ALDI reviews

Where do I start? I was looking for a change in career and after a lot of research, thought and analysing I decided to apply for Aldi as they appear to be a great company to work for. I applied for assistant store manager and was surprised at how lengthy the whole process was - I saw that as a positive, thinking the company invest a lot into their staff. Nope, that was completely wrong. I left my already good job to go onto Aldi (which I thought would be a great move for me). From day one I realised it was the biggest mistake of my life. Firstly the hours are a joke - as an assistant store manager you're expected to work a MINIMUM if 48 hours and then everything else on top. Aldi will tell you over and over again at interview, in their books, in their manuals that you get all this time back - IT IS COMPLETE RUBBISH, DO NOT BELIEVE IT. You also get a day off: if you class your day off as sandwiched between finishing at 11pm the night before and starting at 4am the day after. I came from a job where I worked 12 hour shifts and worked hard - I am NOT afraid of hard work, however Aldi is a complete joke. There is no way (unless you're Superman) you can get everything done. Oh and on your day off, you're expected to trek all the way to the store to hand over the safe key, which takes over 2 hours in total - which you're not paid for. This happens at all of the stores, so just bare that in mind if you actually have a life outside of work. Also the bullying culture is horrendous, you are told as a manager to micro manage all of the store assistants and watch them on CCTV constantly to try catch them out. The store manager left me on my own to close up the store after I'd been there for less than a week, then the next day decided to watch my every move on CCTV in fast forward and show me where he felt I went wrong. It was awful - constantly criticised for everything. Whatever you do it isn't good enough. The poor store assistants are given impossible tasks to do just so they fail, this is meant to be some kind of character building exercise but I fail to see how it builds anyone's character other into wanting them to leave. I left without a second glance - I'd rather sweep the streets in a snowstorm wearing nothing than work for Aldi. It was the worst experience of my life and even if you want to raise a complaint on how you're treated, they won't let you. Hence why they can say their staff are so happy - they literally will NOT let you complain about anyone senior. Area managers are a joke and are all straight out of uni, have no social skills and talk to other human beings like dirt. So, if like me, you were looking for a change of career - keep scrolling. Aldi will run you. Don't do it.

- Work/Life balance. It's always something that is discussed in meetings, but once the meeting is over so is that train of thought. - Sometimes the physical aspect of the job can be overwhelming. If your store is struggling, be prepared to spend a lot of time (hopefully in store clothes and not in a suit) helping out. - It's retail, so there will be odd hours at times. Overnights, weekends worked, early mornings and late nights. While only the weekend work is mandatory (one Saturday and one Sunday a month), the others are infrequent, but can be frustrating at times. - Changed districts roughly twice a year. It was great to be able to work with so many different managers, each with their own style, but it was difficult to establish a rhythm in a store. Once you had a store where you wanted it to be and could begin to really dig in to fine tuning it, districts would change and it would happen all over again. - Also very frustrating to turn a store around and invest time in it to make it productive, only to hand off your hard work to someone else.