If you’re shopping at Trader Joe and need assistance that only veteran TJ employees can provide, you might want to find the busiest shirt-wearing person.
Trader Joe employees often wear fairly plain t-shirts, long-sleeved shirts or hoodies. Typically there is a hibiscus flower silhouette on the front or back. But then there are workers who wear more multicolored button-up Hawaiian shirts.
According to Trader Joe, these are often the store leaders.
“All Trader Joe’s crews wear colorful shirts, making it easy for customers to identify. All store leaders wear collared ones, but others wear the same way.”
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The email did not elaborate on the fact that in addition to the store leader, “other” may be allowed to wear collared shirts.
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Speaking to Nexstar, employees of Trader Joe from multiple locations said that only workers in the position of “leadership” – that is, store leaders or assistant store leaders, are allowed to wear collared shirts. (Social media posts shared by TJ employees also suggest this is true.) One manager who spoke to Nexstar said these policies “varies from store to store.”
However, in recent months, several self-identified trader Joe’s employees have suggested that the hibiscus-designed shirts worn by crew members are being phased out or at least supplemented with a flower-free design called “Trader Joe” at the back or near the shoulders. Some of these uniforms can be viewed in Tiktok videos posted by employees.
Trader Joe’s representatives were not immediately available to see if hibiscus flower shirts were phased out and if long-term employees would be allowed to wear older designs if flower-free shirts are actually the newest standard.
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In any case, Joe Coulombe, the founder of late trader Joe, will prefer that workers retain at least some of the Hawaii-inspired elements, even if most people don’t dress like Jimmy Buffet on their way to Luau. In the 2019 edition of the “Inside Trader Joe’s” podcast, Coulombe revealed that his first idea of their outfit was inspired by both the Jungle Cruises of Disneyland and the novel he was reading, set in the Polynesian Islands.
“That’s why, to this day, employees wear Hawaiian shirts,” Coulombé said. “And it worked a bit.”
