Archived To those who have worked for other retailers

[happygoth]

So, I came to Target two years ago after working for another retailer for over 15 years. I always thought my old company was screwed up and just did not have their crap together, and I looked at stores like Target as meccas that ran like well-oiled machines. After being here, I see that they are just as wacky as my old place, if not moreso.

For those that came from other companies, how do you think Target compares to your previous job? What do they do better, or worse? For me, I still can't get over how much reshop we have that doesn't get processed and put out in a timely manner, and I can't believe that they seem to have so little regard for the fitting rooms and can't seem to get everyone on the same page with regard to pushing reshop. That crap woud've never flown in my old store. If you left one thing behind in a fitting room or on a rack, you heard about it the next day like it was the end of the world. No excuses. I feel like here, leadership walks over, takes a look, shrugs and walks away. Softlines gets the short end of the stick. I also think that's why we are stuck with answering the phone, because they think we are not as important as other areas. Irksome to say the least.

What they do (or did) right was the LOD program. It was refreshing to me that when you called for a manager they answered way more often than not, and understood what their responsibilities were. I do not get why they are doing away with that.

 

[fx0007]

The only other retail/warehouse-ish place I've worked is Amazon so I can't say anything specific, but just walking around Walmarts, my local grocery stores etc, one thing that I'm surprised at is that their shelf labels don't have nearly the detail that ours do. I wonder how they know exactly where stuff goes when they are pushing tons of freight, but then again maybe their equipment is more sophisticated.

 

[Fluttervale]

The atmosphere in a store is 100% set by the store manager and assistant managers, not the company.

Companies can do dumb shit but a good manager can hide that from their team or change the atmosphere about it. Shit store managers can make a good thing terrible.

That said, most retail stores focus too much on the get shit done training and not enough on the build a team, and that's where most retail workers are at.

 

[MajorChomp]

I’ve worked at several of the major retailers and one thing I’ll give Target is they give you good ground work to find something, given the circumstance everyone follows the system accurately.
I honestly like that everything (probably excluding softlines) has an actual location for both the salesflooor and back room.

You have no idea how much of a pain and “guess work” we played trying to find items in the Backroom at my other jobs. Walking up and down backroom aisles “hoping” I find what I’m looking for is a horrible system. Or especially for an online pick up that I had ravage through 100 items just to find it and the manager gets mad when you don’t but they don’t have anything located not even for order pick ups.... it drove me insane at my previous jobs.

Target actually helps my OCD more. The other jobs gave me so much anxiety with how unorganized as a company they were. I’m not even talking about management, just the system in place by the company was horrendous. Target has its cons, trust me they do, but I really like that they have locations for everything.


Target does worse for role structures with this whole modernization. Well let me be clear, modernization probably be the next great thing If they give you the correct payroll for it, which they don’t. Also not having an overnight or early morning truck process before store hours is the worst idea I’ve heard in retail.

I know people complained about the ladders in the Backroom at Target, I personally love it. Do You know how much of a pain it was to get something in your Backroom that’s way up on the shelf, just to go Back to the salesfloor, walk allllll the way to the other end of the store to retrieve a ladder then walk alllll the wayyyy back to your Backroom to get your item down?????
No you don’t, because Target placed ladders in almost every Backroom aisle. I personally think this is a great thing.


What Target does do also worse is expecting 1-2 people to close all of hardlines at night at a Super Target 🙄🙄. Even 3 is still crap to me. That I don’t understand. At my previous job, 99% of every department had a closer. It was unheard of to have no one to close a department at my previous job. When I came to Target and they believe 1-3 persons are supposed to cover all of hardlines and 2-3 for all softlines sounded like the biggest unorganized joke. 🤷🏽‍♂️

But I do what I can each day and not stress it lol

 

[NKG]

I have worked at other retailers and have friends that work at Walmart. I would say Target definitely has some major pluses. Like previously stated it seriously depends on your leadership team and how much koolaid your ETL/SD drink. There are stores that still arent doing the full modernization which you can see walking their store. It wouldn't hurt Target to do the whole undercover boss thing to truly be exposed to the major issues stores face and not the picture perfect stores in Minnesota.

 

[happygoth]

The atmosphere in a store is 100% set by the store manager and assistant managers, not the company.

Companies can do dumb shit but a good manager can hide that from their team or change the atmosphere about it. Shit store managers can make a good thing terrible.

That said, most retail stores focus too much on the get shit done training and not enough on the build a team, and that's where most retail workers are at.

Yes, team building is definitely an area that needs work. I get that the leaders are stretched, and with the long store hours and amount of team members, one can go days if not weeks without seeing their leader even in passing. Makes it hard to foster a "we're in this together" vibe when you feel like you are working alone most of the time.

 

[TheProfessor]

The last time I worked retail was for Lucky’s/Albertson’s 18 years ago. I worked in the bakery most of that time, but I also did time as a courtesy clerk. For most of that time, the store where I worked was Lucky’s and I quit a year after the merger with Albertson’s. The transition was painfully slow and became awful under new management. I knew it was time to go when I flipped off one of the newly installed surveillance cameras. No one ever said anything to me about it, but I saw it as a sign that I had enough. I recently finished college and was trying to get into grad school, so I felt it was the right time to leave.

My store was a big box store for its time and my Target is a similar size. In both places, I’ve had to run to get to one end or another. I used to run and do price checks for the cashiers then. Now it’s running to respond to calls for service from the red phone boxes or to Electronics when I’m covering for someone. I don’t need to run for price checks now with the My Device.

When I was a courtesy clerk, I would take carts at every given opportunity. It got me out of the store and I could be in my own world for a bit. Now, it requires that there’s a dire need for it for me to be out there.

I didn’t have that escape working in the bakery except for occasional cake carry outs. The biggest concern then was full sheet cakes, though now I take out televisions several sizes bigger now.

During the first two years of grad school, I worked in a local used bookstore. It was slower paced than the supermarket, though there was never a shortage of customers in the store. Most of the time, they were browsing. There were some challenges, considering the bookstore was located in Downtown.

I normally don’t deal with books now except to reshelve returns. They have their place on the shelves and it’s not simply a matter of alphabetizing after locating the genre. I hadn’t done book retail in a long time, though, especially after its decline in the past couple of decades where Barnes & Noble is the last one standing as the major retailer.

 

[NPC]

Target USED to be better than some other retailers I've worked for. Their eHR and general ease with scheduling, time off, and access to your own information always was great for me. Smaller retailers didn't have any of that, and if you wanted a day off, you had to just write a note on a piece of scratch paper. And once upon a time, we were well staffed. Actually not even that long ago. Less than 5 years ago, I'd say things were okay.

It hasn't been until recently that Target has become the worst retail place I've worked for. Literally asking for more work for less money. I don't feel the company is screwed, but I watching the company scramble as it desperately tries to keep up with the online market, is a struggle. I don't see the end goal. I don't see how I'm working towards the good of the company. Invest in me, and I invest in you, and Target just isn't doing that right now.

 

[Black Sheep 214]

one can go days if not weeks without seeing their leader even in passing.

Discouraging if you have a good leader, but I could have lived quite happily without seeing my leader for days. Or weeks. Or ever, for that matter. The only time I could get any work done was when the micromanager-in-chief was not in attendance.😂😂😂 What a way to run a business, paying someone vast amounts of money to be the cork in the bottle of productivity and morale.🙄🙄🙄

 

[happygoth]

Target USED to be better than some other retailers I've worked for. Their eHR and general ease with scheduling, time off, and access to your own information always was great for me. Smaller retailers didn't have any of that, and if you wanted a day off, you had to just write a note on a piece of scratch paper. And once upon a time, we were well staffed. Actually not even that long ago. Less than 5 years ago, I'd say things were okay.

It hasn't been until recently that Target has become the worst retail place I've worked for. Literally asking for more work for less money. I don't feel the company is screwed, but I watching the company scramble as it desperately tries to keep up with the online market, is a struggle. I don't see the end goal. I don't see how I'm working towards the good of the company. Invest in me, and I invest in you, and Target just isn't doing that right now.

As a relative newb, I'm not feeling the pain like the long-time folks are, but I definitely don't get why they are messing with something that seemed to be working. Less than a year ago our store was in a much better place. Now lots of folks seem very stressed, especially leadership. I started out confused (training was a crapshoot), and stayed detached for quite a while. Then we hired some good TMs, our TL really kicked things up a few notches, and our team made it to good place. I became invested. But soon the good TMs moved on, the TL quit, and now we are struggling. Things aren't quite as bad as they were when I was first hired, but they aren't far off. I am becoming a bit more detached again. I just can't let it get to me. I just do what I can.