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I'm a Whole Foods employee, having one of those rare (for me) moments where I can reasonably be considered very well-informed on the subject of a news article,

I'm a Whole Foods employee, having one of those rare (for me) moments where I can reasonably be considered very well-informed on the subject of a news article, and it's a little bit disturbing just how misinformed and one-sided the article is. The author seems to have talked with 10-20 disgruntled employees at a few stores nationwide, and a few customers on top of that. Maybe she should have reached out to Whole Foods corporate and asked for comments? About the only thing she did get right was that Amazon isn't behind this. They haven't really messed with our supply chains much yet.

jwn 9y ago
Can you offer any more insights? What's the reality behind OTS?
- tinfins 9y ago
  I'll add some more info in a few hours.
- tinfins 9y ago
  OTS is really just a collection of pretty common-sense guidelines like don't have more than a certain percentage of inventory in backstock, don't have backstock of stuff that doesn't sell well, keep your backstock organized, etc. There are a few details about it that can be irritating, but the comments from employees in the article are extremely misleading. If they're having a hard time passing their inspections it's because they're doing something very wrong - no one is failing an inspection for having 1 box facing the wrong way like it says in the article.
  - macintux 9y ago
    > no one is failing an inspection for having 1 box facing the wrong way like it says in the article Usually when I see (or say) something like that it's an exaggeration with a significant amount of truth behind it.
    - jimmywanger 9y ago
      > Usually when I see (or say) something like that it's an exaggeration with a significant amount of truth behind it. So by your logic, any accusation has the cachet of a significant amount of truth behind it? The press needs clicks. Their needs (more click and revenue) is diametrically opposed to our needs (a somewhat unbiased view of reality). Just by saying "<outlandish accusation> has to be backed by something" is ridiculous. It can be backed by nothing. As long as you click through, they get what they want.
      - macintux 9y ago
        No, my point was merely that dismissing that accusation because it’s ridiculous doesn’t mean you can assume there is no merit to the point at all. I have no idea whether the system is as employee-hostile as the sources indicate.
  - notyourday 9y ago
    This reminds me of a SaaS product roll outs where customers are complaining, revenue is falling, sales people are complaining but the bosses point out at the great new metric they found which says "Everything is great as long as the day name ends with a 'Y'"
dbatten 9y ago
"Whole Foods did not respond to several requests for comment on this story."
- tinfins 9y ago
  Ah, I missed that, sorry.
dajohnson89 9y ago
for someone who is well-informed on the the subject, it's amusing that you offered zero information in your comment.
- tinfins 9y ago
  I gave my opinion on the causes elsewhere in the comments.
- outworlder 9y ago
  At many companies, unless you have “PR” in your job description, it’s a violation of policy to do such a thing, or even comment after identifying that you work for the company, even if it is to defend or otherwise comment positively.
  - yuhong 9y ago
    I dislike the forum posting approval policy for Whole Foods executives (in the code of conduct). It was not a good solution to the problem.
praneshp 9y ago
> it's a little bit disturbing just how misinformed and one-sided the article is. Redundant, you are reading Business Insider.
bradleyjg 9y ago
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-ge...
IkmoIkmo 9y ago
> I'm a Whole Foods employee, having one of those rare (for me) moments where I can reasonably be considered very well-informed on the subject of a news article, and it's a little bit disturbing just how misinformed and one-sided the article is. "Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know."
- phyller 9y ago
  I wish I could upvote this twice. I know its just anecdotal data, but the rare occasions I have had personal knowledge of news articles they have been grossly inaccurate, every time. Where is the quote from? Edit: from another comment: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-ge...
  - loeg 9y ago
    > Where is the quote from? Michael Crichton. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Murray_Gell-Mann#Quotes_about_Gell-Mann https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Murray_Gell-Mann#Quotes_about_...
    - specialist 9y ago
      Oh. Crichton coined that phrase? That's some potent unintentional irony right there.
      - 9y ago
gojomo 9y ago
"…having one of those rare (for me) moments where I can reasonably be considered very well-informed on the subject of a news article, and it's a little bit disturbing just how misinformed and one-sided the article is." Nearly everyone who has personal knowledge of something reported is similarly disturbed. That they rarely then remember that the same level of error applies to all the other things reported, outside their areas of personal knowledge, has been termed the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect by Michael Crichton: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-ge... As one gets older (& a bit more cynical), you learn to apply this credibility discount to more journalism. But don't just use this insight as a synergizer for confirmation bias! That is, don't just remember, "this is mostly bungled reporting" on stories with details/implications that go against what you wish were the case. The stories supporting your cherished beliefs are mostly bungled reporting, too.
donarb 9y ago
How about the real pictures from customers of bare shelves? Those should count just as much, or are they disgruntled as well?
- slyall 9y ago
  They say most of the pictures of bare shelves are from customers
- jrowley 9y ago
  Here's an anecdote. This week I was sick and went to whole foods like 3 times over 5 days to get soup. The soup shelf became more and more empty over time and didn't seem to be getting restocked which struck me as odd.
  - ztjio 9y ago
    You just explained that your behavior itself was odd (you are sick.) Have you considered that you've not normally done this and so you've never noticed that this is always what happens? My local grocery store has premade foods, like soups, and they get made in bursts and slowly run out over several days. So what you observed could be the norm.
    - jrowley 9y ago
      I'm talking about the aisle, like the shelves being empty, not the premade section. But your point totally stands!
- tinfins 9y ago
  I don't find it hard to believe that a few stores ran out of bananas or whatever for a day. That's all it would take for a customer to snap a picture. The picture of a meat department cooler with empty slide racks was obviously in the middle of a reset - notice the lack of price tags on all the racks because they were just installed.
  - gamblor956 9y ago
goialoq 9y ago
Businesss Insider is a clickbait website that takes little snippets of comments and spins fanciful stories about them, and wraps them in junk titles with "how" and "why" but never deliver explanations. It's a shame this site allows that website to be posted here.
asciimo 9y ago
I'm surprised Amazon isn't behind this; I assumed this was their warehouse fulfillment algorithm applied to supermarket retail, for everyone to witness firsthand.
gist 9y ago
I was thinking that the article didn't come close to describing the Whole Foods store where I am which is as well stocked as ever.
notyourday 9y ago
Well, the article has photos. So unless it is your claim that the photos are fake or were taken during the time the store was closed to customers, I can tell you it looks worse than a 4th grade chain that sells barely passable products. Wegmans/Fairway/Shoprite would destroy WF unless it quickly fixes this issue.
foobarbazetc 9y ago
Do you work in a store or at HQ? Because the article is right. At least in some stores around SF the stock situation is dire. Some days I can’t even buy whole milk.
- briandear 9y ago
  Could you buy two half-milks?
  - oh_sigh 9y ago
    Sure, or buy half and half and use your personal centrifuge to separate it
  - dsmithatx 9y ago
    That product is only available at Half Foods.
- IncRnd 9y ago
  Since tinfins wrote, "Maybe she should have reached out to Whole Foods corporate and asked for comments," the answer is likely HQ. People don't say, "ask Whole Foods _corporate_" in the normal course of events.
throwwwwaway9 9y ago
So shelves are stocked as they were, say last year, and the media in trying to give the company a bad name? >>Maybe she should have reached out to Whole Foods corporate and asked for comments? When ever you want the truth, just call their PR department.
- dmix 9y ago
  Corporate could at least explain why this might be happening and what they are doing. A PR department is still better in my books compared to a few disgruntled employees from a few high traffic stores after a major change in both store traffic and company processes. All companies go through growing pains and scaling issues, and I hardly expect much insight on those issues from the teenage stock boy at a Whole Foods.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    The "teenage stock boy" isn't supposed to be providing insight, the thread was questioning the facts of whether the shelves are empty. The stock boy probably has more insight to that than any of us, and anyone at corporate. Indeed I'd expect only their direct manager, if anyone, to have a better insight on what is on the actual shelves. Corporate will tell you what should be there; stock check will tell you after the fact what was there, ...
- ekianjo 9y ago
  > When ever you want the truth, just call their PR department. PR has their own bias but if they tell lies they can be sued for hiding/misrepresenting the truth, because they represent the company's official stance. Unless the company is doing something wrong that they need to cover up, I can't think why a PR answer could not be close to a honest answer.
JoeAltmaier 9y ago
Not sure I'm convinced. Your store does ok; that's certain. But you know about exactly one more store than I do; do you know the article is wrong for all stores? For a majority? For any? Not sure how far that induction can go. If even one store did ok, we could see an employee from there posting here. Not sure that is information; more like a data point.
- tinfins 9y ago
  Good point, but I'm not necessarily disagreeing that there were a few days with high out-of-stocks, just that the employees criticizing the OTS system in the article are being very misleading and exaggerating.
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    Fair. At worst, it sounds like it could work, and they didn't put in the brainpower to sort it out.
Aloha 9y ago
So, what is the actual cause?
noetic_techy 9y ago
Ok, and..? So what about this story is not accurate? Is your store seeing this issue? Even if your branch is doing fine, what makes this story about other location inaccurate? You left us all hanging. Why is this the top comment?
Angostura 9y ago
So I'm a bit confused. Are you saying that there is no stock control issue and those photos are deliberately misleading?
- tinfins 9y ago
  Not necessarily, I'm saying that even if there is, the article has no clue why.
Johnny555 9y ago
Maybe she should have reached out to Whole Foods corporate and asked for comments? Then they'd talk to a PR person who is only interested in guiding the narrative to whatever makes the company look better. So yeah, employees aren't fully informed, and while Corporate may be fully informed, they are rarely going to tell the full story -- the truth probably lies somewhere between what employees are saying and what Corporate says (if they say anything at all, and in this case, it seems they did not respond to requests for comment)
dylan604 9y ago
I find it funny/odd that the eye of sauron has focused its attention at Whole Foods. Depending on the day of the week, especially late Sunday afternoon/evening but also random weekdays when I run in after work, my local Kroger looks very barren in the produce department. So much so that I have sent picture texts commenting about it. This is quite normal behavior when weather events in the area are expected, but lately it has been occurring regardless of weather. From my outside observer position, it could be a simple miscalculation of how much to order, someone getting burned by ordering too much and stock went bad, or any other reason of which I have no inside knowledge. Is this attention to "Whole Paycheck" unfair or are people just super attentive due to the new ownership and judgements being rushed to be "ahead of the curve"?
- tinfins 9y ago
  Yeah, I wonder. We definitely aren't used to all the media attention - honestly, I got a little carried away in the comments here. I wouldn't say I even particularly care about Whole Foods' reputation, it's more the false narrative that bothered me and I just happened to know how wrong it was. Must be so much worse for employees at the big tech companies or others that are in the news all the time.
- sjwright 9y ago
  Whole Foods is the retailer equivalent of an in-vogue celebrity. News about celebrities are far more interesting than competent businesspeople.
IncRnd 9y ago
> Maybe she should have reached out to Whole Foods corporate and asked for comments? From the article, "Whole Foods did not respond to several requests for comment on this story."
gisely 9y ago
The article indicates she contacted Whole Foods corporate and they didn't respond. So what exactly is wrong with her coverage? Also, you say you are Whole Foods employee. But are you store employee or a corporate headquarters employee?
- jimmywanger 9y ago
  > The article indicates she contacted Whole Foods corporate and they didn't respond. So what exactly is wrong with her coverage? Because it doesn't mean anything. No large company will respond to supply chain questions. > But are you store employee or a corporate headquarters employee? What is the relevance?
  - deftnerd 9y ago
    I think it's very relevant. The article points out that store employees have tried to bring it up to the new Amazon Management team who was unaware of the problem and that everything looks good on paper, but the view "from the trenches" is very different. One of the points of the article is that corporate isn't aware of these problems.
    - jimmywanger 9y ago
      I don't think so, because corporate would especially not comment on employee complaints if they were aware of them. Let's take this from the other side. Your employees have gone to the press, and the press is asking you for your side of the story. Why would you give the press anything to write about? Pictures of empty shelves have much more impact than in-stock statistics. You clam up, try to find the employee (probably disgruntled) and terminate him/her. In other words, corporate not responding is not a signal one way or another, it's the sign of a mature company. Not to kick a dog, but Uber might have responded and made things worse.
KKKKkkkk1 9y ago
I worked at an Amazon-Apple-Google-Facebook company when this type of article was published about our project. Our management vigorously denied what was in the article and pointed us to details that were clearly false. Ultimately, as time went by, we realized that although some of the details in the article were false, the general spirit of it was actually correct. So please take the skepticism that your management is feeding you with a grain of salt. The news media's business model hinges on its reputation of being truthful and accurate. If it was regularly publishing "disturbingly misinformed and one-sided" articles, it would be out of business.

jwn 9y ago

Can you offer any more insights? What's the reality behind OTS?

tinfins 9y ago
I'll add some more info in a few hours.
tinfins 9y ago
OTS is really just a collection of pretty common-sense guidelines like don't have more than a certain percentage of inventory in backstock, don't have backstock of stuff that doesn't sell well, keep your backstock organized, etc. There are a few details about it that can be irritating, but the comments from employees in the article are extremely misleading. If they're having a hard time passing their inspections it's because they're doing something very wrong - no one is failing an inspection for having 1 box facing the wrong way like it says in the article.
- macintux 9y ago
  > no one is failing an inspection for having 1 box facing the wrong way like it says in the article Usually when I see (or say) something like that it's an exaggeration with a significant amount of truth behind it.
  - jimmywanger 9y ago
    > Usually when I see (or say) something like that it's an exaggeration with a significant amount of truth behind it. So by your logic, any accusation has the cachet of a significant amount of truth behind it? The press needs clicks. Their needs (more click and revenue) is diametrically opposed to our needs (a somewhat unbiased view of reality). Just by saying "<outlandish accusation> has to be backed by something" is ridiculous. It can be backed by nothing. As long as you click through, they get what they want.
    - macintux 9y ago
      No, my point was merely that dismissing that accusation because it’s ridiculous doesn’t mean you can assume there is no merit to the point at all. I have no idea whether the system is as employee-hostile as the sources indicate.
- notyourday 9y ago
  This reminds me of a SaaS product roll outs where customers are complaining, revenue is falling, sales people are complaining but the bosses point out at the great new metric they found which says "Everything is great as long as the day name ends with a 'Y'"

dbatten 9y ago

"Whole Foods did not respond to several requests for comment on this story."

tinfins 9y ago
Ah, I missed that, sorry.

dajohnson89 9y ago

for someone who is well-informed on the the subject, it's amusing that you offered zero information in your comment.

tinfins 9y ago
I gave my opinion on the causes elsewhere in the comments.
outworlder 9y ago
At many companies, unless you have “PR” in your job description, it’s a violation of policy to do such a thing, or even comment after identifying that you work for the company, even if it is to defend or otherwise comment positively.
- yuhong 9y ago
  I dislike the forum posting approval policy for Whole Foods executives (in the code of conduct). It was not a good solution to the problem.

praneshp 9y ago

> it's a little bit disturbing just how misinformed and one-sided the article is. Redundant, you are reading Business Insider.

bradleyjg 9y ago

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-ge...

IkmoIkmo 9y ago

> I'm a Whole Foods employee, having one of those rare (for me) moments where I can reasonably be considered very well-informed on the subject of a news article, and it's a little bit disturbing just how misinformed and one-sided the article is. "Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know."

phyller 9y ago
I wish I could upvote this twice. I know its just anecdotal data, but the rare occasions I have had personal knowledge of news articles they have been grossly inaccurate, every time. Where is the quote from? Edit: from another comment: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-ge...
- loeg 9y ago
  > Where is the quote from? Michael Crichton. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Murray_Gell-Mann#Quotes_about_Gell-Mann https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Murray_Gell-Mann#Quotes_about_...
  - specialist 9y ago
    Oh. Crichton coined that phrase? That's some potent unintentional irony right there.
    - 9y ago

gojomo 9y ago

"…having one of those rare (for me) moments where I can reasonably be considered very well-informed on the subject of a news article, and it's a little bit disturbing just how misinformed and one-sided the article is." Nearly everyone who has personal knowledge of something reported is similarly disturbed. That they rarely then remember that the same level of error applies to all the other things reported, outside their areas of personal knowledge, has been termed the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect by Michael Crichton: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-ge... As one gets older (& a bit more cynical), you learn to apply this credibility discount to more journalism. But don't just use this insight as a synergizer for confirmation bias! That is, don't just remember, "this is mostly bungled reporting" on stories with details/implications that go against what you wish were the case. The stories supporting your cherished beliefs are mostly bungled reporting, too.

donarb 9y ago

How about the real pictures from customers of bare shelves? Those should count just as much, or are they disgruntled as well?

slyall 9y ago
They say most of the pictures of bare shelves are from customers
jrowley 9y ago
Here's an anecdote. This week I was sick and went to whole foods like 3 times over 5 days to get soup. The soup shelf became more and more empty over time and didn't seem to be getting restocked which struck me as odd.
- ztjio 9y ago
  You just explained that your behavior itself was odd (you are sick.) Have you considered that you've not normally done this and so you've never noticed that this is always what happens? My local grocery store has premade foods, like soups, and they get made in bursts and slowly run out over several days. So what you observed could be the norm.
  - jrowley 9y ago
    I'm talking about the aisle, like the shelves being empty, not the premade section. But your point totally stands!
tinfins 9y ago
I don't find it hard to believe that a few stores ran out of bananas or whatever for a day. That's all it would take for a customer to snap a picture. The picture of a meat department cooler with empty slide racks was obviously in the middle of a reset - notice the lack of price tags on all the racks because they were just installed.
- gamblor956 9y ago

goialoq 9y ago

Businesss Insider is a clickbait website that takes little snippets of comments and spins fanciful stories about them, and wraps them in junk titles with "how" and "why" but never deliver explanations. It's a shame this site allows that website to be posted here.

asciimo 9y ago

I'm surprised Amazon isn't behind this; I assumed this was their warehouse fulfillment algorithm applied to supermarket retail, for everyone to witness firsthand.

gist 9y ago

I was thinking that the article didn't come close to describing the Whole Foods store where I am which is as well stocked as ever.

notyourday 9y ago

Well, the article has photos. So unless it is your claim that the photos are fake or were taken during the time the store was closed to customers, I can tell you it looks worse than a 4th grade chain that sells barely passable products. Wegmans/Fairway/Shoprite would destroy WF unless it quickly fixes this issue.

foobarbazetc 9y ago

Do you work in a store or at HQ? Because the article is right. At least in some stores around SF the stock situation is dire. Some days I can’t even buy whole milk.

briandear 9y ago
Could you buy two half-milks?
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  Sure, or buy half and half and use your personal centrifuge to separate it
- dsmithatx 9y ago
  That product is only available at Half Foods.
IncRnd 9y ago
Since tinfins wrote, "Maybe she should have reached out to Whole Foods corporate and asked for comments," the answer is likely HQ. People don't say, "ask Whole Foods _corporate_" in the normal course of events.

throwwwwaway9 9y ago

So shelves are stocked as they were, say last year, and the media in trying to give the company a bad name? >>Maybe she should have reached out to Whole Foods corporate and asked for comments? When ever you want the truth, just call their PR department.

dmix 9y ago
Corporate could at least explain why this might be happening and what they are doing. A PR department is still better in my books compared to a few disgruntled employees from a few high traffic stores after a major change in both store traffic and company processes. All companies go through growing pains and scaling issues, and I hardly expect much insight on those issues from the teenage stock boy at a Whole Foods.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  The "teenage stock boy" isn't supposed to be providing insight, the thread was questioning the facts of whether the shelves are empty. The stock boy probably has more insight to that than any of us, and anyone at corporate. Indeed I'd expect only their direct manager, if anyone, to have a better insight on what is on the actual shelves. Corporate will tell you what should be there; stock check will tell you after the fact what was there, ...
ekianjo 9y ago
> When ever you want the truth, just call their PR department. PR has their own bias but if they tell lies they can be sued for hiding/misrepresenting the truth, because they represent the company's official stance. Unless the company is doing something wrong that they need to cover up, I can't think why a PR answer could not be close to a honest answer.

JoeAltmaier 9y ago

Not sure I'm convinced. Your store does ok; that's certain. But you know about exactly one more store than I do; do you know the article is wrong for all stores? For a majority? For any? Not sure how far that induction can go. If even one store did ok, we could see an employee from there posting here. Not sure that is information; more like a data point.

tinfins 9y ago
Good point, but I'm not necessarily disagreeing that there were a few days with high out-of-stocks, just that the employees criticizing the OTS system in the article are being very misleading and exaggerating.
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  Fair. At worst, it sounds like it could work, and they didn't put in the brainpower to sort it out.

Aloha 9y ago

So, what is the actual cause?

noetic_techy 9y ago

Ok, and..? So what about this story is not accurate? Is your store seeing this issue? Even if your branch is doing fine, what makes this story about other location inaccurate? You left us all hanging. Why is this the top comment?

Angostura 9y ago

So I'm a bit confused. Are you saying that there is no stock control issue and those photos are deliberately misleading?

tinfins 9y ago
Not necessarily, I'm saying that even if there is, the article has no clue why.

Johnny555 9y ago

Maybe she should have reached out to Whole Foods corporate and asked for comments? Then they'd talk to a PR person who is only interested in guiding the narrative to whatever makes the company look better. So yeah, employees aren't fully informed, and while Corporate may be fully informed, they are rarely going to tell the full story -- the truth probably lies somewhere between what employees are saying and what Corporate says (if they say anything at all, and in this case, it seems they did not respond to requests for comment)

dylan604 9y ago

I find it funny/odd that the eye of sauron has focused its attention at Whole Foods. Depending on the day of the week, especially late Sunday afternoon/evening but also random weekdays when I run in after work, my local Kroger looks very barren in the produce department. So much so that I have sent picture texts commenting about it. This is quite normal behavior when weather events in the area are expected, but lately it has been occurring regardless of weather. From my outside observer position, it could be a simple miscalculation of how much to order, someone getting burned by ordering too much and stock went bad, or any other reason of which I have no inside knowledge. Is this attention to "Whole Paycheck" unfair or are people just super attentive due to the new ownership and judgements being rushed to be "ahead of the curve"?

tinfins 9y ago
Yeah, I wonder. We definitely aren't used to all the media attention - honestly, I got a little carried away in the comments here. I wouldn't say I even particularly care about Whole Foods' reputation, it's more the false narrative that bothered me and I just happened to know how wrong it was. Must be so much worse for employees at the big tech companies or others that are in the news all the time.
sjwright 9y ago
Whole Foods is the retailer equivalent of an in-vogue celebrity. News about celebrities are far more interesting than competent businesspeople.

IncRnd 9y ago

> Maybe she should have reached out to Whole Foods corporate and asked for comments? From the article, "Whole Foods did not respond to several requests for comment on this story."

gisely 9y ago

The article indicates she contacted Whole Foods corporate and they didn't respond. So what exactly is wrong with her coverage? Also, you say you are Whole Foods employee. But are you store employee or a corporate headquarters employee?

jimmywanger 9y ago
> The article indicates she contacted Whole Foods corporate and they didn't respond. So what exactly is wrong with her coverage? Because it doesn't mean anything. No large company will respond to supply chain questions. > But are you store employee or a corporate headquarters employee? What is the relevance?
- deftnerd 9y ago
  I think it's very relevant. The article points out that store employees have tried to bring it up to the new Amazon Management team who was unaware of the problem and that everything looks good on paper, but the view "from the trenches" is very different. One of the points of the article is that corporate isn't aware of these problems.
  - jimmywanger 9y ago
    I don't think so, because corporate would especially not comment on employee complaints if they were aware of them. Let's take this from the other side. Your employees have gone to the press, and the press is asking you for your side of the story. Why would you give the press anything to write about? Pictures of empty shelves have much more impact than in-stock statistics. You clam up, try to find the employee (probably disgruntled) and terminate him/her. In other words, corporate not responding is not a signal one way or another, it's the sign of a mature company. Not to kick a dog, but Uber might have responded and made things worse.

KKKKkkkk1 9y ago

I worked at an Amazon-Apple-Google-Facebook company when this type of article was published about our project. Our management vigorously denied what was in the article and pointed us to details that were clearly false. Ultimately, as time went by, we realized that although some of the details in the article were false, the general spirit of it was actually correct. So please take the skepticism that your management is feeding you with a grain of salt. The news media's business model hinges on its reputation of being truthful and accurate. If it was regularly publishing "disturbingly misinformed and one-sided" articles, it would be out of business.