TikTok content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
Are Trader Joe’s employees trained to flirt with customers? That’s the claim that has been circulating online for months. “I’ve been seeing this thing on TikTok talking about how the cashiers at Trader Joe’s are like trained to flirt with you,” said YouTuber Emma Chamberlain in a vlog viewed four and a half million times. “Is this true?”
Well, is it?
“Oh, God. No, Trader Joe’s employees do not get trained to flirt,” says V., who worked at a Trader Joe’s in New Jersey from 2017 to 2019 and asked to go by her first initial for privacy. Renee*, who worked at a Trader Joe’s in the mid-Atlantic region from 2014 to 2016, says, “No one I knew got trained or encouraged to flirt with customers.”
“Absolutely no one told me to flirt with customers. To be honest, I did that on my own,” says Josh, who worked at a Bay Area Trader Joe’s from 2014 to 2015. And current Trader Joe’s employee Jonny* says, “I’ve worked at 10 stores in two different states, and this is the first I’ve heard about flirting.”
Responses from all eight former and current Trader Joe’s employees who spoke to Glamour for this story were unanimous—they had never experienced or heard of Trader Joe’s management training employees to flirt with customers. But many offered explanations for why it often feels like TJ’s employees like us so much.
“I must say, out of all of the media inquiries I’ve received, I’ve never been asked that question,” Kenya Friend-Daniel, the national director of public relations for Trader Joe’s, wrote in an email to Glamour. “While I don’t really think you can train people to flirt or be nice, we do like to hire nice people.”
“People confuse being nice with flirting,” says V., simply. And Renee agrees: “I think the main thing that contributes to that impression is that we were encouraged to be nice and friendly,” she says. Like so many of her colleagues, Renee says that she was encouraged to open products on the floor and let customers taste them, or give out small bouquets or candy bars for free from time to time. She took it as an opportunity to brighten the day of customers who mentioned shopping for a loved one who was in the hospital, or if a shopper mentioned having had a hard day. Tyler*, who worked at a Florida store, argues that Trader Joe’s may hire people who are quirky and extroverted. “It’s a societal perception that conflates [those qualities] with ‘happy,’” he says.
Is it possible that we’re so addled by the isolation and depersonalization of modern life that we confuse a person in a name tag saying, “That’s a great hummus you’ve got there!” with romantic attention? Every person who spoke to Glamour for this story explained that their training at Trader Joe’s emphasized customer service, which is, of course, not the same as flirting. “They do remind you that part of Trader Joe’s appeal is its famously friendly atmosphere and ask that you do what you can to maintain that,” says Philip.
