Great work environment - Part Time Sales Associate Fleet Feet Employee Review

amazing job to work at, employee discount is amazing and a good environment

no cons for this job i enjoyed working here

Occasional seeded shoes, socks, insoles My coworkers were cool, though turnover is high

(for context, I am transgender and autistic, and have 5 years of run specialty experience) My deadname appeared on the schedule multiple times that I had to manually cross out myself. Luckily I’d known my coworkers for a while and nobody was disrespectful, but this is private, personal information that I should have had the ability to decide whether or not to share. Schedules were frequently changed after having been posted. This employer uses ADP, which has a section for chosen name but does not always use it. It was using my legal name in notifications, so I disabled them and relied on photos of printed copies or screenshots when I logged into the app. A simple "I just made changes to the schedule, please review" text or email or in-person communication would have been enough, but not even this basic communication happened. Due to this non-communication, I missed a shift I did not know about, and other employees would sometimes scramble last minute unaware that they had a shift until the app sent them a notification an hour ahead. On our last shift together, the owner called the payroll person to work on getting me paid out. I understand that he had to use my legal name in this situation. He had this conversation right beside me, which was awkward enough, but it was jarring to hear my deadname being used. He could have had the conversation in private anywhere other than on the sales floor. The timing was also strange as I had just gotten back from my ten minute break and was going to be clocking out in about two hours. On the last schedule that I saw, my section still existed but without a name for the first week after my final shift. It was brought to my attention by a former coworker that the following schedules (for weeks 2 and 3 after I left) had my deadname printed on them (which this coworker then crossed out, out of respect for me). It wasn’t any one isolated incident, but the pattern. Over time, I felt there was a lack of consideration and respect for both my identity and the conditions I needed to make the job sustainable. For the sake of my burnout, I needed more predictability, so I negotiated for a relatively minor adjustment to my schedule (I was asking for Thursdays and Fridays off). I was trying to find a mutually workable solution, and felt dismissed when the response was "I’m not required to accept availability changes." I had not worked Fridays in many months, and while I had originally hoped to have Sundays off (instead of Thursday), I remained available on Sundays after he explained that it was our busiest day. Instead of working through a compromise, I felt dismissed when his response was framed around what he was not legally required to do rather than what might have allowed me to continue working successfully. I was not asking to stop contributing. I was trying to create a schedule that would allow me to continue working sustainably. He offered to demote me in exchange for having Thursdays and Fridays off while still working Sundays. This felt disproportionate because it would have meant less pay for a small schedule adjustment, and impractical because it would have meant I would be giving up my keys and access responsibilities, yet I both opened and closed on Sundays and would have needed a key and alarm code to remain in that Sunday role. At this location, the main additional supervisor responsibilities were opening and closing procedures, including locks, safe access, and alarm procedures. From my perspective, the role appeared less differentiated by additional leadership responsibilities and more dependent on availability and management preference. My concerns were not limited to my own experience. Over time, I also became concerned with broader operational issues that affected employees’ ability to succeed. I also became discouraged by what felt like inconsistent standards for advancement. I was already a supervisor, and I watched an employee with less relevant experience be promoted into the same level of role less than two months after being hired, while more experienced staff were passed over. This contributed to my perception that advancement decisions were not always based on clear or consistent criteria, which further affected my confidence in ownership decisions. Regarding ownership decisions, feedback did not appear to be welcome. The owner asked me if I was trying to send an "eff you" after I moved the schedules from public view and removed last names from receipts for the sake of staff privacy and security. There is a lot of neglect when it comes to inventory. Common sizes and fast-moving product are frequently out of stock, and if your add-on rate suffers for it, you will be made responsible for an outcome you have little control of. Performance numbers are rarely discussed when positive, and much more frequently discussed when negative, but no meaningful feedback is given. Is the grass brown because I under-watered it, over-watered it, or because of factors outside of my control? During one such performance review, an employee was being singled out for their insole add-on rate. When this employee said they felt comfortable with their insole knowledge, I said something to the effect of "yeah, I see you bringing them out frequently, and you sell plenty, just not always attached to a shoe sale." As soon as that employee left, the owner said to me "I don't need you defending (employee's name)." What's the point of me being a supervisor if my observations do not matter? There wasn't a strong sense of what could be done better. In a rare moment of advice on what we could do to reduce our return rate, the owner suggested that we put customers in the size they measure, not a half-to-a-full size up as is not only industry standard but also what the Fleet Feet corporate training materials advise. At previous jobs, futures (orders placed several months in advance) were tracked and revised as needed. In my final week here, I witnessed roughly 200 shoes from futures orders arrive and the fitting room had to be sacrificed to contain the overflow. It's an inherently physical job, but neglect like this example made the job excessively physically demanding some days if you were unlucky enough to be on shift when the mountain of boxes arrived. The business lacks consistent procedures. Consequences of these errors include scenarios where a customer's order is put into inventory and only upon them calling for an update do you realize that the shoe they paid for was sold to somebody else. Part of the job is investigating orders for customers when they call asking what's going on and having to think on the fly of how to save face for the business, which becomes exhausting when you do it frequently enough. The most exhausting day-to-day aspect of this business is the shifting of blame onto myself, my coworkers, and even the vendors. This pattern suggested to me that things were unlikely to change, which is why I do not recommend working here.