MEGATHREAD Hang Me (The Softlines Thread)

Jenna120 said:
everyone over the age of 8 knows the difference between a sweatshirt and a sweater, and the sign has in huge letters "Sweaters". No mention of sweatshirts.
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I agree with you that sweaters & sweatshirts are two completely different things lol but anyways when I do ad prep I always walk through the 7x11s on Friday morning and shift clothes around if I think guests are going to be even slightly confused. I did softlines for many years so I know how guests try to argue about sale sign wording and I don't want my tms to have to deal with that lol
 
Jenna120 said:
There are times when I can fully understand placement of a sale or cartwheel sign can be very confusing. Dresses and rompers can look very much alike until looked at in detail, so a dress sale shouldn't be on a rack that is mixed between dresses and rompers. Any time you have to resort to the small print on a sign, placement should be very carefully done. But others, if a guest is seemingly confused, it's a scam in the making. There are things where anyone who is capable of shopping alone is capable of understanding.

We've got a rack that is 4/5 sweaters and 1/5 sweatshirts on one side, all sweaters on the other side. It does have a sign that sweaters are BOGO 50% since it is mostly sweaters. There are so few sweatshirts that there's no good place to put them, so they are clumped at the end of the rack since they are suitable for the same weather. But everyone over the age of 8 knows the difference between a sweatshirt and a sweater, and the sign has in huge letters "Sweaters". No mention of sweatshirts.

Some woman, right there in front of me, pulled a sweatshirt off of the rack and asked if it was on sale. I said no, it's a sweatshirt, not a sweater, so the sale didn't cover it. She insisted I check. Bitch, can't you read? Or are you so old and cognitively impaired you forgot how to read? If so, where's your caregiver? I checked on my Zebra, nope, no sale, told her that. She then got nasty and said I needed to remove the sign. I didn't do it, I simply smiled and grabbed more reshop off my cart and kept working. I'm not going to remove a sign from a significant number of our sweaters, when the sign is the draw for selling the darn things. Nor am I going to move the sweatshirts when the very good VMTL decided just a couple of days ago they were placed appropriately. Reading only the huge words on the sign, not even the small print, it's clear as day sweatshirts are not covered, there should be no confusion.
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Damn that is a funny story. I don't remember when I've laughed that hard.

And I can't believe, I refuse to believe, there are women out there who don't know the difference between a sweater and a sweatshirt. If they say they don't, they're lying.

Because if your kids school said your kid has to wear a sweater to the school music program, no one and I mean NO ONE who cares, would send them in a sweatshirt.
 
Just to add a voice for SL TMs. My last 4 hour shift I spent 90 minutes pushing Hardlines, 45 minutes as a back up cashier, covered lunch for the FR operator then zoned and re-shopped girls, boys and infants. No excuse for not getting shoes to the floor, but shoes are a special version of purgatory, especially for a store like mine that is very short of staff (we have had FR shifts unscheduled in the past few weeks). No calls out- just no one scheduled. SL is just one of many departments that are understaffed, not F-ing around, just not enough hours in the day. ASANTS, I guess.
 
queen1elle said:
Titanium please!
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Sry it took me so long to track this one but here's the part number for the Titanium: AM0772TI

Finally found a box of them... why the heck they can't put the part number on the individual knuckles I have no clue. I think I'm going to have to start a part's book for softlines for the items we use. :)
 
RTCry said:
Does any store get the product that is in the VMG? Like, ever?
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We get the product for the VMG weeks and weeks ahead of the VMG so that by the time the VMG says to put it on the mannequins it is either mostly gone or completely gone. So we do get it... we just get it way ahead of the VMG....which is kinda stupid. Surely they know what's coming and when? :p
 
signingminion said:
waking through the backroom last night I passed the pallet of 9/24 shoes... those ladies need to stop wasting time fucking around and get shit on the floor
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I wish I had time to be fucking around .... if your store is well staffed and your workers are simply lazy you have a right to be peeved. If your store is understafffed and struggling/suffering like hell with the hundred and one things they expect us to get done....then....don't go there. Plz. I am so done with this stupid E2E and not enough TMs to run the show.
 
RightArm said:
I wish I had time to be fucking around .... if your store is well staffed and your workers are simply lazy you have a right to be peeved. If your store is understafffed and struggling/suffering like hell with the hundred and one things they expect us to get done....then....don't go there. Plz. I am so done with this stupid E2E and not enough TMs to run the show.
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Oh they are fucking around. I'd cut them some slack if it was at least getting worked slowly. Opening a case a day or so... they bragged about getting that adjacency set due to the remodel and how quick they got the pull worked... but they missed the pallet versus the one repack. And it took four people a full shift to get the adjacency set. With half the shoes we usually have.
 
signingminion said:
Oh they are fucking around. I'd cut them some slack if it was at least getting worked slowly. Opening a case a day or so... they bragged about getting that adjacency set due to the remodel and how quick they got the pull worked... but they missed the pallet versus the one repack. And it took four people a full shift to get the adjacency set. With half the shoes we usually have.
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Not to be sticking up for them but setting shoes to VMG is not as easy or as fast as setting it to Plano. I don't know why the hell corporate went to these VMG's for everything. It makes sense for hanging but makes no damn sense for POGs (folded or accessories/shoes/intimates). If I was running the show I would have taken the price points off of ALL labels in the shoe dept and just put the sizing info and dpci's like it was in kids. Then the shoes would be set to plano with the directive to flex to fill. Guests don't read labels...they read price points so if you take off the prices (like they did in all of kids and mens) then you don't have to worry about where the shoes are in between sets. But if you have set plano you know it's much easier to tie/label/then fill a pog by opening boxes one at a time than it is to go through a VMG that shows EVERY DAMN SHOE corporate bought all across every state and country and you get the fun of figuring out which shoes you actually HAVE and which ones you don't. This means that in order to set a VMG in shoes you quite literally have to open EVERY box and organize them so you can see what you have in order to set them by VMG.

For the record we had just as many people trying to set the shoe dept back to rights after the remodel and it took us more than a day because the shoes were scrambled and unorganized to begin with and when the areas were demerched they just threw the shoes willy nilly in every cart they could find so that the shoes were so scrambled it was almost impossible to figure out where to start. Was enough to make me cry.

PS: If they are opening a case a day or so and sitting around chatting and twiddling their thumbs then you've every right to feel as you do. But if they're opening a case a day in between zoning, go backs/reshop, pushing the truck, and backstocking.... then you're being overly critical and need to step into their moccasins for a bit to see just how stressful softlines has gotten. ;)
 
signingminion said:
Oh they are fucking around. I'd cut them some slack if it was at least getting worked slowly. Opening a case a day or so... they bragged about getting that adjacency set due to the remodel and how quick they got the pull worked... but they missed the pallet versus the one repack. And it took four people a full shift to get the adjacency set. With half the shoes we usually have.
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Where is the SLTL in all of this????? They should be aware of their Team's productivity..... and it sounds like they should be shocked by the lack of it !! Even though I'm the VML, I'm constantly checking in on the Team to see how their progress is going. It works best if I "walkie" the TMs; that way the LOD is aware of the progress as well.
 
When dresses are on sale, rompers are also counted in that sale, so dress sale signs actually should be on racks of rompers as well. I still double check whenever it happens because I don’t trust target to be consistent.

That shoe thing, though, I’d blame tls/etls and mytime if that happened in my store. I go in for a aa shift and we have assignments. Sometimes they forget a dept tbh. We have a shoe tm (who I assume will be demoted to just aa tm now) and mytime has been scheduling her for short shifts and cashier shifts. She can knock that shit out faster than any of the rest of us. Turnovers getting crazy and with only new tms working over there... nothing is happening like it used to. It’s kinda sad to walk through sl lately
 
Ahem said:
When dresses are on sale, rompers are also counted in that sale, so dress sale signs actually should be on racks of rompers as well. I still double check whenever it happens because I don’t trust target to be consistent.

That shoe thing, though, I’d blame tls/etls and mytime if that happened in my store. I go in for a aa shift and we have assignments. Sometimes they forget a dept tbh. We have a shoe tm (who I assume will be demoted to just aa tm now) and mytime has been scheduling her for short shifts and cashier shifts. She can knock that shit out faster than any of the rest of us. Turnovers getting crazy and with only new tms working over there... nothing is happening like it used to. It’s kinda sad to walk through sl lately
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Our Shoe Dept is awesome looking ! But, like Ahem said.... it's sad to walk through (the rest) of Softlines lately. We haven't had a good zone in months. Just some small areas look exceptionally good: where we've done Adjacencies or POGs..... but otherwise; it's embarrassing.
I agree completely that our Guests are our #1 priority, but a H U G E part of our "service" is offering our Guest a tidy, clean and organized department. That's just simple Retail 101.
 
Reading through the last bit of this thread I want to cry/scream. My store...is a mess. We can't hire enough people and get them to stay. On a typical day, I push a large portion of the truck myself, help with pricing, backstocking, covering the phones, and of course helping guests. I had a day where it was no lie me, a cashier, and a special needs tm who only does reshop. I had to do pricing and make sure the truck was pushed. And the fitting room? Yeah.. I tried to talk to my TLs and ETL and they all basically say "yeah this is the way its gonna be, you're gonna have to help lead the team, we need to staff, etc."

Today I worked 8-4:30. 8-nearly 1: RFID scan. 1: meal break. 1:30-2 ish: do a (small) dept's worth of pricing. 2ish -3:45: help push carts from the truck while answering the phones for a bit. 3:45-4:30: tag-team the crap ton of backstock with one of my TLs. I am completely. worn. out. I don't know what to do. I want things to be better :(
 
Doglover89 said:
Reading through the last bit of this thread I want to cry/scream. My store...is a mess. We can't hire enough people and get them to stay. On a typical day, I push a large portion of the truck myself, help with pricing, backstocking, covering the phones, and of course helping guests. I had a day where it was no lie me, a cashier, and a special needs tm who only does reshop. I had to do pricing and make sure the truck was pushed. And the fitting room? Yeah.. I tried to talk to my TLs and ETL and they all basically say "yeah this is the way its gonna be, you're gonna have to help lead the team, we need to staff, etc."

Today I worked 8-4:30. 8-nearly 1: RFID scan. 1: meal break. 1:30-2 ish: do a (small) dept's worth of pricing. 2ish -3:45: help push carts from the truck while answering the phones for a bit. 3:45-4:30: tag-team the crap ton of backstock with one of my TLs. I am completely. worn. out. I don't know what to do. I want things to be better :(
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Doglover, you are breaking my heart !!!! I'm really surprised, shocked, disappointed when I read your (TL/ETL) quote "yeah, this is the way it's gonna be.....we need to staff, etc." What a cop-out !! Your Leaders are setting you, the Team, and THEMSELVES up for disaster ! Where is their accountability to successfully run a department? They have to answer to "someone", right? The STL? or the DTL ? I have to answer to my superiors on a regular basis about the Team's performance, engagement, etc. Trust me.... our Team totally feels the pressure of E2E. It is too much; but we, collectively, work through it as best we can. It should be a continuous "working solution" everyday.
Aside from the E2E workload, and I know it's A LOT; what is REALLY the issue at your store? People WANT jobs. People NEED jobs. So, in your opinion, what is so awful that your store can't retain TMs in A&A? We have approx 16 TMs in A&A, (and more to come). They know it's challenging everyday..... but they are committed and (mostly) enthusiastic each day. The Team is a huge reflection of me, and my training and influence. I would be ashamed if I "copped-out" like your Leadership.
 
sprinklesontop said:
Aside from the E2E workload, and I know it's A LOT; what is REALLY the issue at your store?
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As I see it, part of the problem is leadership. One of my TLs is a long-time Target veteran and is just over it. The second has been with us about a year (promoted when no one else wanted the job) and tries but yeah. Our VML is just getting back into the swing of things after being out on leave. Its all about survival day to day. We are an A volume store and its just too much for us. The second part, we just cannot keep tms in A & A. We recently hired two- one is a minor so of course can only work limited hours. Headcount is 15 I believe not including a few on educational LOA- out of those all except myself, my friend, and the new person, all only work a couple specific shifts a week or are only available nights/weekends.

I'm trying so hard to be positive while I'm still here doing this job. But I'm close to giving up.
 
sprinklesontop said:
People WANT jobs. People NEED jobs. So, in your opinion, what is so awful that your store can't retain TMs in A&A? We have approx 16 TMs in A&A, (and more to come). They know it's challenging everyday..... but they are committed and (mostly) enthusiastic each day. The Team is a huge reflection of me, and my training and influence. I would be ashamed if I "copped-out" like your Leadership.
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Be careful with that attitude. Some stores are not placed in areas where it's easy to hire. Ours is in the middle of suburbia which is pretty much filled by the families of people who work higher paying jobs in the next city over which is like silicon valley. We've had hiring events and what we end up catching is the minors still in high school who want to earn a little money. Problem is they don't have open availability for obvious reasons and they're not fully committed to the work. So, are you SLTL or HRTL? Or was it VML?

On a side note it takes time to build a team and some people just won't patiently accept the idea that it will get better as we get more people. We've kept our veterans because they've invested so much in our team and they know it can get better if we can get the RIGHT people (emphasis on right for obvious reasons) but the newbies coming in the door aren't patient enough to wait for the team to be built up to where it needs to be.
 
Doglover89 said:
As I see it, part of the problem is leadership. One of my TLs is a long-time Target veteran and is just over it. The second has been with us about a year (promoted when no one else wanted the job) and tries but yeah. Our VML is just getting back into the swing of things after being out on leave. Its all about survival day to day. We are an A volume store and its just too much for us. The second part, we just cannot keep tms in A & A. We recently hired two- one is a minor so of course can only work limited hours. Headcount is 15 I believe not including a few on educational LOA- out of those all except myself, my friend, and the new person, all only work a couple specific shifts a week or are only available nights/weekends.

I'm trying so hard to be positive while I'm still here doing this job. But I'm close to giving up.
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To be honest, @Doglover89 , I feel your pain. If it weren't for the fact that our leadership descriptions don't match I'd think we were in the same store. The only thing that has kept me from walking out is the team and knowing that if I left I would leave a gaping hole that would only add to their struggles. We had a TM designated for backstock for an entire shift because we had that much backstock only to have the mid shift team member call off. That meant our backstocker had to leave the backroom and head to the floor to cover the midshift. I had RFID today but was designated to knock out some workload afterward. Instead I had to spend the last half of my shift backstocking in order to keep it from rolling into yet another truck. This is not an uncommon example of the snafus that happen when you are understaffed. One TM calls off and it causes a cascade failure that snowballs and puts you farther behind.
 
RightArm said:
Be careful with that attitude. Some stores are not placed in areas where it's easy to hire. Ours is in the middle of suburbia which is pretty much filled by the families of people who work higher paying jobs in the next city over which is like silicon valley. We've had hiring events and what we end up catching is the minors still in high school who want to earn a little money. Problem is they don't have open availability for obvious reasons and they're not fully committed to the work. So, are you SLTL or HRTL? Or was it VML?

On a side note it takes time to build a team and some people just won't patiently accept the idea that it will get better as we get more people. We've kept our veterans because they've invested so much in our team and they know it can get better if we can get the RIGHT people (emphasis on right for obvious reasons) but the newbies coming in the door aren't patient enough to wait for the team to be built up to where it needs to be.
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Well, hopefully Doglover didn't feel any "attitude" from me. My post was to emphasize the importance of Leadership taking on the majority of the burden of a struggling department. Part of our job as Leaders is to elevate morale, motivate the Team, and to make our TMs feel appreciated. And, yes.... I'm a VML, and while I don't have a Team (currently :p)...... I'm still an influential Leader in our building, especially in A&A. Leaders are paid to shoulder the burden and develop solutions so the Doglover's in the department don't have to. :)
 
FredPanda3 said:
Has anyone gotten their raise yet? I'm curious because I'm wondering if it was only for seasonals?
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If you get paid this week, it went into effect on the 15th and will be on the next check. If you got paid last week, it went into effect on the 8th and will be on the check next week. Learned that in another thread somewhere
 
We can get people in, but we can't get people worth keeping... Or people who want to stay. They're not staying because they come in thinking it'll be a nice easy job for $10 (well, now 11) but it's not a nice easy job. And the interview process sounds dumb. One of the girls hated SL and preferred cashiering and the etl who did her second was like "she told me she loved clothes!" Like yea, loving clothes doesn't mean you love organizing, selling, and them and making sure they look presentable. And also people lie or exaggerate in interviews so idk why he thought that line meant it was gonna be great. One of the good ones moved to beauty so she's getting most of her hours there. I'd been arguing with the sl tls and vml for months over them taking away resources and promising other resources without following through. And because they made changes without consulting anyone who has ever done the damn job. They kept promising me permanent fr equipment, and they moved some shelves and shit to places that almost our entire team can't even reach. They promised a second fr tm when it's busy, never happened. So I left the dept for Starbucks.

I think what they need to do is max all the sl hours and TMs and get the dept in tip top shape before bringing in the new people and they need better training. The people have their first days while the dept is in such disarray that they are beyond overwhelmed and it's not worth doing that job for $10... And idk that it'll be worth it at 11.50 because more responsibilities are gonna be added on top. But if they start out when it's at a more doable level of work, they get eased into the difficulties. If I started this year, I would've quit too tbh.

Edit: I mean, it's a good payrate, but if you've only put in a couple days or weeks at that rate and you've been fine working for less, it's easier to leave and take the paycut for your sanity
 
RightArm said:
We had a TM designated for backstock for an entire shift because we had that much backstock
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I'm envious that you can even finish all your backstocking in one day. We regularly have someone spend their entire shift backstocking and we only come clean maybe once or twice a month. It's a mess.
 

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