Peterson Reviews

This is long, so in short: Favoritism and incompetence in management, high school-like culture, low wages, high workloads, and poor computer systems. The biggest drawback for me was management. Favoritism ran wild. People who did not perform their job well (or at all sometimes) seemed to be protected because they were friends with the right people. Some particularity entitled employees would throw such huge tantrums over not getting their way that management would give in just to make them stop. These people ended up protected in a way because management didn’t want to deal with them so we knew complaining about their behavior wouldn’t do any good. I also never felt comfortable trusting the HR department. They seemed like puppets for the ownership, never felt like they advocated for the employees, and extruded dishonesty. Management came across as incompetent and contributed to a high school-like culture of cliques and drama. There is also a severe lack of accountability among members of management. Expanding on the high school culture there, I experienced great divides between both departments and floors (warehouse downstairs, offices upstairs). There was a constant “us vs them” mentality between departments. Outside sales was generally thought to do no wrong and this mentality has developed several drama starters and untouchables that hindered the rest of the sales department, accounting, and the warehouse at a minimum. Wages were pathetic. It seemed like many of the hardest working people lived paycheck to paycheck and went years without a wage increase. Upper management folks seemed incredibly comfortable by comparison while they told employees who were struggling to make ends meet that the company couldn’t afford to give them a raise of any kind. Likewise, growth potential felt very limited. The best place for advancement was in the warehouse, but it’s mostly just from the picking crew to driving a forklift. There was very little room to advance and most movements for people seemed to be largely lateral. It always seemed like favoritism played a huge role in who was hired for what position and those choices were often detrimental to the department. Workloads were a huge issue. Being a food distributor, Peterson sees heavy seasons and light seasons. During the heavy seasons, employees in multiple departments - both office and warehouse alike - often found themselves working upwards of 12 to 18-hour days. It wasn’t that a manager would tell an employee they were required to work that many hours (unless you were in the warehouse, where they did), it was more of a fear of getting in trouble for not completing the immense amount of work on time that kept people there so long. Myself and others were regularly given new, cumbersome tasks without existing responsibilities being redistributed to others and without wage reconsiderations. Many of us were over encumbered even during the slow seasons and management just OK’d overtime instead of addressing the issue. For me, this kind of workload killed my moral and desire to do my best. I found this to be my experience regardless of which department I was a part of over the years of my employment there. Other miscellaneous things to note: It’s a refrigerated warehouse and as such, its miserable to work in. This is simply part of the job but one worth knowing if you can’t handle 34 to -16-degree temperatures. Peterson also suffers from using an inadequate computer system. The program has caused many problems for all departments and I got the impression that this upcoming update to it won’t be any better. Please note that I left the company months ago and the upgrade had yet to be implemented while I was still there, so I cannot confirm how well it works. Lastly, turnover is high, particularly in the warehouse but increasingly so in the offices as unhappy people are finding better jobs elsewhere.