I am writing to women who are looking for Mgt jobs in retail. Do not work for Charming Shoppes. They run Fashion Bug and Lane Bryants. I have numerous years of experience with retail mgt. I was out right lied to in the interviewing process. I was hired and given a store to manage with some incredible problems. Charming Shoppes sells women's clothing that are not very well made. They focus more on credit apps. Each store is assigned a very high number of credit apps, they are REQUIRED to get. If you don't reach your credit app goals another manager or dist/regional mgr calls you and berates you. Sales goals are NOT at all important if you meet these credit app goals.
The training process was a joke, I was set in a very tiny (closet) room with a group of VCR tapes to watch. I was pretty much left on my own. The internal back stabbing and fighting in this company is incredible.
The district manager I had was pushed to her limit and had an extremely negative attitude. I was expected to pay for employee incentives out of my pocket and any little balloons for decoration for all the "sales" (which we had EVERY weekend) we were expected to pay for ourselves. Managers must work every Friday and Saturday and there is no difference between the Manager, Asst Mgr, etc. I could only hire part time people. The full time people were often "pitted" against each other to report on co-workers, there was constant turmoil caused by the upper mgt.
In short, if you can keep from working for them, do it. I no longer work in retail, though I loved working with the customer. I am not a bum or slob, I am educated and currently have an excellent job not in the retail industry. Take care of yourselves ladies. Don't let them push you around.
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