Wine enthusiast in Ottawa, ON A good place to gain wine knowledge
This is a good company to work for if you’re interested in learning about wine and, it’s varietals and categories. If you want to become a bartender or server then this is a great place to learn and hone your wine palate. Unfortunately the compensation is poor for the physical work invited in an average day. You’ll be receiving large skids of wine and ciders twice a week, and be responsible for sticking it, placing and receiving orders. There are contests which can be fun and provide bonus money on pay checks but those are few and far between. And the abuse you’ll get from alcoholic, demanding, arrogeant customers is rather discouraging and annoying. You need to be firm and refuse people which can be intimidating. Biggest con : There’s little room for advancement in the company because they have no assistant manager positions but they do have a ‘CEC’, thats the Wine Rack’s creative way of assigning the duties of a typical assistant managers to a merchant and giving them a minuscule pay raise not worry the headaches. If you want to stay within retail I’d suggest taking your knowledge and apply to the Lcbo or, apply to be a bartender.
Wine Merchant/Key Holder in Brampton, ON Fun workplace
Overall A Great Workplace For Anyone Going To School or Seniors. I enjoy working here because of the customers it's a fun environment getting to know all kinds of people and regular customers.
POF don't excel or go up in management, head office (not really friendly), managers are bearly there cuz they run 2 stores and are mostly at their main stores.
Store Manager/Sales Associate in Toronto, ON Toxic, hypocritical, uncopromising
Upper management will check all the boxes of "inclusivity and equity in the workplace" in the most performative fake way. They will give you a sense of belonging only to make you feel obligated to take on whatever hours they throw at you. Horrible job for your mental health, huge amount of responsibility in terms of dealing with drunk customers and thefts. The company is too cheap to invest in good technology and the software you work with is archaic and hard to use. I worked here for almost 5 years and dealt with a lot of toxic work environments, back stabbing and poor communication in general. If there were any redeeming qualities, I would say a couple select managers who worked with me and gave me confidence in leadership, as i briefly managed a store at one point. But overall upper management runs the show and cares very little of the daily struggles that their front line workers face.
Wine Merchant in Toronto, ON Bottom of the barrel employer
The employer is wholly uninterested in the well-being of its employees and is an enthusiastic union-buster, often "promoting" with no meaningful pay adjustment or true positional advancement with the aim to remove members from the union. They claim a "competitive wage" but pay slightly above the legal minimum amount. There is a negligible chance that you will be allowed to grow within the company; area managers explicitly tell shop employees that there is no want or need for your advancement and will do nothing to further it, or will mislead you about opportunities, preferring to hire from outside than to promote from within. Store-level management is often completely inept, failing at completing even the most basic of tasks, and forcing shop employees to pick up the slack. Scheduling is not completed on time and is subject to last-minute changes for which you are to be available. The company took away the pandemic pay in the middle of a health crisis, refusing outright to reinstate it. Complementary wine issues are often the lowest-tier wines, rarely worth partaking. This employer is to be avoided at all costs.
Wine Merchant in Brampton, ON Don’t.
I would NOT recommend working there. The management is not good. Destroys your mental health. Poorly run. Toxic work environment. Just overall horrible experience.