December 13, 2014 - tegrat
My two cents so far
On the 18th marks my first month at target as a seasonal cashier. Its been something else. First of all I applied on a whim, I know during seasonal time most major companies will hire almost anyone and this is my second time in seasonal. The first being Kmart. For me im just gonna say it. I get 9.50 and hour and +1.00 overtime. Anyone in any other position gets 10.50 apparently, We have a starbucks inside the target and the people there get 10.50, to pour coffee or heat up some sandwich or whatever. I chose cashier because I assumed ‘well the cashiers are half of what keeps everything moving so Id assume they’d make alittle more than floor’ apparently not.
The only pro I can give target is the POS system being very forgiving because either kmarts was just so ancient and most POSs are like targets. Simple mistakes can easily be fixed with a few clicks. On the the more definite points.
So my store is apparently the #1 target in profit and red cards, im not sure if its true or they pulled it out their asses but thats apparently the story. So when it comes to the amount of people, id say its fairly average besides rush hours. So upon orientation in the party there were around 29 of us all together and once I stepped in I had to go all the way to the back for the only empty seat, there was one woman explaining the process to us, it was pretty simple in terms of orientations go, but the professional level in between the lecture was so loose I feel like I was in a highschool class room. Not from the people being hired alongside me but of the actual employees. There were people walking in and out, stopping the woman in the middle of speech, joking sitting down joking at us and behind me was a partition that divided the current room with the break room in which they were apparently having a pizza party for the crazy amount of red cards they got. They were loud and cackling like hyenas making it harder and harder to hear. We had to ask them to quiet down ourselves. But once they were done with all the talk and showed us the two hour ridiculously outdated videos, the head security guy (Sorry I forget the abbreviations) comes in acting oddly lay back, not even explaining the procedures I knew cashiers had to know such as : making sure to check IDs during large gift card purchases, how to remove the spider alarms, or DVD/CD cases, How you have to check every pocket of everything, and to never directly approach someone and accuse them of stealing if you notice them slip anything inside any bag or pockets. Basic security procedures everyone should know.
After wards for some strange reason he was the one who had to give us the tour of the store. So one guy takes a group of 29 grown people. I might add he had a ridiculously light voice so If you werent the first 10 people in front of him you werent going to hear a thing. So he shows us the facility then takes us to the locker/clock room and literally only the first 10 people were able to get the information, and the same ten people always rushed in front giving no one opportunities to learn. All the lockers were totaled, falling apart. He didnt even bother to ask if everyone got to see. I had to take what I could and cross the bridge when I got to it.
So I assume my mismatched hours originally were a combo of me just starting and holidays. Also apparently not. My score is always high, at first it was around 70, but now I keep it way above 90 but my red card count is low because Im more concerned with the customer having a speedy check out because Idk about all of you but once im at a register I just wanna pay and leave with my stuff. So Id come in and one of the ETL(?) would come up ask me what time I leave and go “Alright you can do 8 cards before your meal” While theres two kinds of people the ones who dont want cards and the people who already have cards. I wasted time asking at first making every score go low and no cards. Now I dont ask because it slows down efficiency for me at least.
One other issue is im not sure if its just me or some sort of discrimination but there is a guy who was hired in the same party as me, Hes slower than me and messes up more than me, hes gotten maybe two more red cards than I have. I occasionally double-up with him and he explains his situation. I have less than 30 hours these past three or so weeks. while he explained he wanted a monday but the system wouldnt allow him because he would exceed 40 hours. Getting 8 hour shifts while on my schedule it seems they try so hard to make sure not to hit the 8 hour mark going as far as to make sure to hit numbers like 11:15pm or 7:45pm while the hours would be shy of around 20 minutes to complete the 8.
One other issue is the ETLs(? still not sure of the roles) who are a bunch of pompous assholes with a mightier than thou attitude. I think out of all of them only one rubs me the right way, while the rest I dont even know whats up with them. I might interpret it wrong but it seems like they’re just overly exaggerated line directors who help people with issues that were as simple as ‘read the sign’. For us we never get change, they just tell us what we already know and walk away before hearing the issue and tell us to do things like red cards. and then stand in a spot with three others chit chatting. I observed as closely as I could so I wouldnt be an ass assuming these things but seriously this is all they do. And theres one that im not sure if she doesnt like me but she would literally just pull me from my line to send me to reshop the dollar section randomly and without reason. She once sent me there and I was standing there re-shopping for 6 hours. Id remind them id need a break card and they’d say ‘alright im be right back with that’, Ill remind them another three times before you know it Its time to go home. To the point that i could literally stand in one spot doing nothing and they wouldn’t even notice. Id go 2.5 hours after blinking my lights and reminding I needed change cause I ran out of 1, 5, 10, pennies and quarters.I cant get the money myself. We even ended up running out of medium bags, while mostly everyone was buying a combo of groceries and toys.
Being a diligent worker, Id nod and accept it because its my job, but my job didn’t entail NOT BEING ABLE TO DO SAID JOB PROPERLY BECAUSE OF AN EXTERNAL PROBLEM WHICH THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO HELP WITH, Im pretty sure if I were to be thrown into their position, id be able to do it more efficiently, while they dilly dally, id earn what Id deserved. So yeah, thats a bit of what I got so far in only a span of around 3 or so weeks.
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you could always try buying change from another cashier if they have change left or buy change from another till that's unused. As long as the till balances out it doesn't matter.
Yup that is Tarshit, training is unprofessional. At ours the give minimal hours to training and tell seasonal to skim the lesson plans and assign team members to be "trainers" without any pay difference
Sounds like me. Although I never get to go anywhere, stuck at the lanes all the time, doing nothing but cashier. It's like freaking a, I want to do something else like stock shelfs with the cart of gun and candy sometimes too damn it. The job is relatively easy though with hi, ok paper cool, bag beep beep bag, oh cool team member discount or red card great, you saved $3.00 today, have a good day. Do that 200 times a day pretty much and than go home. Oh and of course ask for red cards if you don't see them using it already. Although yes, the GSTLs, guest service team leads are the laziest aholes ever, talk talk talk with same guests who come in, help out as service desk more than cashiers who need money and guests disputes about prices. At my store there are a million guest disputes a day, no no this vacum was 50 back there, why is it 200? That's wrong, give me it 50. NO NO NO WAY! Same thing always happens, I politely tell the guest, that's too much of a price difference for me to change mam, I'm sorry but that value has to be determined by supervisors if your right or not. If she yells again I say I must follow the rules of $10 dollar difference I can personally change on the computer, any higher and I must ask supervisor or management. If she yells again, I say again mam it's the rules of Target all cashiers have been given at this store and I must follow rules or I can lose my job in the loss of money over product. The reason everyone lies and/or gets the prices wrong is either because of wrong placement on shelf just one over or way over in wrong area and most people are poor in the area I work in. Overall, you get use to it all and just one day wake up and realize, well this job sure sucks everyone yelling at me everyday for no reason, I'm just a poor sap working for a rich guy, but overall not a bad job and it's not hard, just gotta take some shit.