Trader Joe’s expected its employees to be generalists, not specialists. Crewmembers learned how to do every job in the store. The company promoted from within whenever possible. While people did specialize at times (e.g., the resident artists who made the signage), people tended to rotate roles not only from day to day, but hour by hour at times. Managers typically did not allow crewmembers to work at the checkout stations for more than two hours at a time. Each hour a different crewmember played the role of ‘’helmsman’’ greeting customers as they entered the store.