After the first year I worked there, everything went downhill. I worked for this company for over three years. They never promote from within.
They stopped giving raises and did not even perform employee reviews the second year I was there, and never explained that they weren't going to be doing reviews and never explained why.
After three years of working there as a department head I was told to my face from my general manager that "of all of the people in the store, you deserve a raise the most, and I'm working on it."
Then I found out that cashiers were being hired in with NO experience working for this company at 20 cents more than I had ever made working for this company.
Shortly after the review in which I was told I deserved a raise, I was instead demoted (based on the hours I was available to work during school) and had my pay CUT. When I asked if I could work out a different schedule to work more hours, I was told that wouldn't be possible.
Then I was asked to continue doing the same work that I had been doing as Dept. Head even though I had just been demoted and had my pay cut.
They told me that what they were asking me to do (The Gourmet Expiration process) was something that fell under the scope of being a sales associate - but they didn't ask any of the other sales associates to do it and none of the supervisors knew how to do it themselves.
This is normally something that takes two weeks to complete. They asked me to complete it in a four hour shift the day before it was due. And you know what? I did.
I did it in four hours because I was good at my job and I didn't deserve to be demoted based on my hours if I could complete my tasks in less time than is usually required - I deserved a raise.
I worked extremely hard, often staying late when I first started working for this company. I was invested and loyal and I really cared about my job. I liked everyone I worked with, including my manager. I have some lasting relationships with people I worked with at this store.
I left feeling very betrayed and I completely lost respect for my manager, which wasn't how I wanted to end things. I would have probably continued to work for this company for an even longer time if things had been different.
