All the employee handbook stuff about the customer profile is pretty telling.

“From extensive surveys, we know a lot about our customers and why they shop at Trader Joe’s. They are not necessarily affluent or rich, but they are generally well educated. In fact, 80% of our customers either have attended college, graduated from college, or have post-graduate degrees. Remember this when you speak to them. When the TV networks bemoan the fact that their viewership is declining, they’re talking about Trader Joe’s customers. Our target customer is intelligent and well-educated. These are common denominators. Our customers are people who are interested in new things and new ideas. They are in an inquisitive lot. They read the New Yorker, not People magazine. They travel. We have to keep them interested and challenged. To do this, we have to run a fashion food business.”

This describes basically zero customers I know who shop at Trader Joe’s.

However, I would absolutely believe that this describes their aspirations. This is how Trader Joe’s customers want to think about themselves.

And if you’re a national grocery chain, and you don’t mind your wage slaves getting a bit of brainwashing to serve your clientele (“̆'§ †ïmê †ð §hïñê!”), teaching how to heartlessly blow smoke up somebody’s ass is a lot easier and more consistent than fostering genuine interpersonal skills. Besides, they might use those to form a union.