The Container Store reviews

What happened to this company over the last two years? This used to be a decent place to work, and now it is a soul sucking and soul crushing miserable hell hole. Hours at store level are cut so ridiculously low that we don't have enough people to help the customers in the store, which leads to very frustrating customers and long lines at the registers. Getting yelled at by customers on the daily is not how I like to spend my working days, but management is not doing much to save the situation. How could they when they spend the majority of the time hiding in their offices and just make up new rules to make life on the sales floor even harder and more miserable. No more raises and no more 401K contribution, yet just last year all the higher ups and managers got to live it up for a week long retreat (all company paid for) in Texas. Thanks I hope my retirement fund tasted nice since you used it to pay for all the fancy food for your 500+ employees last year.

Alas, it's still just retail. Any store is only as good as its GM. Some days can suck when your GM's version of giving "feedback" and "training the new hires" involves publicly calling them out over the walkie. Awkward. Crazy demanding inconsistent hours. The workload required for some campaign changes is just ridiculous. Also for a company that proclaims to care so much about its employees, they don't hesitate to force half the staff into working multiple overnight shifts in the days directly before and after Christmas to set up the elfa sale. They need to start that sale either a week sooner or a week later. Even working apparel retail and in beauty/cosmetics, never did I have to work overnight shifts during Christmas. But I guess they figure they give you Thanksgiving off so they can get away with this treatment of employees every year. Merchandise deliveries can be hell when they send you a full truck but you only have a staff of 8 to get it done. Unreasonable and unrealistic goal times are implemented to finish merchandise deliveries, especially considering truck team consists of 95% women in their 40's. The sheer physicality of the process along with the aggressive time goals and constantly being short-staffed, have resulted in numerous injuries and competent people leaving. There has to be a better way to get merchandise out of a truck and onto the floor! Lots of talented, energetic, and willing people are stuck indefinitely in part-time ("prime-time") roles with little to no hope of ever moving to full time. It seems like we lose so many great people to other jobs willing to offer them more hours. The existing part-timers must have open availability 24/7, which is completely unfair and unrealistic and often results in retaining only the less-than-spectacular talent. An overload of feedback and communication. Seriously, I know "Communication is leadership" and all, but there are more emails, voicemails, memos, visual direction, new promotions, flash sales, and other "white noise" than a person can keep up with in any given day. Don't even get me started on the monthly employee/supervisor one-on-ones. Constant observation and micro-managing from the managers must be endured by all. Incessant questioning of employee decisions and "what are you doing?" happens in my location. Calm down and trust us, we take pride in our work and will do the job you hired us to do if you just give us the chance. If fewer company resources were allocated to unnecessary "feedback" and "communication," I wonder how much cost savings the company would have. And how much more efficiency from managers and full-timers would result. Too much playing favorites and too many store politics.