March 28, 2013 - buster
10 years as a Target slave
For Better or worse, I Q U I T Target!! If you are young and looking for a job to hopefully advance in a retail career….DON’T WORK FOR TARGET!!! Do anything else, there has to be SOMETHING BETTER!!
Let me warn those young in”s with my story! I signed up for Target for holiday help when I needed to find a second job working some nights and weekends. I am not a young kid but an adult—just needed some extra money for the houshold. I have worked many retail jobs in the past so bascially the job would require keeping the place clean, assisting customers and doing some lite cashier help when needed…no big deal….I chose Softlines because I worked more in clothing depts in the past.
BOY! were my eyes opened on my first day. Keeping the place clean….well I know customers can be messy but I was unprepared for some incidents. Teen gangs who came in high as a kite, throwing food on clothes—food on YOU!! purposely messing up your department and laughing at you as you picked up—-security? Oh Yeah! something goes wrong–call security! The mall cops may come over and talk to you..if not, they will call and tell you “to watch them and report if they steal” But they will do NOTHING to the teens as the walk out the door laughing and waving at people! assisting customers? …..First, Target requires you to act like some trained dog, by demanding that you approach the customer and say a ridiculous robotic saying “Can I help you find something?” And if they ever catch you NOT saying it, God help you—you get called into Personnel and some manager looks at you like a Nazi officer and degrades you because you were not “doing the Target way” of things. Closing time? Your schedule says 7:00 to !!;00 pm—-11:00 pm? FORGET IT! When you complete your job, putting back 9 carts of re-shop and straighting your dept to a fine neat (hide the diamonds) row and finger space hangers of clothing—you look at the cloock anf say “well my shift is finally over” My co-workers looked at me and burst out laughing! They let me in on the big secret and said that they lock the workers in until ALL departments were done. That means that you will stay until maybe 1:00 am or 2:00 am or until the managers see it fit for you to leave. They will lock the back door and turn on the alarm so that you don’t get out unless someone opens the door. They will give you the cock a manie excuse that “it’s for your own safety because we must leave together in that dark dark parking lot. Yeah right!
Raises? I was prepared for low pay but after working and busting my asss with sweat rolling down my Target approved red shirt–I received a “fair” job approval rating and my reward for my services was 10 cent raise…Oh I was more lucky than most—many received 5 cents or less (1 girl received a penny–no joke!–the reason, their budget didn’t have enough money–ha ha har de har har!) for busting their buns!
Red cards?–forget it! I don’t care how much they yelled at me about it–I didn’t put any effort into scamming customers into further debt. Beside when they thrust the applications at you, you weren’t trained with any answers like how much were they interest rates on the cards etc….just sign them up kid and maybe we’ll mention that you are a good worker to your collegues if you get more that 10 applicants….maybe you’ll get a $10 gift certificate—wow z woo woo!!
There is the usual back stabing and boot licking—some stores have it more than most. Some managers are…well…there souls are lost. They think like Target robots…MUST follow every rule and if not they hand write ups out like Grandma’s cookies and dump all the work on the poor saps that they know will do the work. Then there are the suck ups who would turn in their own mother just to get any type of palty reward and hope to move ahead. Usually the workers who received the most accomidations were the ones to watch out for. But the jokes on them because if they ever get to manager positions—some get betrayed by their own group of jackels —so I say “let them eat cake”
Cashiers…..I never understood why Target never hired any cashiers that were needed. While you were merrily breaking your back on the floor, you would receive a call to go to the check lines—if the manger ever caught you shirking your duty, you were written up or treated with “extra work” like a prisoner on a rock pile. But go you must and you were expected to do all your work in the meantime. So you ask innocently why they don’t hire more cashiers? They will moan that the store just doesn’t make any sales goals (even though the lines are out the door each nite with paying customers) to finance extra help.
Well, I endured all of this…Yes, I admit it–I needed the money (Mea Culpa) But finally I realyzed that I was not a spring chicken any more—my knees, and hands developed arthrittis. My mother started having strokes and need extra care. I know target was NOT going to be understanding whe n I told them–instead I was given extra work watched more carefully and Never NEVER permitted to lean or sit when my knees gave out. I finnaly saw that light….after 10 years…It’s time to go, I DID NOT want to be fired! So when I left, I felt like a kid getting out of school!
I am not going to end on an entirely sour note….There are very GOOD people working at Target…just working people trying to make a buck to pay the rent or buy their kids something extra for Christmas. I will miss them! and hope that the existing Target gods will be kind to them. But I will never ever want to work for something like that again and pray that the world of retail will not be heading into existing stores like that in the future—–God bless and Good Luck to All!
(1)Dislikes
(0)Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I do not know about your store, but as AP at my store, crap like that with kids does not fly here. I catch my fair share of crap for running kids out of the store when they are loitering, or just trashing the store, but the team members know that their zone has not gone to shit either.
Maybe I am one of the few good ones you speak of, because I bust my ass doing what I do. The so called "AP" at your store must not take any pride in what they do. Otherwise, they would be helping you guys out, because you are our extra eyes and ears out there.
I do agree that Target treats their employees like crap though. If you are well liked, you are more or less untouchable by AP, as they become impossible to fire, even when they commit theft! Especially if they sell a million RED Cards...
...I have done Loss Prevention for a lot of companies, so I have seen many retailers and how they treat their employees. It is abysmal how Target treats employees. Team my ass. You are a peon until they either fire you, make you quit, or brainwash you to be the next ETL.
I would have LOVED you working at my store--all I can reveal is it is in MD. Oh I do remember one AP guy that was not a slacker! He would love to catch crooks and unruly teens and chuck them out of the store, Guess he was too good. One day he was unhappy because they cut his hours---The last I saw of him was one day as I was clocking in--He was walking out muttering "This God Damn Hell Hole" I asked him what he meant but he just kept walking. I guess he finally had it. After he left I heard that we no longer had AP after 8:00 pm. Of course, all the kids got wind of the info and started pouring in after 8:00 pm and the fun really began!---the toy and sporting, and electronic depts were their favorites.
ETL's are jokes too for loss prevention--They will absolutely do nothing!
Funny, sounds about right. Cut the hours of the good AP until he quits. Heaven forbid someone give a damn about the other team members right?
Every shift I am there, I get asked by the team members, "when you gonna just become a cop and let this place burn?" I chuckle because they know I am just doing my thing until I do. I've helped those that shown me respect back find new jobs, by being a reference, etc.
I made some good friends that got out, and some are working hard to return the favor. It's almost an inside joke now because they know that store will lose more money than what it would have taken to keep the good team members in the store.
Oh well. Guess when the store goes bankrupt, the ETLs can say, but look how many RED Cards I sold!