The "training manual" is horrendous. I received no formal training because they were desperate to get the position filled before black friday (I started a few weeks into October). As the product manager I had to be there to fill all those Friday saturday and sunday night shifts and no one wanted, as well as all weekday closing shifts. There was no support from other managers, or associates. Often I was left with hours worth of shipment to complete without the time or people to do it. The shipment team was often pulled away from their assigned tasks to "cover on the floor in case of theft." Creating a no-win stressful situation for everyone. The best part of this clustered mess was the dreaded floor set. This was twice a month from closing on a sunday until typically 2am. We would schedule the floor set until midnight but many girls were allowed to leave early from other managers (who weren't even present, but wrote their approval on the schedule), leaving the few people left more work and longer hours.
Our store as a 4-6 million dollar volume, and we were constantly getting ORC or Organized Retail Crime "hits" of thousands of dollars at a time. Literally. We were constantly fighting payroll hours: working on minimal coverage of two to three people in store consisting of six rooms, two mall entrances and six fitting rooms. One night during the Holidays I was closing with two associates. Everyone is supposed to have zone and I was covering the often forgotten front entrances of the store while I had the two girls ringing (as expected when there was a line of three or more). The district manager had visited our store earlier that day and decided to hang around, come back and surprise visit us that night to see how we were preventing these ORC hits. She was not happy to see me alone in the front of the store and immediately told me I was doing a poor job, I need to rezone etc. She whored me out for about five minutes an hour before closing, and proceeded to walk out.
My "CO" manager also seemed to have it out for me. We were failing our audits left and right, and our store manager decided to get out before she got fired. The co-manager teamed up with some other girls and watched everything I did, started taking notes and reporting to the district manager at every opportunity. One of the associates brought her personal drama into work all the time, I tried to shut it down and she in turn decided to hate me and call the associate hotline pretending to be her mother and complained about me. The best part is one of the associates brought the behind the back collaborating to my attention showing me the post-it with our DM's cell number given to her by the co manager. The co manager told this particular associate if she wanted more hours she needed to call the DM and report any suspicious activity I had committed.
All the asssociates complained about their hours. There was an automated scheduling system, but it was truly up to the store manager as to who go what hours when. The whole "system" of having 40 associates on payroll who only work 5 hours a week or even a month in some cases is riduclous in my opinion. The best part about the scheduling process was the use of on-call shifts. For minimum wage associates were expected to call in no earlier than an hour ahead of the on-call shift to find out if they were working or not. And as a manager I was told earlier that day based on payroll being over or short whether or not we could use any shifts (never based on the actual business of the day).
Associates also hated having their bags checked at the front of the store in front of customers before they were allowed to leave saying this was embarrasing. I don't care about bag checks, it was just a complete nuisance to track down another manager when you're ready to go and you only have a thirty minute break during your eight to ten hour shift.
Employee holds were not allowed-- always a sore spot for everyone. Associates would often hide items in the wrong places, and the store manager herself would put items on hold under someone else's name.
Although I could clearly go on forever one final qualm was that there was no payment for overtime. My overtime was halftime pay. Somehow this system is legal?!? And the co manager refused to work any overtime because of it, so I also informed the store manager I wouldn't be subjected to it either.
