I started working at Dillards after applying on an online job site. I was rushed through training, my register training was me checking boxes to say that I had been shown how to use the machines and being told to not worry, there were cheat sheets at every station. This was bad, two days of videos that were telling me to not watch customers for theft, but to watch other employees. I had no training on the register, I didn't even know how to close or open a register. The worst part about this is that I was hired as a counter manager in cosmetics, and still received no real training.
I was also told that there was no wait for benefits and I could apply for benefits on the Intranet at anytime, this was a lie. Benefits at my store could only be obtained during open enrollment. Open enrollment was offered twice a year.
I was hired at $12 per hour, after being on the floor for a few days I became aware that everyone was making different salaries. Part-time people that started after I did made more money, people that had been there for years were barely making minimum wage.
While I was employed for Dillards the rules changed daily. Breaks had to be approved by a manager and were only allowed during specific hours. If you worked the evening shift (12-9) your fifteen minutes could only be scheduled after working four hours, but before 6PM. Take into account that this shift has dinner break normally from 5PM-6PM. Your break could only be from 4PM-5PM, but we couldn't have a break close to our meal breaks. This left about thirty minutes available for a break.
The area managers were mostly awful. I was thrown under the bus several times by managers. On our registers, if we had a problem or something froze we had to call a manager. I had my register freeze several times. I would call a manager, they would come and hit a few buttons and leave. Then I would get a call from the assistant store manager asking why I hit a button on the register that I was not allowed to use. After explaining that a manager was called, and they used the button, I was called a liar because the manager (that had come to my register) said they were never at that register.
I was the counter manager for one of the top three cosmetic counters in the store and still had to answer to two business managers, my department manager, the assistant store manager, and the store manager. This meant that one manager could tell me to do one job and the next could tell me to do something completely different, and of course none of the managers would tell me to do the same thing.
The amount of stress by sales quotas is crazy. We had days with no sales at all at my counter, not even a customer stopping by. There was no way to make the goals set by the company.
Inventory was a joke. We were told if something didn't have a tag, just scan the next item twice. The scanners we used were old and some wouldn't even work, meaning that we would have to scan a department again. Also, if you work inventory you get a lot less hours.
We had the entry rule where even on our day off, we had to go through the employee entrance. This meant dragging a stroller up half a flight of stairs for me. The one time I got permission to use the main door with my stroller and my two small children was when it was pouring rain. Even then, the next day when I was working, I was questioned by my department manager and assistant store manager plus security.
There is so much customer theft. The security company didn't know the layout of the store which made it difficult to stop people from stealing from the kids department if they can't even find the kids department.
I don't shop at Dillards anymore, I would never work there again, I won't encourage people to work there. It was hell, I was allergic to a lot of the products I was selling and still couldn't be moved to another area in the store. There was so much backstabbing, gossip, overall crap to put up with at that store.
People are not treated like humans at Dillards.
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