up, recording stales on the computer for wastage that day, the cleaning procedure on the coffee machine and completing the final paperwork and daily figures. On saturdays we would complete a weekly stock take to see if there are any shortages or over on usage. I would also take care of weekly fire alarm testing and delegate weekly cleaning tasks to the staff.
What i have learnt in this company is that delegation is key to getting all the daily tasks done successfully and to maximize the sales opportunities. Also that working to a tight time schedule is key to ensuring the day goes smoothly without hiccups, but to always be prepared for if anything goes wrong and to remain calm and deal with these accordingly.
The hardest part of the job would be to ensure all the staff are pushing towards the same goal, for example getting them to link sell items to all customers. Some of the staff you need to keep pushing throughout the day. Another idea was to offer and incentive to all the staff with a reward at the end of it from my pocket for who performs the best.
The most enjoyable part of the role is working with some great staff and reeping the rewards at the end of the day after the team have put in a hard shift and we have made an increase on the yearly figures and controlled the stales adequately.

To clarify, the pay is good money - but make no mistake, you definitely work for that money!

I am not a bitter or moaning ex employee, I am writing this so that if you apply to drive for Clydesmill Greggs, you know what you’re getting into - and hopefully the ones that read this and still apply will be the ones that can handle it and stay in the job.

I was there about a decade and the workload has gotten heavier and heavier, bit by bit by bit over those years.
(Milk used to be delivered to the shops by the supplier, as did a lot of the juice and a few other bits and bobs - that’s all now added to the Greggs drivers job.

The job is tail lift street drops, 4, 5 or 6 stacks a shop, occasionally less, occasionally more.

The trucks are often filled with stock right to or closely approaching the back door.

Stacks these days are usually over 6 foot tall, probably a rolling cage or 2 that can weigh 1/4 of a tonne as they’re filled with cases of juice - not great if your shop has steps to get into it, or you can’t get the tail lift to the pavement so you have a kerb to bump every stack up…

Hand balling of the individual trays (that are ’stacked up on top of each other’ hence the name ‘stack’) into fridges & freezers at every shop, handballing of anywhere from 6 up to ‘20 or more’ bottles of milk per shop, sometimes handballing of all the cases of juice out of the cage in order to take said cage away as there’s no room in the shop to leave it (adding another ‘stack’ to your empties pick up)

Once you’ve put those 4 or 5 stacks in the shop - you immediately take 3 or 4 stacks of empties from the shop to go on the truck - and the only space to put them is where those 5 stacks you just delivered were in the truck - which means as the shift goes on you’ve made yourself a lovely little game of ‘shuffle the stacks’ to play in the back of the truck to get the delivery out past all the empties you’ve picked up, not a fun game.

The Transport supervisors are 2 guys who have never done the job or driven a truck, which doesn’t tend to lead to any ‘from a drivers perspective’ consideration into any plans and changes.

The delivery runs are seemingly planned in a ‘how much can fit on the truck’ way rather than ‘what makes sense’ way. You’re left with barely enough space to move stacks about in the back, it’s more than a fair days work. Instead of any ‘sense of achievement’ at the end of a shift, it’s more akin to a ‘thank Christ this day is over’

The actual transport office staff (“team” leaders) often come across as only caring about getting the stock out for delivery with no effort put into what the most sensible way would be or about how hard of a day is being created for any particular driver. ‘Get it out and get it done’

There have been changes to the job since Covid hit which have effectively doubled the drivers workload and obliterated any sort of routine and consistency to a drivers work/life balance.

The night shift start times are all over the place, you can potentially have 5 different start times in a working week, night shift start times are between 8pm and 1am, dayshift has a similar start time range. Shifts are (supposed to be) 9 or 10 hours, you will work most weekends on night shift.

In the last few weeks, at time of writing, several drivers have left with several more planning to that I know of, which is a shame as it used to be a great job -  but, considering what the job has become coupled with the driver shortage that has bumped up wages and vacancies everywhere in this industry, many have and are continuing to consider our options now that there are obvious other options.

A typical day of work would be arriving on the shop floor and assessing what tasks need to be done before the start of dinner service. In that time, I may serve, keep the ovens under control, general cleaning or keeping the stock and Point of Sale at maximum number. I serve customers with their orders, as well as getting to know them and what items they grow fond of (if they are regular customers) and try to offer them variations of those things for something new.

When dinner time arrives there is often nothing else but fast, but friendly service. This goes on until around two o' clock ( saturdays can be around three), by which after that time, afternoon cleaning can begin. My day ends during the afternoon clean up.

Over the time I have spent in Greggs, I have learnt how to deliver excellent customer service, as well as understanding the public's needs on a day to day basis. General retail experience has been gained, though also such skills as organisation and using my own initiative. I have been given the chance to understand and respect being part of a team and working under a manager, as well as aiding newcomers and teaching them the ways of the business.

The management in my particular store was, at times, not as professional, nor as organised as I would have liked. 'Laid back' is quite a common thing and I found it to be quite disconcerting. Trying to find organisation in the store was hard when it came to the managerial aspect, though I can't say it was every day. Just most.
I found my opinions and suggestions to be unheard or unwanted, even if they would guarantee a speedier service or a better way of advertisement. I suppose I can't say I felt all too respected as a worker with a mind of my own.

My co-workers were mostly hard working and varying of age. Both young and older people were a part of the ever-changing team at my store. Working with them was usually very enjoyable, though one of my older colleagues, I felt, didn't always pull her weight. She would make constant mistakes that the manager chose to either ignore or go too softly on, however severe. She took longer to make sandwiches than anybody else, or I had suspected she dragged out purposely to avoid serving customers, or doing any cleaning jobs (which she quite frankly never did anyway). I try to treat my colleagues equally and on friendly terms, though I never found myself being able to keep a firm relationship with her, so I avoided her. Not exactly what I wanted, in a team-based environment.

The hardest and most enjoyable parts of the job came two fold; the customers. We get many and they are widely varied in attitude, expectations and need. I can say that the good, well-natured people I have met and spoken to are many, though the few rude, inconsiderate and impatient customers are still in the bunch and at times spoil the experience for me. Dealing with difficult customers is one of the skills we learn, but at times even the procedures aren't enough and some customers care little for them. However, the people I do enjoy speaking to brighten the day and help me communicate with others. Both of these points have raised my confidence thoroughly.

Above all, I believe there could be many changes before the store and the job itself is perfect, though for what it is at the moment, the pay is very good. More than what you would find in another store of it's kind.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Shop supervisor 139 salaries reported	£12.57 per hour
Shop manager 19 salaries reported	£33,837 per year
Maintenance engineer 13 salaries reported	£51,827 per year
Truck driver 2 salaries reported	£16.88 per hour
Night team member 4 salaries reported	£14.52 per hour

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