Target Sucks - We Hate Target and We Know We're Not Alone.

October 9, 2014 - Lara Schmidt

Finally free of Target!

After six of the worst months of my life, I am finally free of Target.  Yesterday was my last day.

I lost my job a year ago, and I took one at Target at my husband’s insistence because we were in a bad place financially.  Although I was grateful for the extra money, the truth was,  I never wanted to work there because I instinctively knew it would be awful.  Where to begin with the awfulness?  I’ll try to be concise.

Although many of my co-workers were a joy to work with, an equal if not greater amount were miserable. I’m using “miserable” here as a euphemistic blanket statement because there were several strata of negative attitudes in my store. They included grumpy, aloof, shady, and belligerent. To top it off, I could tell that one or two of them wanted to physically hurt me. I had no idea why, as I was courteous to all my co-workers.

I felt pressured and antagonized into pushing Red Cards; most of the time, I refused to do it. It got to the point where a GSTL came up to me and said, “You came up on a report for not selling enough Red Cards, so I’m going to stand by you today and listen to your delivery.” I wanted to slap her. Sure, I thought, go right ahead and do that. I would enjoy being condescended to with the “help” given to me by your half-illiterate self while I am a Summa Cum Laude college graduate. Get real!

There was no continuity with my hours or schedule.  They scheduled me at will, and that was usually rough.  On more than one occasion, I would be scheduled from 3-11pm, then expected to come back at 8am the next day.  Uh, hello, shouldn’t you leave a twelve-hour gap between shifts?  How is a person to find time to sleep?  My sleep schedule was totally screwed up between alternately working both early and late shifts, and this left me feeling angry and depressed much of the time.

Customers — whoops, I should say “guests,” as a witchy GSTL insisted — were major assholes.  They were mostly polarized between the uncouth, scummy welfare leeches and the affluent stay-at-home moms.  Not a day passed that I wasn’t yelled at or condescended to by these creeps.  On one occasion, a lowland gorilla got violent because she thought I was going to deprive her of her $5 gift card.  All that carrying on for $5!  And the scary thing was that there was no way to signal security for help, as none were close by and all were too busy surveilling customers exiting and entering the store.  Even more annoying than the welfare trash were the SAHMs and being forced to endure their screaming, spoiled, ill-mannered children.  The SAHMs would prance through my checkout like princesses and put their noses in the air because THEY didn’t have to work.  I would get so pissed off at them.  They were without a doubt the most annoying type of customer, and that’s saying something.

The leadership at my store was a mixed bag.  The GSTLs were witches.  All of them.  However, by the end of my time at Target, they and I had more or less established a truce, and they left me alone.  Amazingly, the ETLs were mostly helpful and friendly.  They were among the few that I enjoyed working with.

Some of my co-workers seemed pretty energized by their jobs at Target.  They would do all the Red Card rah-rah and throw themselves into their work.  I didn’t understand how someone could get so hopped up over such a shit job.  It was pretty scary.

I knew Target would be a lousy gig, and I was right.  After I walked out of there for good, doing a happy dance the whole way, I told my husband to never again ask me to work at Target, even if we were living in a cardboard house and subsisting off peanut butter and crackers.  Those six months were the most hellish of my life.

Yesterday I didn’t ask a soul to open a Red Card, and it felt marvelous.

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Employee Experience / TargetSucks #cashier #unfair #redcards #ihatetarget #badleaders #anxiety #wanttoquit / #ihatetarget /

Comments

  • buttsforsale says:

    Doesn't it feel nice hitting the NOT INTERESTED button on the register when prompted?? It feels so good. Then I don't need to waste my time and the customer's time on something they don't want and likely don't need. It's...gratifying. c: like working a normal, every-day cashier job.

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  • ErikaA says:

    I feel you! I hated how much the pushed and pressured for us to get RedCards too, I faced similar problems. It's like if you have no power of a GSTL or above, they don't give a crap about you. My schedule was an inconsistent mess. The day I was done there, I was so happy

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  • rainprincess64 says:

    Screw the fucking red cards. Lately at my store people who have been there for several years are starting to get written up for lack of red cards. 2 were put on probation for no red cards who were there at least 5 years. This never happened until the new store manager came into the picture. Fuck this god damn place, I hope Tarshit burns into the ground soon enough. I'm glad they got royally screwed with Canada. Lets hope this trend passes the border!

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