Publix interview questions

Had a friend in the deli, and was told it was a good place to work, decent pay, etc. I walked to the store to talk to the department manager, who seemed fairly friendly. He immediately brought over the store manager and we set up an interview for some time the following day - they said they would call me. I showed up at the store around 11:00am, in case they called early, I didn't want to upset them by having them wait. Around 4:00pm, after not having received a call, I finally went inside and was told the store manager went home but would be back in the next morning. I gladly came back and met with him. He said ideally, he wanted to sit down with both me and the deli manager for the interview, but that the other manager had just left on vacation that day. He agreed to interview me there, and after his approval, set up another interview with the department manager the following week. The first interview was very traditional, and the second was more or less showing/telling me what the job expectations were and asking if I could realistically handle them.

The interview process was extremely professional. I waited on a bench outside of the office for about 10 minutes while they interviewed another person, and then I spoke with the store manager first, who asked me basic questions about why I wanted the job and how well I dealt with people. I then spoke with the Deli manager, who also asked many of the same questions. Both managers spoke with one another for almost 15 minutes while I waited on a bench, which made it very suspenseful--more so than it had been watching their poker faces during the interview-- and then I spoke with both of them at the same time. They were very hard to read and presented their concerns about my answers as well as what they liked and gave me a chance to explain/redeem myself when they didn't understand or misinterpreted any statements. I spent a lot of time feeling like I was going to have to grovel at their feet for the position due to a lack of clear wording. They picked apart everything I said. At the end, after stressing enough to take 10 years off of my life, the store manager looked at me and told me that he had decided to offer me a position, and asked if I would like to take him up on that offer. I was almost thoroughly flustered at that, simply because I'd just spent 2+ hours trying not to beg for this job. It seemed to me that it was obvious I wanted the job, and it was their choice to hire me. However, I appreciate that they followed through right to the end with professionalism instead of assuming I wanted the job. A few days later I was called for a second interview and they did a mouth swab drug test on the spot and took care of some basic paperwork. About a week later I got a call letting me know that everything came back and that they needed me to come in to take care of more paperwork and discuss orientation times and dates. They care more about how well you work with people, and how friendly and courteous you can be to the customers. If you talk about how great your work ethics are (completing tasks on time and properly) and how punctual you can be, you'll wind up feeling pretty bad when they tell you that customer service is their number one priority and they don't really want to hear about the other. They certainly care about those aspects, however when being interviewed for a customer service position such as a bagger or cashier, focus on your people skills.