I started out in October of 2020 and things weren’t great from the start. Inventory has been consistently bad pretty much since I started, some days giving us no options to send to clients, especially plus size clients. If the customers could see the inventory we had access to, NO ONE would use stitch fix. The system was often down, not allowing us to style for hours or days at a time. At the beginning of these issues, we were guaranteed to be paid for 15 hours regardless of whether or not we could style. However, that was quickly taken away. We were told to move our hours when the system was down, even if it was down for days at a time, not allowing us to finish our hours or get paid. We were told to check the system constantly and wait for it to come back on. They would also have issues with running out of fixes, so if we ran out the day we just couldn’t work anymore, and you had to move your hours to a different day or not get paid, even if that wasn’t possible for most stylists. Even if the system worked or we could pull fixes, the inventory got even worse, if that was even possible, after 5pm, making it virtually impossible to style past that time. Then they had part time stylists choose an hourly tier, anywhere from 15-25. I opted into 20 hours and my mom who was also a stylist opted into 15. We were almost never given our full hours, and my moms tier was very often given as little as 5 hours per week. While we had to set our schedules in advanced, we had no idea how many hours we’d actually be working until the weekend before. We were also told randomly one day that we could not longer work sunday or monday until further notice. The inventory options were genuinely laughable and not to mention the fact that their advertising is literally all lies. We do not have the inventory you see in their ads. I very rarely see pieces I recognize and if I do, they are usually Luxe items, costing around $200-$300. Clients would often request items from ads or from their pinned boards, which stitch fix allows clients to put together, but we never ever had that stuff. It was a miracle if I could find a plain white shirt. I wish I was kidding. Meetings were pointless and were an hour of talking in circles and avoiding questions. My lead was great but it was obvious that she wasn’t told much more than us. My mother was audited, thankfully I didn’t have to deal with that, but they criticized the fixes she sent out, telling her she should have sent a different item or done this or said that. It’s infuriating because we are doing the best we can with the terrible support and inventory that we have access to, and we can’t send them good fixes! It’s literally impossible to send good fixes most of the time. They would put it on us, telling us to do our best and do what is client right and glossing over the fact that the company isn’t doing what’s client right! Stitch Fix punishes you for what you do wrong but never praises you for anything. Constant changes to the structure of the job in addition to poor inventory make it stressful. Every change took away flexibility and forced stylists to quit. These changes were never given with any notice, often telling us of them a few days or the day of the change. They introduced new structures and changes constantly without even working on the major issues they already had. An example of this is introducing fix preview, which allowed clients to select up to 10 items from a selection chosen by the stylist. This was introduced while many many issues were present. It’s like they ignored issues in favor of introducing changes. Then they took away part of our job from us by allowing their (terrible) algorithm to select the items for the fix preview. These items were often sent to clients we had relationships with and never matched their style. The computer would often select crazy stuff, like 10 jackets to preview in the middle of june, or 10 pairs of $100 leggings. The most recent change was the biggest slap in the face. I quit the week before it was announced and thankfully started a new job but my mom has told me the gist. Basically, Stitch Fix ripped the rest of the promised flexibility away from stylists by forcing stylists to commit to 20 hours a week and schedule these hours in advance down to the minute. We used to just fill out our schedules with how many hours we were planning on working that day. They have the ability to give stylists as many hours as they feel like each week with no notice. So, even though stylists commit to and schedule 20 hours down to the minute they will work them, they could be given as little as 5 to actually work that week. They also cut down the hours stylists can work and are claiming it is so that they time for “live styling,” where a client participates live in the styling process somehow, another new thing that won’t work, if anything it will just further expose how awful the inventory is. Stitch Fix just loves to make new changes and ignore all their major issues. They gave a $1000 incentive for employees to quit. But, the number of people who can get this “bonus” is limited and they won’t tell you if you will receive it until you already quit. They obviously just don’t want to pay unemployment. Even with all these issues, we never got any answers. Stylist feedback was not wanted and ignored. No one ever seemed to know what was going on, even the people who were supposed to in charge. I honestly can’t wait to see this company fail, because they will if they continue to treat their employees this way. My moms lead denied that it was a layoff (even though it is, what else do you call forcing stylists out of their jobs?) and deletes any comments about issues going on even within the private team chat. It’s sad, because this job could have been really fun. I definitely put in more work that I should have based on how we were treated as stylists. I would hold fixes for days at a time to match requests or clients style, but this was also my only job so I COULD do that. I really don’t see how anyone could do this job full time. It was stressful because we were constantly sending bad fixes and it made me sad, I cared about my clients and wanted them to be happy but I was forced to send them bad pieces. My mom decided to quit and I’m glad I quit, too. I was lucky to have another job waiting, most people do not. Katrina Lake, the founder, is probably crying.
