Low pay, dishonest managers, strong fear culture with unattainable goals
Pros
The discount was good at 40% off. It was enjoyable to put together outfits. There is not really much else that is good about this company at the store level.
Cons
For one thing, the pay starts out just above minimum wage for regular employees. The turnover rate is very high. There is no training whatsoever. We had a dress code requirement of wearing 6 items or more. I got scolded for not wearing enough *when they never told me to begin with*. They are very quick to fire people who don't make quotas. If you miss your goal three times (red dot), you get fired. If you make above your goal, you get a gold star sticker. That's it. A sticker on your quota sheet. No commission. No bonus. I guess we're supposed to be satisfied with not getting fired. On top of this, they have a ridiculous influx of shipments. Twice a week we would get 6+ boxes full of clothes, have to dress the mannequins, change up the floor etc. Twice a week. So on top of the fear culture, we were given unattainable sales goals, especially the managers even though they had much more administrative work to do than the employees. There were no hours given to us to work on the displays outside of business hours but we were often only given enough hours to have two people on the clock at one time. They always wanted someone working the floor at the front, at the register, and monitoring the dressing room. How we were supposed to have two people cover three areas at all times is beyond me. On top of this, they couldn't understand why our store had high theft rates. Other than our mall being a high theft mall anyway, they wouldn't give us enough payroll to cover the floor! People would steal sales from each other when things got desperate because of the fear culture instilled by this company's policies. I even had a promotion stolen from me. The DM wanted me to be promoted to assistant manager. I waited 8 months and kept checking in. There were two more managers that came in and out of the store during that time. I asked the last one before I quit and she claimed she never heard anything about it even though I know for a fact she was spoken to by at least two other store managers about promoting me. As soon as I quit, she promoted her friend that stole sales. So not only was I denied a position by nepotism, I was also denied a pay raise because that is the *only* way you get any kind of raise in this company. As soon as I found another job that could at least match their bad pay, I left in a hurry. I don't shy away from hard work and I prefer jobs that keep me busy but if there is actually no benefit to doing so (bad pay, bad coworkers, bad management, dishonest practices etc.) then I don't want that job.