I've worked at target for "Some years" - keeping it vague. My store has started awful and only gone straight downhill. It's for VERY correctable reasons, however, which has given me ulcers. One thing I will say is that I am a "lowly TM", but most of us know that title means "anything from nothing to pretend LOD". I am, and have been for years, "pretend LOD" in every single department.
My store has gone through a slew of rotating management. None of them hired internally. Every single one quit. From Day 1, many moons ago, I found my store defined itself by "Leader-Employee" antagonism. Employees would want to do something to make their jobs easier, leaders would deliberately stonewall or sabotage it without reason given. Even if, to make it easier, requires making it brand. I have known no leader, in my store, who accepts TM input or processes, even if it's a copy-and-paste of material found in Targets own resources. In fact, that a TM suggests it seems default-deny. This has been true since it opened, over two decades if the "lifers" are being truthful.
The thing is, I know most people who quit also have some personal problems. I just want to say, I really don't think I do, I want to love my job. I don't "hate" retail work, I don't hate my coworkers, I often don't hate my managers. I'm defeated. I've tried everything with every manager. Nothing, directed at management, works. Nobody in, or out, of the store seems to care, even when there's a LOT of money involved. If it can only make them look good, why do they get off kicking their TM's down?!
Which brings me to the reason(s) I may now quit. Every department I have been in has markedly improved by the fact I really like teamwork. It makes my job easy. Makes my teams job easy. I've done this so long I even think "my team". They are. I often trained all of them. From Electronics, to Front End, to Sales Floor, Back Room, Overnight, Pfresh, I have literally been everywhere. Just not management. In each case I work equally with my coworkers because we ALL want an easier job...which the leaders have sabotaged every single day. Unless there's a visit. But the visitors never talk to TM's. I do not know why. None ever have. I've been to EVERY DEPARTMENT trying to get promoted after I worked Electronics (with GREEN scores) many years.
The final straw was the first and only in-store promotion: They promoted somebody, proved a liar, who everyone dislikes (took credit for others work, lied about finishing work, all TM's and managers know this, has on-record HR complaints, etc). A very toxic "team" member whose world revolved around himself. Worse still, I am many years his senior, with a proved track record with many teams and many more departments. They chose him. Once word got around this almost caused a riot. People WANT me to be TL, because they know I won't sabotage them, and will work just as hard if not harder to make it work. I want to work FOR THEM.
Look. I want to be promoted. I want to do a good job. I have proved, can prove, and without any authority whatsoever would at any given SECOND prove AGAIN, I can work with any team I am put with. TM's who've never been trained or made do anything "correctly" (oh my God, the horror stories...) often just DO NOT KNOW ANY BETTER. I've gotten good at doing this over the years, and now new TM's look up to me even though they're often near my age or older (old demographics here).
I really wanted to fix my store. I've tried. In each department I did so as best I could. It's in the stores statistics. Why did the DTL never talk to me? Why did nobody notice when, after I left a department, it dropped to bottom list? Why does nobody care? What's the god-damned point of all the policies, statistics, data, if nobody uses it to actually give promotions, pay raises, etc?
Why is it, in spite of the fact TM's like me for making their jobs easier, every pay raise I've ever gotten was at best "eh"? Why has this been every single job I've ever had? Why MUST leaders ONLY be toxic to the employee environment? I've literally witnessed, more than once, management abusing employees or holding them to many double standards to the point of harassment...and of course "well talk to HR" leads nowhere. No matter who became ETL-HR.
I've tried. My friends, my fellow TM's, have tried. Even people who didn't like me, or just didn't give a shit about the job, THEY begin to try when they see it makes the job BETTER. That they can ENJOY, in SOME manner, working in a job where everything works. Versus now. Where it doesn't. And the whole store is falling apart faster than ever. All the while I try to fight for the most basic things like TM training...which I have to be doing myself, behind the backs of managers, because they're rubber stamping mandated OSHA training materials without actually doing it.
Just. What can I do? None of the DTL's ever came to me. I haven't been ever given proper procedures nor proper STL "talks". This latest TL promotion has just bitch-slapped everything I've done in so many years at that place, PROVING I can do it, PROVING I would only benefit the company. Without any knocks on my record. Approaching every manager I've had for opportunities.
What. What the hell. What can I do? Is there anybody, anywhere, somewhere in Target, who cares? Can I please work for them? I swear to God the only thing I have ever wanted in that place was to get recognized for the fact I have to play LOD while arguing with the LOD's about them not doing their jobs in a way that comes across as a compliment.
...I think I give up. Please. Dear Christ. Why the hell doesn't anybody care? Why can't I find a job that at least doesn't sabotage everything the employees do? I've been working over ten years. God damn it. Just...god fucking damn it. I'm sorry. I never do this. I just...that guy being promoted. God fucking damn it.
My store has gone through a slew of rotating management. None of them hired internally. Every single one quit. From Day 1, many moons ago, I found my store defined itself by "Leader-Employee" antagonism. Employees would want to do something to make their jobs easier, leaders would deliberately stonewall or sabotage it without reason given. Even if, to make it easier, requires making it brand. I have known no leader, in my store, who accepts TM input or processes, even if it's a copy-and-paste of material found in Targets own resources. In fact, that a TM suggests it seems default-deny. This has been true since it opened, over two decades if the "lifers" are being truthful.
The thing is, I know most people who quit also have some personal problems. I just want to say, I really don't think I do, I want to love my job. I don't "hate" retail work, I don't hate my coworkers, I often don't hate my managers. I'm defeated. I've tried everything with every manager. Nothing, directed at management, works. Nobody in, or out, of the store seems to care, even when there's a LOT of money involved. If it can only make them look good, why do they get off kicking their TM's down?!
Which brings me to the reason(s) I may now quit. Every department I have been in has markedly improved by the fact I really like teamwork. It makes my job easy. Makes my teams job easy. I've done this so long I even think "my team". They are. I often trained all of them. From Electronics, to Front End, to Sales Floor, Back Room, Overnight, Pfresh, I have literally been everywhere. Just not management. In each case I work equally with my coworkers because we ALL want an easier job...which the leaders have sabotaged every single day. Unless there's a visit. But the visitors never talk to TM's. I do not know why. None ever have. I've been to EVERY DEPARTMENT trying to get promoted after I worked Electronics (with GREEN scores) many years.
The final straw was the first and only in-store promotion: They promoted somebody, proved a liar, who everyone dislikes (took credit for others work, lied about finishing work, all TM's and managers know this, has on-record HR complaints, etc). A very toxic "team" member whose world revolved around himself. Worse still, I am many years his senior, with a proved track record with many teams and many more departments. They chose him. Once word got around this almost caused a riot. People WANT me to be TL, because they know I won't sabotage them, and will work just as hard if not harder to make it work. I want to work FOR THEM.
Look. I want to be promoted. I want to do a good job. I have proved, can prove, and without any authority whatsoever would at any given SECOND prove AGAIN, I can work with any team I am put with. TM's who've never been trained or made do anything "correctly" (oh my God, the horror stories...) often just DO NOT KNOW ANY BETTER. I've gotten good at doing this over the years, and now new TM's look up to me even though they're often near my age or older (old demographics here).
I really wanted to fix my store. I've tried. In each department I did so as best I could. It's in the stores statistics. Why did the DTL never talk to me? Why did nobody notice when, after I left a department, it dropped to bottom list? Why does nobody care? What's the god-damned point of all the policies, statistics, data, if nobody uses it to actually give promotions, pay raises, etc?
Why is it, in spite of the fact TM's like me for making their jobs easier, every pay raise I've ever gotten was at best "eh"? Why has this been every single job I've ever had? Why MUST leaders ONLY be toxic to the employee environment? I've literally witnessed, more than once, management abusing employees or holding them to many double standards to the point of harassment...and of course "well talk to HR" leads nowhere. No matter who became ETL-HR.
I've tried. My friends, my fellow TM's, have tried. Even people who didn't like me, or just didn't give a shit about the job, THEY begin to try when they see it makes the job BETTER. That they can ENJOY, in SOME manner, working in a job where everything works. Versus now. Where it doesn't. And the whole store is falling apart faster than ever. All the while I try to fight for the most basic things like TM training...which I have to be doing myself, behind the backs of managers, because they're rubber stamping mandated OSHA training materials without actually doing it.
Just. What can I do? None of the DTL's ever came to me. I haven't been ever given proper procedures nor proper STL "talks". This latest TL promotion has just bitch-slapped everything I've done in so many years at that place, PROVING I can do it, PROVING I would only benefit the company. Without any knocks on my record. Approaching every manager I've had for opportunities.
What. What the hell. What can I do? Is there anybody, anywhere, somewhere in Target, who cares? Can I please work for them? I swear to God the only thing I have ever wanted in that place was to get recognized for the fact I have to play LOD while arguing with the LOD's about them not doing their jobs in a way that comes across as a compliment.
...I think I give up. Please. Dear Christ. Why the hell doesn't anybody care? Why can't I find a job that at least doesn't sabotage everything the employees do? I've been working over ten years. God damn it. Just...god fucking damn it. I'm sorry. I never do this. I just...that guy being promoted. God fucking damn it.
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