March 1, 2013 - TheDarkKnight18
Am I crazy?
Okay, this will probably be a long post, because I’m listing off everything I’ve personally experienced at the Target I work at, bear with me, they will be a tl;dr (Too Long; Didn’t Read) at the bottom.
I was first hired in September as a flow team member, I had no idea what that was, being fresh out of high school and desperately needing a job I took it. The person who hired me told me “Oh, you’ll just be moving a few boxes around in the morning” seemed easy enough.
Keep in mind I was a long and lanky guy, with no muscle at all.
It’s a descent job, I unloaded the truck, bowled out the boxes (THROWING them into the correct isle) cut open the boxes, and put the product on the shelf. All from 6 am to about 10 or 11am. The bad part is, I needed sleep for this job, and when i slept is when my friends were ready to hang out. Personal problems right?
Fast forward to mid-december, busiest time of the year for everyone in store. Our Flow Team Lead hurts himself and won’t be back until late January. I’m not knocking him for that, the accident wasn’t his fault. I am knocking him for the lady he left us with, she was second in command, wasn’t a problem there, then she was moved up to temp Team Lead. There was never a minute you couldn’t hear her yelling at us, even across the store people could hear her, she chased guests away and we even had two or three people quit because of her.
I didn’t like being yelled at either, I found out a position had opened up for an Electronics Team Member, I jumped at the chance, no one else wanted the position and I was in good standing, excelling at being a Flow Team Member. So they hired me.
The first time I was thrown back there was Christmas Eve, and I kid you not, I was the only person back there. I had received no previous training back there, at all. I didn’t even know how to unlock a spider-wrap. They literally gave me the keys said “You’ll learn as you go, if you have any major problems let us know, and have fun.”
One of the worst nights of my life, people wanted games, iPads, earbuds, movies, and I had no idea what I was doing, people became impatient and left, and got angry and yelled.
Since then I was trained from time to time, whenever it was convenient, by a lady I’m sure hates me. I never said or did anything (I think) that upset her, but from day 1 she’s more critical of me than everyone else.
Fast forward again to mid-january I didn’t show up for a day at work because i looked at my schedule wrong. My fault. But I didn’t get a phone call or even an attempt at any type of notification that I worked that day from anyone in the store. Whereas this slacker doesn’t show up for work and they make every attempt to call him, text him and email him like nuts. Not one phone call to me. At all.
I was (might still be) on a 30 day probation period for that.Fast forward once more to the beginning of February, New girl is hired. Takes slackers place. Never had any problems with casing blurays before. She shows up, and I find tons and tons of blurays that should have been cased (all blurays must be cased) and blurays that are cased in the back stockroom. Which they shouldn’t be. Ever. I mention it to one of the backroom guys to see if it’s someone elses fault before i confront her. they say it might be instocks or just some guy seeking LOD love. I’ll get back to why this is a problem later.
I have a friend that constantly visits me at work so the other day i have a sandwich I wanted heated up, and it’s lunch time, so I invite him into the break room, (he’s been back there multiple times, everyone knows him) and he’d be lonely. I’m in there for two minutes when the trainer that I’m pretty sure hates me clocks in and see’s him, then escorts him out, and gives me a slap on the wrist for it, I thought it was over.
A few weeks later I catch a pretty nasty case of the flu, I mean nasty. I won’t go into details about it, but I wasn’t able to stay standing on day one. So I try to tough it out on day two and go to work, so people won’t hate me, but I’m unable to preform my duties without sitting down every ten minutes, I request to go home, water under the bridge. They scramble over themselves to find someone to cover me so I can’t get anyone else sick.
Couple of days ago I was called in to the LOD’s office, I’m certain they’ve seen me texting on whatever day and they’re going to fire me (does target even have a no-texting policy?) I walk in and see a manila envelope, I’m 100% certain I’m going to get fired. This is it, and I brace myself. He empties the envelope, and starts reading off all the wrongs I’ve done in however many days. I had an unauthorized guest in the break room, I clocked in for lunch 1 or 2 minutes late on these dates, I’m not zoning right (keeping the shelves nice and pretty, no one taught me how to in the first place), I preformed oral gossip (the backroom guy told the LOD that the thing I said about the new girl was gossip I don’t see how but okay) I’ve been rude to x and y guests that never exsisted, the list goes on and on, then he asks me to return to work and that I’m on a 30 day probation period. When I’m already on one. What?
So I guess the question is why didn’t he fire me? I had so many strikes against me that I would’ve lost a baseball game, Are they trying to collect more dirt on me or are they legitimately giving me a second chance? Is all of this stuff wrong to everyone and i’m the only one who thinks it’s okay or not my fault?
TL;DR I went from unloading boxes to an electronics expert job in about 3 months. I had so many things I was doing wrong that wasn’t my fault because I wasn’t trained properly. They blame me for it but haven’t fired me yet, any reason why?
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If your Target is anything like mine, they're so disorganized they never keep track of probations. If you're a good worker, they likely don't care if it isn't something serious like stealing. All the strikes they have against you are just excuses for them not to give you a raise.
We're not disorganized that much, but we definitely aren't the most organized. I don't care about a raise as much as getting weekends off. And besides this is a temp job and they know that, I'm going to school out of state next semester.they know they're disposable, and I'm not exactly disposable.it takes a lot of time and resources to train another electronics team member.
My Target would NEVER fire ANYONE. They would just make their lives a living hell until they quit. Occasionally they would wait until they were late or didn't show up and call them and tell them to just not bother coming in anymore and not document it. Then when they didn't show up for work, they would THEN document it as a "voluntary termination". A friend of mine was pretty buddy buddy with the DTL(they did dog shows together) and she said it was to avoid any issues with employees trying to collect unemployement. Granted, I don't think you can collect if you've been legitimately fired for something you did seriously wrong, but they just don't want to risk it at all. They'll make their life hell, or try to trick you into not showing up(they would also sometimes change the schedule on people without letting them know first).
My location didn't have the balls to fire me, even though at the end of my time with them I had missed quite a few days. All of which were accidental, as I was sleep deprived (and actually held another job) -- until the very last day that I was scheduled. I worked the trucks my last seven weeks, so I had to be up way early. I overslept July 3rd, and by the time I got up, there was no point in bothering that morning. Then I realized that Target wasn't worth it. It never was worth it. So I went about my usual routine that day, with my other job, and then stayed up late, until about the time I would normally wake up -- 3AM -- before passing out. Woke up at 6, then fell asleep again. Then I woke up a little later, went to Target (two hours after I would have clocked out) and went to the office to tell the manager that I was done. That was the 4th of July.