Michaels reviews

- Despite the fact that my Managers are great people, they aren't very good at communicating new information to us. I sometimes found out about new promotions and policys over the sound system that's supposed to just inform customers. Sometimes the system says "see a store associate for more details" and, honestly, I wouldn't know anything because it was never explained even minorly. -The hours are absolutely wacked. I'm getting more hours now but I was once given only 4 hours a week for a month. Some are still in that position. My hours this week have been 9am-2pm. 5:30pm-9:30pm. 5pm-9:30pm. 12pm-6pm. I can't really plan anything in my personal life because the hours are so weird! And we only have a heads up a week before, makes it hard to keep track of when you have work too. -When I'm working, I'm typically on the floor. I usually work close and so far the most people i've had working that shift with me is three. one on the floor, one on resister, one closing manager and one person in framing. It's really really hard to recover the floor, take customers to products, and put back returns when your on resister helping out with the busy lines. I typically have a 30 or a 15 minute break but I almost never take it because theres just so much to do! -There are so many design flaws in the store. There are only two sizes of bags and the biggest one is not big enough to hold some of the medium sized merchandise in the store. The bags are also too thin and I find myself double bagging almost everything. The counters are way too small as well and the resisters are flipped into all kinds of crazy directions which causes confusion for the customers. The aisles are too small and some of the aisles aren't numbered which makes it really hard to direct customers to places. -The new Store of the Future cut some really good people. One person in particular should have gotten the new position but instead she was demoted and someone else, who didn't deserve it frankly, got the job. Whoever did the hiring process obviously didn't talk to anyone who knew their choice for the position. We all would have recommended someone else.

After they were bought in about 07/08 it became a nightmare place to work, which showed drastically in their declining sales. They instituted computer-only scheduling software which consistently made mistakes (no supervisors to open, or too few people to close on a weekend, not honoring availability schedules, etc). Employees were treated like criminals. Uniforms were instituted (which is fine), but changed every few months, leaving min wage individuals to be responsible for buying an entire new wardrobe. They started a "point system" where 6 points got you fired immediately. You got points for clocking in early, or clocking out late. Yet you HAD to leave your apron on and assist customers while walking back to the timeclock, which would then cause you to be punished for clocking out late. Not to mention uncontrollable reasons. A worker once got a point because there was a tornado which caused him to be late. You also got points for calling in sick EVEN with a doctor's note, and EVEN if you were full-time with sick day pay (though I've since heard that's been changed). If you were sick for two days, you got a point for EACH day! The Store Manager at my store left when the company got bought out because he hated all the changes. The new Store Manager they put in after him didn't talk to anyone beyond his Assistant Managers and didn't know anyone else's names. He sat in the office all day and only came out for smoke breaks. He once called my dept, got me, then asked for my manager so he could tell HER something to tell ME. He's still the manager there. I'm glad I got out when I did. The company that now owns Michaels only bought it to flip it. They put in a new CEO ever so often who "shakes things up" rips out what the previous (and now fired) guy did, and enacts his own inane, useless rules trying to pick up the bottom line for his own bonuses. Employee morale is at a ridiculous low. They've been put through so much crap with no benefit to themselves that they just don't care anymore. I once heard someone say they sat on a conference call where the big boss told all the barely above minimum wage workers to bring him more sales because "I want a good bonus this year!" Just recently they made all the stores "fire" and "re-interview/hire" all their employees in a sort of employment musical chairs. Don't take a job here unless you have absolutely no choice.