It's no surprise to me when I worked at Hy-Vee over 10 years ago. I was at one of the Sioux Falls stores from 2010 - 2012 and it was a mess even back then. I saw Edeker back then when he was a tier below Jergens and I thought the guy was a creep back then. I knew that Hy-Vee was going to have a meltdown even back then because the same stuff going on in stores now was going on back then, everything from the understaffing to the employee 'ownership' circlej--k to management being on a power trip, store directors running staff into the ground, and so forth.
I can't blame people for despising Hy-Vee but the problems here go beyond Edeker and his minions. I think Hy-Vee's decline started in the 2000s but has become more obvious in the last couple of years.