Managers are terrified of everyone up the food chain, and let everything roll downhill because they have no spine. Employees get blamed for failing impossible tasks, nothing short of absolute perfection is acceptable. Issues are immediately reported to corporate (before the employee is even notified that there is a problem) and result in formal write-ups rather than being worked out on a personal level like reasonable adults. Everyone almost immediately develops a highly negative attitude toward our work and workplace as a direct result, and except for a hardy few out turnover rate is absurdly high for such a specialized job (our average hires in the last two years have lasted maybe four months, half of which is spent on training, before quitting or being forced to quit due to impossible scheduling).
Training is inadequate and severely outdated, contradicting more recent edicts from corporate. Some departments don't communicate and release conflicting information - information security training says all employee IDs must be visible at all times, but the employee dress code says that badges must NEVER be visible for one example (IS training and good practices are generally ignored by everyone in the store though, so no huge surprise there).
Rules seem to change almost on an hourly basis, are poorly communicated, and inconsistently applied (we're not allowed to have cell phones, but we are because we have to call to verify price matches and our competitors have caller ID and don't answer when we call on the store phones, but you'll still get yelled at for having one on you). System updates for software essential to our jobs are pushed with no notification or training on how to use the updated system, leaving us to try and figure out something we've never seen before (and remember, nothing short of absolute perfection is acceptable - if you screw it up, you'll get in trouble).
Equipment is poorly maintained, broken, or missing - essentials like staplers break and never get replaced (except by employees providing their own personal equipment), and toner runs out regularly. Generally things that cost money only get done when not paying for it prevents us from doing business or runs the risk of a lawsuit.
HR uses the "several six inch deep stacks" method of filing. It results in frequent lost documents, and specifically in my case resulted in a week of paid vacation being "lost" until I went and complained about my paycheck being about $400 short. Whenever you change your schedule (availability change, vacation, etc) you have to watch them like a hawk to make sure you don't get screwed over because they forgot to do their jobs. They blatantly violate state labor laws as well, requiring us to be obnoxiously familiar with the laws and call them on it. They won't risk a confrontation with the state over it and resolve the matter quickly, but as long as nobody's complaining they don't bother complying with anything that doesn't save them money.
Specifically with the firearms paperwork jobs, the added pay and experience mean you're extremely overqualified for non-management jobs at other types of retailers (like consumer electronics stores), but it's not good enough for office jobs unless you spend your time also working on a degree. It puts a relatively new worker with exclusively retail experience in a rough spot where forward advancement is impossible without a drastic change, especially since upward movement in a company this backwards is difficult (I can think of exactly one internal promotion to manager since I've been here, everyone else came from the orange big box hardware store).
