December 20, 2012 - StuporTarget
Fired after driving through a blizzard to get to work.
I started working at Super Target in Lee’s Summit, MO 2 weeks ago. I was informed today at the start of the morning that I was getting moved from seasonal to full-time, days. I said okay. I haven’t missed a day nor have I ever been late. I’ve never refused to stay late to help them close either. I was always on task, 100% of the time. I came in at 5 in the morning. On different days I stayed until 1:30 in the morning. It didn’t surprise me I was getting moved to full-time, how many people are willing to get paid $9.00 an hour and work any varied monkey shift you throw at them?
Then, about 2 pm, another manager told me the 29th would be my last day. I said, oh really, what is going on? He said, well, you know, when you were hired you were hired as seasonal and that is ending. I said, okay, but today another manager told me I was going full-time, days. He said, well, um here, Derek in HR gave me this letter to give you. I said, ok, and opened it up. It just said the 29th was my last day and thanks for all your hard work, it was a form letter. It didn’t give a reason for termination. I said to the guy, come on, be straight with me, never missed a day, never late, what gives? The guy just started making awkward sounds with his voice, which I instantly read to be “I know but I can’t tell you”. I didn’t throw a fit and went back to work for the remainder of my shift.
I assume I was fired for 1 of 2 things. I was walking back to the market today and there was a box next to a cart that some other employee was stocking. I walked by it because it wasn’t my deal and went to work, after all, 8,000 pounds of milk was sitting in my cooler and not only do they not have the vendor put it in its spot, they don’t make him sort it either. I mean, if it were me I’d make the vendor stack the milk properly and put it in the right spot, but I didn’t give my manager any flack. I work out regularly and don’t mind throwing around 8,000 pounds of milk! So I get to work in the cooler and when I’ve got a full crate of milk in my hands this manager (I guess he was a manager, the name tags don’t say, but he is pissed so I’m assuming here…) says, Hi, I’m Jaime/Jason (I can’t remember, so many people bossing me around all the time lol) and sticks out his hand to shake my hand. So I play along and put the 32 pounds of milk in my left hand and shake his hand. He says, hey, back there you walked past a box on the floor and that was a potentially dangerous situation. I know you work in market, but I’d like you to think globally and pick it up next time, do you understand? He was standing about 1.5 feet from me (take a psychology class, personal space is 3 feet, buddy) and looking at me with these crazy eyes, like a father who has had enough of a child and a butt whipping is forthcoming. I told him I did understand. So he huffs and puffs away and I go back to my aforementioned giant heap of milk.
The other situation that I guess could have led to my firing was two nights ago I was working (until 1.30 am) and I hadn’t worked the sales floor/closing much. A manager told me at about 1 am to grab a cart of abandons and go run it. I said ok and went and got the cart and started working. About 20 minutes later a manager (assuming again) named Gisela came up to me. She doesn’t speak English fluently and always talks very quickly. This is a bad combination. She tells me hey is your walkie on? I said yes. She said, why didn’t you answer? I said, sorry, I can’t hear it very well, you guys have the music blaring overhead since the store is closed and I can’t hear it. She said, you need to have your walkie on. Anyway, when you got that abandoned cart you didn’t say who you were, how many carts are left and who is working with you. I said, okay, I didn’t know that and besides the manager Jaime just told me to grab it and run it so I did. She said yes but you didn’t blah blah blah. I said, okay I didn’t know, because nobody trained me on any of these things. She turned away from and started walking away and said okaythankyousir. She was speaking even faster than she normally does to show her contempt for me.
So that was my personal experience at Target. As you can see, it sucked. In the space below I’m going to inform people of other issues at Target that didn’t fit nicely into paragraph form.
1. They don’t train you at all. First week I was working on Sunday in the middle of the day in the toys section (hired for Market) by myself. Can you imagine working for a retail outlet that didn’t care enough about their toy section during Christmas to put one person who knew something about it or 2 total people?
2. There are millions of rules around Target. As per number 1 they don’t train you, so you will learn about these rules when one of the million managers (you can tell who the managers are, because they aren’t working as hard) comes up to you to scold you like a misbehaving child. This is how you learn their rules. Absolute submission is required, and you must cheerful accept your plight (as he said, do you understand?).
3. They will absolutely jerk your schedule around. Target policy says a person can be scheduled back at the store 8 hours after their shift ended. So if your shift ends at midnight (and you will have to stay 30 minutes late) you can be required to be there at 8am. I don’t know about you, but I need a minimum of 2 hours after work to wind down. I also need to eat twice before a morning shift and shower twice. I’ll have to get from my late shift home and then back to the store. I’m forgetting something here….Oh yeah, sleep! People should sleep 8 hours per day! I guess corporate policy doesn’t have time for my normal human requirements.
4. Tons of managers don’t do shit, yet they are everywhere. Some do work (Jamie and Amy did), but tons of them don’t. You will not even be notified who the managers are. You will learn (assume) they are managers when they come up to talk to you like a child about a rule you weren’t trained on. This will happen often. No consideration will be given to your lack of training, knowledge or number of offenses.
5. They will talk to you like a child, even when you haven’t made an error.
I could go on and on but others already have. I’ve read through this blog and can tell you the negative perception is deserved and I share the same other negative experiences others have had.
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The Real Person!
The Real Person!
I completely agree with you on #4. I have had some ETLs work at my store for several weeks before I realized they were my new ETLs. No one informed my team and the new ETLs never introduced themselves to us. Sometimes the new ETLs just walk past us without even saying hi.
I feel your pain. Your logistics ETL Kaitlyn used to be our GSTL up in Liberty and talk about useless. I feel your pain bro.
lol, I think it's great that some of the people mentioned on this site will be known across different stories. 🙂
HR makes all the decisions without talking to the actual leads.
Then they give the letter to whover is on that day to meet the deadline to stay green.
The lead you spoke to who wanted to keep you probably had no idea that you were getting the letter and assumed that his/her wishes were respected.
#3 doesn't even exist anymore. That means if you get out at 2 am you are still expected to show up at 8 am the next day. That isn't even the worst shifts I've heard of.
Before I got fired on Saturday, I was talking to one of the GSA's I actually trusted about being treated like a child all the fucking time. They do treat you like a child, and it's not fair!