September 22, 2013 - Overheated
Roasting alive and nitpicking
My first complaint is having two days sliced off my schedule because “we’re not making sales but September will be better.” September rolled around and instead of giving veteran workers more hours, they hired a ton of new guys. Our hours still aren’t up. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have us work longer and NOT hire new people? I’ve been working with Target off and on since 2006. When I went to college and came back, there was no reward for higher education, only “starting wage”. I never saw a raise. Ever.
Alright, now for the rest. Because I went to college, I know what the Americans with Disabilities Act is. Well I have hypoglycemia. That is a disability. The heat I have to deal with, without air condition is not reasonable accommodation. This store I work at has such intense heat, that it exceeds working outside in the sun. They kept talking about fixing the air condition, and “emailing those guys hard”, but nothing’s ever fixed. So I have to fight myself to keep from passing out as I work. Even after my 15 minute break, high heat evaporates sugar from the blood pretty quickly. With such discomfort, I have spent years learning how to keep my boiling blooded anger under control. I’m a pretty chill guy with all of that meditation. But this heat can make me impulsive.
Also, I have an eye condition and there are rarely PDAs which I can make use of to find second locations. My lack of ability to see merchandise’s second locations has been reprimanded in verbals. Those are just the sprinkles they add onto these ridiculous verbals. And.. yet another lack of reasonable accommodation. Well I’ve been taken into the office for verbals quite a few times. The first was when there were broken mirrors in a box and I cut my hand on the sales floor. I let out a “Son of a!” but then cut it off because I knew I shouldn’t cuss. It was impulsive, but I stopped it. There were no “guests” around at the time. They took me into the office anyway. I wasn’t being “brand”, and there “might’ve been guests”. I did not cuss. The second time was because they noticed me moving faster on the line. This is when my Flow TL yells. “MOVE FASTER”. So I do. Apparently that’s bad. Between that and tearing open empty boxes, I’m being “too rough with the merchandise” even though I don’t break anything and empty boxes don’t have FEELINGS. But what can I say? I’m being roasted alive, and the heat that’s boiling my blood makes me impulsive. It’s not like I’m lifting merchandise high above my head and smashing down as hard as I can. IF I DID THAT, that would be an anger problem. I just move faster. Apparently I still “have an anger problem”.
The third verbal was because as I was pulling a heavy pallet, there was a shopping cart in the middle of the isle. With one hand controlling the pallet-jack and the other hand free, I used the free hand to shove the shopping cart aside as the heavy pallet was basically propelling me. That of course meant I had an anger problem, for moving a shopping cart. No it didn’t fall over, but two TLs noticed. They freaked and shouted at me, dancing around like those monkeys in zoos that go crazy when they see a human. My TL took me into the office for that. For moving a shopping cart. And then she layed the whole “being rough with boxes” and “not being brand” thing on me again. To the contrary, I help customers(/guests) during my very short shift. I walk them straight to the merchandise they ask for every time and always go check the backroom if what they want isn’t there. But I’m still not “brand enough”.
So with these new team members, comes some aggravation. I’m so nearsighted I’m nearly blind, but I can still legally drive a car. For some reason people with perfect sight can’t seem to point things out. I ask these guys where something is at the line, in the backroom, and they told me the complete opposite side. After I walk all the way to the middle, someone else tells me “No, the flat’s over here.” Right over the line. So I leapt the line. It was impulsive. I didn’t even think about it. There was another TL that witnessed me do that, reprimanded me right there, and I apologized and told him “it was impulsive, sorry I didn’t know you shouldn’t do that”. He says “okay” and I finish my shift and then go home. See, since 2006 I have never been told not to do that. I’ve been told not to stand on pallets, but never that. That’s on them.
So the reprimand happened. You’d think that was enough, but no. Today, TWO DAYS LATER the guy calls me into the office near the end of my shift and informs me it’s also a write-up, despite the fact he reprimanded me two days ago. I was pissed off after all the petty nitpicking reasons they brought me into the office for before, so I refused to sign. RTS. I wasn’t born yesterday. If they terminate me I’m not signing those papers either, but I will file a lawsuit for all the times they discriminated on my eyesight and never fixed the air condition despite the extreme discomfort of hypoglycemia.
By the way, that’s just this store. If I was to wax poetic about all the times I’ve been held against my will past my shift (federal kidnapping) in other stores, discriminated against, have been threatened by team members with boxcutters, and other such nonsense: that would take up the entire page of this website. My paychecks are around $156 for two entire weeks. That’s ridiculous. Fry chefs make more than that. I’m not sure if I should wait it out and let these guys give me more legal fuel to file charges, or just give them two weeks’ notice.
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With your health condition problem of hypoglycemia, you should just quit, but if you want to remain on good status with social security and government, 2 weeks notice of course. But overall, they are being complete assholes to you. In fact, I've had incidents of guests yelling at me and I screamed back once. Mostly I smile and say I'm sorry this coupon doesn't qualify for what you bought and I'm sorry but I will show you what I mean, I can not give you some off because you think it was a different price or deserved a certain coupon. Still they want the GSTL. Same thing, can't accept. I've gone fast as hell on lanes, not fast as in breaking, but fast to get it going. Didn't get in trouble, gathered a better G score. I'm surprised they pull you that much. Overall, if your only qualified to work part time due to your health restrictions, just quit because any job can be better than them.
I have only cashiered a couple of times but those were both bad situations. It doesn't matter how nice you are or how much you greet "guests". They're typically pissed off by the time they arrive at the checklanes as opposed to being docile on the sales floor. It makes sense to me. I don't blame them. Target's high prices are finally starting to sink in.
I agree with viciousdave, after all you've been through you should definitely leave. However, if you are going to pursue legal action make sure you have as much documentation as possible. This means documenting verbal reprimands/conversations, obtaining copies of write-ups/injury reports, documenting instances that violate the ADA, etc. The more you can get to support your argument, the better.
Another thing you could try is contacting your local Labor and Industries office, contacting the USDoJ Civil Rights Division (http://www.ada.gov/) or the Job Accommodation Network (http://askjan.org/) for help. What they're doing is clearly a violation of the ADA (and is most likely illegal), especially if they're ignoring your requests for accommodation.
How do you document verbal reprimands? Is audio recording permissible in court for this situation? I suppose I could write down what they covered when they reprimanded me. Or maybe copy what I typed up there ^
Pretty sure audio recordings are against the law unless you have the consent of all parties involved, so written/typed records of the Five W's (who, what, when, where and why) - as close to verbatim as you can get - are best.
I also work at Target with a disability, a mental illness, and I have also looked to pursue ADA violations against Target.
The first thing is you have to make sure they know you have a disability. Either talk to HR or bring in a doctor's note. When I was reprimanded because my symptoms don't always make me the cheeriest person I simply said I don't want to talk about my medical history and said I would do the work to the best of my ability. I asked to talk to HR about it but nothing ever materialized.
Then you have to make sure it is because of your disability that they are discriminating against you or if they don't give you reasonable accommodations like extra breaks, allowing you have water on the sales floor, or putting you but a fan they are violating the ADA.
Because of my disability I was demoted from electronics and sales floor all together and stuck at cashier which is probably the worst position for me.
After the ETL that demoted me quit I was asked by a Senior TL if I wanted more sales floor shifts and of course I said yes and that is where I preferred to be.
I started getting sales floor shifts maybe once a week after that. I later found out from listening in on the STL talking to my TL that he didn't think I was productive enough to be on the sales floor and that the TL had to monitor me to make sure I wasn't wasting time.
I also found out my original offense was "not talking on the walkie enough" and "not participating in all the core roles."
I don't what the fuck that means because I talk on the walkie when I'm called or if I need help and I didn't ever not finish my zone or finish ALL the reshop for my area.
I worked electronics full time at another Target for five months before I got hired here and I never had a problem. In fact the whole leadership team loved me and I was the first person they called when they needed a shift filled.
I used to finish my zone a good hour before the store closed and used to help others finish their zones so we could get out right when the store closed instead of staying the extra half hour to finish.
At my store they recently hired four new people for the sales floor and they are the ones who are getting the hours while I'm stuck as a cashier.
If this was a union store I would have never been demoted in the first place and I'd probably be a lot happier with my situation.
Oh they know. Everything they take me in the office for is either vision or hypoglycemic irritability. I'm not even rude or very talkative and when I do speak it's courteous. They're just looking for reasons. Yeah I remember the whole anti-union propaganda video when I signed on to Target years ago. It was all lies. Only made-up excuses to keep employees from banding together and not putting up with their harassment.
hmm, how many hours did you uh work in total the past two weeks?
That would be about 24 hours in two weeks.
Target is full of shit, that's the lame ass excuse they use all the time: oh we didn't make sales but next month will be better. That shit never changes and that shit never happens. Get out while you can, believe me.
I've been trying, lining up as many interviews as I can. Honestly if I can get out of this without them necessarily terminating me, I won't file a lawsuit. I will sue otherwise because that's years of employment history gone from my resume.
*unnecessarily
O.o 24 is what I'd get in one week
Exactly. They hate me, that's obvious.