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Customers at Trader Joe’s in Warwick, RI, report that the store’s employees seem to have some sort of lovely, close-knit community going on over there.
“I look to my right and I see one guy in a Hawaiian shirt rubbing the shoulders of another guy in a Hawaiian shirt, but it’s not sexual — it’s just nice,” said Chet Carbone, a customer reveling in all that coworker love. “I look to my left, and I see a teen employee doing the Cotton-Eyed Joe with one of the older lady employees. I’m starting to wonder how my life would’ve been different if I had worked at Trader Joe’s when I was a friendless loser teen.”
Carbone also speculated that the employees may be more than coworkers. They may actually be more aptly described as a family.
“And they all shamelessly shout inside jokes across the store like lifelong friends,” continued Carbone, beginning to long for the camaraderie clearly underlying the antics. “At one point, there’s an employee doing inventory next to me and another employee comes marching through the aisle with seemingly no responsibilities. She just yells, ‘Jerry! MEATBALL SUB!’ and Jerry yells back, ‘MEATBALL SUB! Melissa!’ Then he just continued his work, beaming his little teeth off. What a beautiful thing they have going on.”
“Checkout took forever because when the cashier saw my pickles, he regaled the bagging boy with a pickles-based anecdote from his past about perseverance,” added Carbone, tearing up at the memory of the close-knit relationships pervading the entire staff of Trader Joe’s. “I’m gonna remember that one.”
At press time, one employee was loudly discussing her marital problems with another employee by the artisanal cheese.
