I got hired in the beginning of September 2013 as a Sales Associate. My manager told me I was going to get one to three shifts a week until October. That was fine with me, because she made it out like it was only going to be temporary. October comes, and I worked only four shifts the entire month. However, they gave me about five call-ins. Call in shifts are where you call in an hour before your "shift" and see if they need you. That's how unorganized they are. They don't even know how many people they're going to need in a day. So I called in every time, and nope. Never got one! Also, they come out with a new schedule for the next week every Tuesday. They have an online scheduling system, but they tell you that you can't trust the system, so you still need to come in and check. Why even have one online then? If it doesn't work, just don't even have it as an option. Oh, but they expect for you to check your email on your employee account, which doesn't ever seem to work on my Mac, because they're too low-tech. They don't even tell you about meetings. You have to go check your employee email, which would be fine, if anyone ever told me that. Then, there are the floor sets, which are the only reason why I've made any money in the last two months. You work from about 6:00 pm to 12:00 am on Sundays, which is ridiculous to ask of me, since I have school in the morning. But they don't care. I would be willing to work until 10:00 or 11:00 but getting home at 12:30 am isn't really acceptable when I have to wake up at 6:00 am. It's absolutely ridiculous! The other problem I have is with the sales. As a customer, when I come into Bath & Body Works, I come in to smell things and browse, and I usually have my mind made up about what I want or if I'm going to purchase something. This seems to be the case with most customers I talk to as well. But they want you to act like a used car salesman. You have to be extremely pushy and keep badgering customers until they either walk out or buy something. It's lotion. These are not diamonds or cars. People don't need that much help deciding. They need to be welcomed, told the promotions, and maybe pointed in the right direction. But they don't need the sales people breathing down their necks the whole time. I love talking to customers, but I hate having to be so annoying. And I get in trouble if I'm not annoying enough. The women who work there are also very catty and too competitive. I don't see the point in being so competitive when we're all getting paid minimum wage anyway. No matter how much you sell, you don't get rewarded. You don't even get more hours. At my store right now, they're trying to hire 40 people...Why? So you can give them all call-in shifts that they'll never work. No. Hire like 15 or 20 people and give them more hours. It's the worst place I've ever worked, and I just got a new job, so I cannot wait to tell my manager I quit. They have no regard for me, so I'm excited that they'll be one person short when it comes time for Christmas :)
