I warn all people never work for this company! I was employed with them for 13 months before my DM terminated my a few days before Christmas. Mind you I never violated any company polices. I was threatened before hand that I should quit or I would be fired. The weeks leading up to my termination I had double digit increase vs. Previous years sales. Any normal company would consider this a good thing.
In the time there I had 3 DMs, the first two were nice people who had worked for the company for years. The last one was a new hire with a chip on his shoulder. I knew there was going to be an issue with him his second week on the job when I over heard him talking on his cellphone while he was on his cellphone wandering the store. He was talking about how things were going to change and that I was one of them.
After this he started writing me up for any minor issue in the store. Examples shopped areas in the store not 100% faced (hard to do when there is only one cashier and a manager in the store who spend 80% of the day trying to ring all the customers), employee out of dress code (I was growing a beard, and not wearing a santa hat cause the ones we sold gave me a rash, both of which not violations of company policy), delivery not processed in 48 hrs (hard to do when not given hours to stock, the dm pulling staff to do non-delivery tasks, and delivery arriving 5 pm thursday and being written up 39 hrs later at 8 am) it was completed at the 46 hr mark. Of course a close look at all of the stores in his district would not be able to survive this lvl of scrutiny.
Complaints to the HR department about this harassment were ignored who's job is to protect management not prevent inappropriate behavior. I know since my DM had me get rid of employees he personally did not like with the help of HR. A common way was if you wanted to get rid of an employee schedule them when the show up or shortly before send them home because it is not busy. Of course you still need an employee so you call another employee to cover the shift just have them start 30 min after the other employee goes home. Another way is constantly adjust the hours they are scheduled, 8 hrs one week, no hours the next week, 4 hrs the week after, no hours the following week. Eventually they quit cause no one can survive on $20 a week after taxes. Another way was to short or over their tills yourself, I know a local still employed manager who told me to do this. I did report this behavior and as you can tell just hastened my termination.
When I was hired it was explained that I was salary and at time would have to work beyond the paid 45 hrs. While I worked there I was doing an average of 70-90 hrs a week, now this is well beyond those hours. There was also the issue of days off, if lucky I got two a month, I even had to work 83 days in a row after they fired my assistant for stealing. After complaining still did not get help from DM. Who had to approve the weekly schedule before sending it to the regional manager who job is to also check to prevent from going over hours as well as to make sure managers are working nights and weekends.
As you can see avoid working for this company as much as you can. I should have know at the regional meeting when we 80% of the people in the room had worked for the company less than a year, I should have started looking for a new job. The sad part is a store training manager and old friend of mine who had been one of the few people I knew who had been there for 5 years, had been considering suicide after this DM started going after him because he could not deal with being fired.
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