Very demanding - Sales Associate Carter's Employee Review

I worked for the company for about four years and it became very demanding. It felt like corporate was constantly coming in telling us what we weren't doing right. They demanded things from us that we literally did not have the tools for. I can't stress how much they expected from their employees. Very customer-focused store. If getting people to sign up for the mailing list is not your forte, then don't bother working here because you WILL get fired if you can't keep up. TONS of marketing changes, every week. Sometimes we didn't have what we needed to do the changes. Back room was ridiculously small. We couldn't get shipment done properly. We were overloaded with things we didn't need. It was impossible to keep it organized but corporate would come in and get angry at us for not keeping things neat. Customers were either really nice or really rude. It's difficult working in a store that caters mostly to small children because they get food EVERYWHERE and the screaming takes a toll. There is basically no security in the store, especially if you are located in a rural area. We would get things stolen all the time, but we could never do anything about it other than annoy the shoplifter. When we would have inventory, corporate would be irritated with how much was getting stolen, but they did not want to put in money for extra security in rural areas (sensors, cameras, etc.). The whole time I worked there, I only received a twenty-something cent raise. I was told it was based on my yearly job performance, so I assumed that management thought I was incompetent. The company wants an extremely energetic environment, with very peppy, almost fake employees. I am a non-confrontational, easygoing person and could not keep up with their ridiculous sale-driven demands. I genuinely liked my co-workers but we competed for hours a lot. The store was constantly hiring new people with very specific availability (or high school kids) and if your job performance that week was less than perfect (i.e. mailing list percentage!), then you didn't get hours. There were weeks I didn't get any hours at all. There were employees there that had just been hired getting paid more than me when I had been there several years longer. It was terrible. I liked helping customers and I think I left a lot of them satisfied, but the upper management will always find something to not like about you and your store, and you are basically left feeling inadequate.