From the old breakroom:
Full disclosure, I was (as so many others I see posting here) an ETL hire straight out of college, and turned frequently to this site for tips and advice prior to taking the offer and donning my red and khaki. Although there's already a surplus of positive, encouraging posts for the fledgling ETL, I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring and offer a little well-founded advice for those about to take up the "Executive" mantle...
Here’s a fun little Reality Trip for you...
So you just graduated, the economy (especially for recent college grads) is brutal, and, apart from a bunch of sketchy insurance agencies and reps from Enterprise-rent-a-car, the only positive, interested (and, let's face it, young and Caucasian) people at your college job fair were decked out in red and khaki. Heck, they even gave you a stuffed dog!***
"Wow," you say to yourself. "I DO love shopping at Target, and I WOULD describe myself as an energetic person who loves a challenging, ever-changing environment. Plus, they're interviewing EXECUTIVES*gasp*! At last, someone who acknowledges my intellectual value after four years of college! Where else could I rise so high at the age of 22? I should definitely give it a try!"
You fork over your resume, smile nicely, and walk away thinking how cool it would be not to have to wear a suit to work every day. Though you've never worked retail, it really can't be *that* hard (after all, lowly high school grads do it). Anyway, you'll be an executive! Leave the grunt work to the peons while you eat lunch in the boardroom.***
You (being the eminently employable superstar you always knew you were, if only those other jobs in your field of study had given you a chance, instead of babbling about "skill sets" and "hiring freezes" during your interview) are thrilled and excited to get a call-back from the good people at the ol' Bullseye. You suit up, ace a few interviews, and before you know it, there's a call back from a perky young thing in HR gushing about how great you were, offering a princely salary of 43-47K a year, and droning on and on about something called on-boarding (also, she seems really psyched, and has heard lots and lots about how great you are). In this economy you'd be a fool NOT to take it- after all, you've got student loans to pay, and your parents are already talking about turning your old bedroom into a workshop for those idiotic ship-in-a-bottle things your dad's obsessed with. Go for it.
That's when you run a quick google search for things like "Executive Team Leader salary" or the like, and after messing around with glassdoor.com for awhile, you will stumble across this forum;
www.thebreakroom.us
Sure, there might be a couple of Debbie Downers trashing their ETL, or bemoaning the inexperience of the fresh-out-of-college managers they're saddled with, but hey- none of it seems to apply to you-you're way too smart and motivated to fall prey to the pitfalls some of these well-meaning TL's (whatever the hell those are) have outlined and trapped you for, and you scoff at the lazy parasites who resent working twelve-hour days six days a week. Go ahead, take that offer, what's the worst that can happen?
You show up for Target's Business College, and realize there are a disconcerting amount of other new college grads your age. "Gee," you think, "Target must be expanding at a crazy rate to need this many new ETL's. And they just said this is the fourth one they've run this year. Working for such a rapidly expanding company is going to be so incredibly Awesome!" Plus, the second those fat paychecks start hitting your BofA student checking account, that iPhone you always wanted will be yours for the taking!
It is kind of funny though, you've never really wanted to work in Soft-lines (your econ textbooks didn't really prep you for it), but they've just told you that's what your new job will be. Couldn't they have just told you that, originally what you were applying for? Those girls over there got HR, and that kid next to you got AP (which sounds kinda Paul Blart, Mall Cop-esque, but still cooler than selling jorts to elementary schoolers), and now he's nauseatingly full of himself about it. Forget him, you'll be fine, and anyways (they tell you) everyone rotates every so often so you'll be able to learn every part of the building. You'll be fine.
And then you get into your store. Everyone's really, really nice, and although an unsettlingly large number of your new co-workers will grimace and say "what, another one already?" when you introduce yourself as a new Exec in Training, ignore them. Focus, instead, on learning how to learn the processes you'll need in your new job; tagging along with the other execs, and realize that you couldn't possibly learn everything in the meager six weeks corporate allots for this sort of thing- your entire time at Target will be an ongoing learning experience!*** And get to know the members of your team really, really well as they'll be the ones who'll be watching your back and helping you through this great process.***
Never mind that, as time goes by, you're starting to come to the unsettling realization that an "exec" is really Target-speak for "assistant manager (you)," "team leader," is "supervisor (who, again, and this is unsettling, knows more about doing your job than you could possibly learn in two years and either a) resents you because you make 15K a year more than they do due to your fancy college diploma or b) HAS a diploma, is struggling mightily to convince the indifferent, twenty-something execs above them to put through that promotion, resents the fact that 85% of current ETL hires are now straight out of college, and is woefully unaware that your fellow execs snicker about their ambitions behind their back)."
Also, "team member" stands for "blue collar workers who now (despite your working similar jobs in high school and college and knowing what it's like to make $7.25 an hour) either shamelessly defer to you as if you, who as a lofty EIT, represents the corporation in all its red and khaki glory or openly scorn your lack of aptitude when it comes to building plan-o-grams and running peppy, large-scale "Huddles" (seriously) where you inform the workers on the floor just how great, in your limited experience, they are, while try to make them care how much the store made or missed its projected numbers that day, and remind them of the importance of safety on the job. You'll be surprised by how many, indeed DO actually care, but don't let that throw you. Follow the lead of the other execs, who will faithfully document, commiserate with, and record the Team Member's complaints and opinions on their jobs, then shamelessly bash them during the weekly executive meeting to the STL as lazy troublemakers who are lucky to be employed at all [In all seriousness, I'm not joking here. That was verbatim, and it happens all the time].*** {What? You mean all this time that I'm getting paid to input data, somebody is... Nevermind.}
As for your STL, that mythical, god-like creature who rules the building with a firm but loving hand, embodies your highest aspirations in the organization, and acts as a surrogate parent/mentor/fearless leader to the teeming masses laboring under them, learn from their example. You are a leader in the building with the potential to be so much more (an STL) and everything you've done with your life up until now has been in preparation for ascending to that lofty post. When they approach you, take a deep whiff. Smell that? It's success. Forget the eighty billion other execs in your district ahead of you in line for it- Target's a meritocracy, and you could easily be bringing home the big bucks in a few short years. You're already on the right track (remember, you are an awesome college grad).
In fact, forgetting things as you go forward will be key to your survival. Forget that the previous eight [again, I'm dead serious. EIGHT] execs to train at your store were termed (the lovely Target euphemism for "fired in tears") within a few months of finishing their own business college, forget the fact your fellow execs always seem to be poised on the brink of nervous, physiological, or physical collapse, and often go into hysterics when told the DM is coming to walk the store, forget even that 45K a year isn't really all that much per hour when you work 55+ hours a week [again, this is dead serious, 55 hours isn't a cruel joke people made up for this forum, and often entails getting up at 2AM to unload a truck at 3]. Even forget the fact that the friends who stuck out their job search a little longer than you did are making 40K to work forty hours a week, 9-5, and get weekends and holidays off, plus benefits similar to your own with the added benefit of a soul. Forget that the whole work/life balance that friendly recruiter touted to you will really consist of work/thinking and stressing about work, as the job involves numerous factors outside your control, but are still your fault (other jobs have this too, but not to the extreme you'll experience).
And forget that the corporate culture with it's "feedback" orientated culture is really a laundry list of your perceived and real defects not only as a leader, but also a human being and will be heavily documented in the likely event of your termination. You know those "wins" and "opportunities" the store has? You have them too, and from your first feedback session on, they will not change. Embrace them- you'll be speaking to your flaws as an individual for the rest of your time at the company, however brief that might be.
Forget all that. Take that on-boarding material, sign your offer, and enjoy your time as an ETL at Target. I know I did.
Your soul will be returned to upon leaving the company.
Your humanity will not.
(Thanks to Talan for retaining this true pearl of wisdom)
