Archived How low can you go? Store's morale thread.

[BigEyedPhish]

In 6 years of working for Target I am not sure I have seen such low morale in my store, and it's not even btc/bts super freaky yet/4th Quarter yet. Target used to be one of the best retail stores to work for, not 12 years ago. They put out a gleaming article about "higher pay" and then gutted 85 percent of Tm's hours so that they actually made less..... While the jobs still at 40 hours were forgotten about (money wise, definitely not expectations wise). I am not sure I have seen a more obvious smack in the face too everyone at the store level (TL-level down) in any other company, while getting praised by the public. This above all things is what bothers me most. End of my rant, however the purpose of this thread was too see how morale is in other stores.

 

[Llamanatee]

What’s morale? Kidding.
Everyone who’s been there long enough knows that it’s a shit show.

 

[YoNanas]

Same at my store. There is no fast fun friendly, the atmosphere became from being happy and loving to work for Target and a fun place to work is now a place where nobody gives a shit, hardly stick up for eachother. A friends and family employment thing reminds me of the worst things in high school. Snottiness. Nobody is held accountable. Ass kissing. Do whatever you want nobody cares.

 

[unknown]

We recently got a temp ETL. He might as well be an ax murderer or scam artist for how much he's liked. I try to give people the benefit of time to adjust, but he is micromanaging personified.

I asked another person a question and he immediately butted in. I ignored him. Rude. Just rude and pushy.

I get being enthusiastic. But damn dude, you'll have nothing but a hard time if everyone underneath you hates you. I think he's headed for a hard fall.

 

[Noiinteam]

I will be with target 7 years this year. I am in a different situation than most tms. I work because I want to not because I have to. I am having fun and if I wasn't I'd be gone. When I try to explain to the noobs, for example what softlines use to be, they don't get it. They were hired during end to end. I, on the other hand, could cry when I see what softlines has become. I was eager for e2e but not having palletized freight is not allowing e2e to work. Too few people, not scheduling according to work load, slack leadership and not enough hours is not conducive for a winning strategy. Corporate know nothings have set most stores up for failure. Our e2e process is hanging on by a thread. With call outs and vacations I know this week will suck and it's only Monday. I only run the detrashing of softlines not the push cause I saw the writing on the wall and got out. It's funny to me, because the softline tms are new they don't know how it use to be and it doesn't bother them. Whatever

 

[BigEyedPhish]

I will be with target 7 years this year. I am in a different situation than most tms. I work because I want to not because I have to. I am having fun and if I wasn't I'd be gone. When I try to explain to the noobs, for example what softlines use to be, they don't get it. They were hired during end to end. I, on the other hand, could cry when I see what softlines has become. I was eager for e2e but not having palletized freight is not allowing e2e to work. Too few people, not scheduling according to work load, slack leadership and not enough hours is not conducive for a winning strategy. Corporate know nothings have set most stores up for failure. Our e2e process is hanging on by a thread. With call outs and vacations I know this week will suck and it's only Monday. I only run the detrashing of softlines not the push cause I saw the writing on the wall and got out. It's funny to me, because the softline tms are new they don't know how it use to be and it doesn't bother them. Whatever

This reminds me of every morning I hear the "new market team" of 5 bitch about how it can't be done.. Albeit they have truck to push, however they don't have to contend with 8 different hourly CAFS from 11am-6pm. Also you are completely alone, from 6am-2:30pm

 

[Aredhel]

It was very difficult to see processes that worked swapped for ones that didn’t. And when the fails were obvious there was very little store management could do since this is a Corporate push. I can only imagine how difficult it has to be to try to pull together a team under end to end. The short term gains will eventually be eclipsed by the very real long term issues. Bullseye has peed on the floor and the puddle is getting bigger.
(Yeah I got a new dog)

 

[SpilledTea]

My ETL pushed up his retirement a year because he doesn't agree with the direction that the company is headed, if that's any indication of morale at my store.

 

[NPC]

My morale has improved slightly. I can roll with whatever changes Target decides to do. But I get frustrated when I don't have the tools (people and hours) to do it. How am I not supposed to feel crazy under those conditions? It's like someone handing you a large stack of plates, and telling you to carry them...and then that same person keeps shoving you while yelling "Don't drop them! Stand on one leg! Hop up and down!"

Thankfully, in my store, more or less I feel Leaders understand this. A silver lining to the heavy "guest service" culture, as long as I'm helping guests, I feel less scared about incomplete tasks, because guests are supposed to be our number 1 priority. While it bothers me on a personal level to not get things done, as long as I'm not getting in trouble for it, I don't have to feel like my job status is in jeopardy.

 

[Him]

@BigEyedPhish i think the biggest (Slap in the face) especially to the "vets" who have been with Spot for years are making the Exact same thing as some of the newly hired. From Leadership down, if a new STL, ETL, TL, or tm makes the equivalent to someone who has been in that position for awhile, I think we all would feel some type of way!!

 

[SpilledTea]

@BigEyedPhish i think the biggest (Slap in the face) especially to the "vets" who have been with Spot for years are making the Exact same thing as some of the newly hired. From Leadership down, if a new STL, ETL, TL, or tm makes the equivalent to someone who has been in that position for awhile, I think we all would feel some type of way!!

"But, but, the cap is higher!"

 

[BigEyedPhish]

@BigEyedPhish i think the biggest (Slap in the face) especially to the "vets" who have been with Spot for years are making the Exact same thing as some of the newly hired. From Leadership down, if a new STL, ETL, TL, or tm makes the equivalent to someone who has been in that position for awhile, I think we all would feel some type of way!!

I included TL's amongst the disgruntled. The difference. TMs however have to worry about if they can eat on lunch, what they can eat... Or if they could get used to not eating breakfast in the morning. ETLs+ do not have this added stress..... (other than deciding where there takeout comes from when it's their week to pick takeout for all the other etl's). Infact this is exactly what I think an ETL discussion might look like, if they talked about, who chooses the best takeout. . Paul Allen is ETL-log.

 

[BullseyeBlues]

Flow could fit in 3 canoes without sinking them, backroom into one canoe, and hardlines into one canoe, if those staffing levels tell you anything about the morale level at my store. People keep putting in their two weeks, and these days it’s mostly veteran team members pissed off at corporate for breaking processes that worked just fine before. We can’t keep up with our freight and there’s no one to really deal with the backstock, or push it either. Guests are complaining about empty shelves and pallets cluttering the floor for days on end. Feels like I’m on a sinking ship, lately.

 

[IWishIKnew]

I only work 15-20 hours a week, at night, but I think morale at my store is pretty good. Our STL rocks and the ETLs are all somewhere between solid and really good, at least the ones I've met. Basically, I don't find Target to be much different from my corporate day job as far as morale-type issues go. Dealing with slacker coworkers and nonsensical or damaging decisions from the top of the corporate food chain happens where you go and as long as you've got some good folks around you you can kvetch about it and keep each other sane.

It would be nice if corporations kept their long-timers up and ahead of pay changes, but that pretty much happens everywhere. One of the long-standing pieces of advice for professionals is to move companies every few years, because your company won't keep pace with increasing salaries unless forced (certainly holds true at my day job), but since nobody else in retail is paying those type of rates I'm not sure if that would even work. It's noteworthy that Spot is at least increasing wages without being forced to do so. Most companies don't.

No corporation is perfect. Target is better than some, not as good as others. If you happen to work for a store or on a shitty team, that really sucks, and if there's one thing every corporation needs, it's a way to get rid of the dead weight, but very few are any good at it.

 

[BigEyedPhish]

I only work 15-20 hours a week, at night, but I think morale at my store is pretty good. Our STL rocks and the ETLs are all somewhere between solid and really good, at least the ones I've met. Basically, I don't find Target to be much different from my corporate day job as far as morale-type issues go. Dealing with slacker coworkers and nonsensical or damaging decisions from the top of the corporate food chain happens where you go and as long as you've got some good folks around you you can kvetch about it and keep each other sane.

It would be nice if corporations kept their long-timers up and ahead of pay changes, but that pretty much happens everywhere. One of the long-standing pieces of advice for professionals is to move companies every few years, because your company won't keep pace with increasing salaries unless forced (certainly holds true at my day job), but since nobody else in retail is paying those type of rates I'm not sure if that would even work. It's noteworthy that Spot is at least increasing wages without being forced to do so. Most companies don't.

No corporation is perfect. Target is better than some, not as good as others. If you happen to work for a store or on a shitty team, that really sucks, and if there's one thing every corporation needs, it's a way to get rid of the dead weight, but very few are any good at it.

The only reason Target can "pay these rates" is because it isn't... I would literally say that the amount of cut hours this year+the increased pay equals last year's hours + last year's pay. The only thing Target did was make a publicity stunt that made it look good at it's employees expense.

 

[RunForACallBox]

Morale is an all time low. I’ve been with Target/my store for now 7 years. Stupid process/modernization. Stupid hired outside the company STL and stupid former TL now ETL Log is just sinking our ship faster. And with TL shuffle with a TL from HQ taking over POG who hasn’t done POG a day in her life. I’m just sitting back and watching it sink until it splits. Also everyday waiting on a few applications to be answered or thinking about applying for Shipt HQ position.

 

[IWishIKnew]

The only reason Target can "pay these rates" is because it isn't... I would literally say that the amount of cut hours this year+the increased pay equals last year's hours + last year's pay. The only thing Target did was make a publicity stunt that made it look good at it's employees expense.

That may be true at your store, but it's not at my store, and can't be universally so. For Target to raise starting wages by $.75 and cut the hours needed for their stores to survive would be true idiocy. It seems to me that Target is trying to figure out how to survive as a primarily brick-and-mortar retailer in the face of Amazon and has chosen to find hybrid ground in creating a good in-store experience with convenience of online shopping such as SFS, OPU, Restock, and so on.

I think E2E will eventually die the ignominious death that Canada did, because it just flat won't work for most departments and/or stores, but I think the wage increase is an attempt to have people working in their stores that make guests want to be there.

At my store, at least, it works. Whatever they're doing. I get guests at least weekly telling me that, despite being in the middle of a remodel, they still prefer coming to us over the Walmart next door, because of the customer service.

 

[starfishncoffee]

Awful. We have two newish ETLs/Leaders who are nightmarish in their own special ways. There's stuff all over the store well into the day, rendering some aisles impasssible (yay, modernization) -- but according to the STL/Store Director, guests and the team are happy. (I want to know who they've been talking to. Certainly not the three distinctly unhappy guests who yelled at me over the weekend wondering "what is happening to Target"). Understaffed to the point that no one can keep up with their workload (and we have a great team). We used to deliver great guest service, and it's suffering badly. I'm looking to leave, and leave fast, even if it means I take a pay cut.

 

[soyaxo]

Things are definitely better than they were two years ago, but communication is awful. I just wish that morning and daysides had more communication, like the closing teams.

I also rarely see my TLs. I’d like to see them more, especially as I learn about the modernization changes.

Spoiler: Rant About Today

This thread is a perfect place to vent about a SLTM that drags the team down. She was kind of a bitch from the start. As soon as she saw me she said, “Um who are you?” And I introduced myself politely. She knew I was a returning TM, so I wasn’t “new” and she was well aware of that. She always said it to other TMs in a condescending manner when she was around when I was meeting them for the first time. I found out one of my friends is her friend, so I thought “oh okay she’s probably just had one bad day” but nope. Turns out that’s her general attitude.

I came in for a mid shift today, and she was in RTW because the TM who was supposed to open called out (one with excellent attendance who was ill). She was complaining like crazy. I tried to be nice and figure out what was wrong because there was a lot of guests. We talked back and forth for several minutes, and I jumped in to start helping. She acted like everything I did was wrong. I reached for items from the Z-Rack to push swim, because the sale = merchandise needs to be on the floor!!! and she became angry and said loudly “UM THATS BACKSTOCK. SEE THE HANGER. THAT SEPARATES IT.” Thatd be fine, if there was literally no room but there was plenty of room on the floor for those varying sizes hung up above us! All the nearby guests immediately stopped because they all heard, no doubt. I told her to talk to our TL because I’ve worked with him long enough to know it’d be worth it instead of stressing. She refused. After deciding it wasn’t worth trying to argue with her, I asked her, “Well, what do you want me to do?” She said reshop. Okay, no problem. The reason I asked is because she was not giving me the opportunity to help, reshop needed to be done, and our TL was on lunch. I know what I need to be doing, but if she’s the one don’t push I can guarantee no one is doing the reshop so I kind of decided what to do based on that.

I went back to fitting room. The operator I took over for and I started talking as we completed a little bit of a project together and he brought up the other TMs attitude saying that he was glad he didn’t work directly with her very often. She came back and started ranting to me about what I should be doing, whilst I was assisting a guest. I had my earpiece in so it was incredibly easy to tune her out. I was operator. Sorry that —- called out, but you need to communicating your frustrations to leadership, not me! And that was clearly beyond her issues. I didn’t want to be rude but I was getting incredibly irritated. When she finally left the other TM paused and said, “IS IT REALLY THAT DEEP?!” She didn’t hear but I was happy I had someone who agreed. He said, “At the end of the day, we all go home. We’re all here for a few hours of the day. It’s the people who don’t like to do shit that get upset when they get called out on it.” I told him about some funny stories of my past time working at that store, and eventually he had to leave to do reshop after we finished all the ticketing and sorting.

Anyway, that’s part of everything, I just feel frustrated knowing that I have had continuous Softlines experience including my previous two whole years with the company previously. I know things have changed, but these things she was making a big deal of were things that I KNEW. I did them different, but not incorrectly. I didn’t say anything then, but I realise I should have. I encountered the Softlines journal and spent a couple minutes writing “Hey ... I’m a returning TM learning new things. Feel free to help me (working with me on) new changes and I’ll pass on some advice if I can. -soyaxo” before returning the floor. I’m too nice. I shouldn’t be. But all in all, it is frusrating to not have present leaders in Softlines more because stuff like this does happen with the newer TMs. That probably sounded silly, but it felt nice to be able to rant.

 

[Aredhel]

Back in the day... flow came in early am. We unloaded freight, distributed it to sections. Stocked. Went home or on to another job. Regardless of sales a trailer took a certain number of people committed to that task. Same with outs, backroom, signing, salesanner etc. Flow waved and anyone behind was assisted because we cared about the whole store not just s department or area. Asants maybe but based on the posts I see the rule rather than the exception.

 

[PackAndCry]

The thing that's killing my store is that nobody will tell us anything. For example, our plano team is effectively dead- our PPTL seems to get all the plano hours, I only get hours in SFS, and our other plano TM only gets hours in pricing and softlines. However, nobody will tell us that plano is gone. I only started getting SFS hours again because I begged my STL. The same thing is starting to happen with pricing, softlines has started doing their own and the hardliners are being trained on how to do it, but nobody has said anything to our pricing TMs who have been in that role since the store was built. And, as positions go away, long-time TMs who were in those positions are being shuffled into positions where they don't fit so they end up leaving. It's really sad.

 

[TTGOz]

I think a lot of issues some posts are addressing in this thread pertaining to upper management is just how those managers prefer to "manage"

Micromanaging is such a huge issue and no one likes it, but managers continue to do it, why?

I called in last night because I was gonna be late home from a road trip and had work at 5am, all I did was ask to work at 10am instead and worked 10-6:30 and no one even knew I was suppose to work or knew I was coming in at 10 because no one told them, why? This is a frequent problem, call ins are never communicated for some reason at my store.

My store's front end employees suck, why? They're all teenagers who aren't willing to work more than one shift a week and call in for any shift that's not a 4 hour weekend shift. It's bullshit is what it is. I see my GSTLs typing up "Performance Discussion Reports" daily now. As I was walking out I counted my third one being typed up since I last worked Thursday evening.

There's just things that are wrong that I think are problematic and varies per store but the same issues are the same across the board in a general sense of speech.

My store's deli is extremely fucking picky with how we separate their freight from our Frozen/Dairy load and we bring it to them, separate them onto carts, and do EVERYTHING for them. Today, I had no silver Produce/Meat carts available to use so I ran and grabbed a few regular carts, I've done this before, but today the Deli TL came over and very passive aggressively "Are you gonna get a silver cart?????" and I said "I would but she(produce TM) has them all taken" and she points towards our meat department, maintaining her eye contact on ME. She was PISSED for some reason. I said "okay, I can go see if they have any available" and I already knew they didn't. She says "Ok." and walks away, I say "Okay, thank you [deli team leader name] for letting me know!" and she said nothing as she sped away. Kill em with niceness!

I waited fucking five minutes for my meat TM to get a cart available, and when he gave it to me, he said "This is why I don't break down Deli freight anymore, they're extremely picky and I need this cart back and I know I'm not gonna get it back." and it was his only cart.

There's just little itty things like that that just sort of annoy me, micromanaging being the #1 offender. Un-provoked aggression is another common thing in the work place and being the nice guy I am, it just sort of makes me wonder what's so wrong in the day already. My leaders constantly applaud my attitude and charisma in the work place, nothing gets me down.

Things like my Deli TL and pro-micromanage leaders is what is inspiring me to become a leader at my store. I absolutely love my current team leader, he's so chill, but he still knows how to lead a team without the unnecessary micromanagement and he's just very nice at being a team leader, despite constantly getting only 3-4 hours of sleep and working 4am-12:30pm shifts daily. That is what also inspires me.

Today, my ETL-Food stopped by after his shift to tell me he's noticed by heightened commitment to QMOS, Zoning, and training other team members and just other "leadership development" tasks he's set for me to work on as I eagerly work to promote into a PA and hopefully soon a Team Leader position.

Some leaders get it right, but most don't have a single clue how to act.

 

[Anelmi]

I think it's easy for a store to have bad morale if the toxic attitudes of a few are allowed to poison the whole well. My store has a few TMs that can't find a single good thing to say about our store or their job. All they do is complain. And if you listen to them long enough, you might start to believe their poison. So you either join in or you choose to do your own thing and not talk to them beyond a few niceties and just do your job.

 

[Kartman]

Negative talk at Spot will get you a coaching when overheard by the right/wrong people.

 

[Flow Warrior]

I think a lot of issues some posts are addressing in this thread pertaining to upper management is just how those managers prefer to "manage"

Micromanaging is such a huge issue and no one likes it, but managers continue to do it, why?

I called in last night because I was gonna be late home from a road trip and had work at 5am, all I did was ask to work at 10am instead and worked 10-6:30 and no one even knew I was suppose to work or knew I was coming in at 10 because no one told them, why? This is a frequent problem, call ins are never communicated for some reason at my store.

My store's front end employees suck, why? They're all teenagers who aren't willing to work more than one shift a week and call in for any shift that's not a 4 hour weekend shift. It's bullshit is what it is. I see my GSTLs typing up "Performance Discussion Reports" daily now. As I was walking out I counted my third one being typed up since I last worked Thursday evening.

There's just things that are wrong that I think are problematic and varies per store but the same issues are the same across the board in a general sense of speech.

My store's deli is extremely fucking picky with how we separate their freight from our Frozen/Dairy load and we bring it to them, separate them onto carts, and do EVERYTHING for them. Today, I had no silver Produce/Meat carts available to use so I ran and grabbed a few regular carts, I've done this before, but today the Deli TL came over and very passive aggressively "Are you gonna get a silver cart?????" and I said "I would but she(produce TM) has them all taken" and she points towards our meat department, maintaining her eye contact on ME. She was PISSED for some reason. I said "okay, I can go see if they have any available" and I already knew they didn't. She says "Ok." and walks away, I say "Okay, thank you [deli team leader name] for letting me know!" and she said nothing as she sped away. Kill em with niceness!

I waited fucking five minutes for my meat TM to get a cart available, and when he gave it to me, he said "This is why I don't break down Deli freight anymore, they're extremely picky and I need this cart back and I know I'm not gonna get it back." and it was his only cart.

There's just little itty things like that that just sort of annoy me, micromanaging being the #1 offender. Un-provoked aggression is another common thing in the work place and being the nice guy I am, it just sort of makes me wonder what's so wrong in the day already. My leaders constantly applaud my attitude and charisma in the work place, nothing gets me down.

Things like my Deli TL and pro-micromanage leaders is what is inspiring me to become a leader at my store. I absolutely love my current team leader, he's so chill, but he still knows how to lead a team without the unnecessary micromanagement and he's just very nice at being a team leader, despite constantly getting only 3-4 hours of sleep and working 4am-12:30pm shifts daily. That is what also inspires me.

Today, my ETL-Food stopped by after his shift to tell me he's noticed by heightened commitment to QMOS, Zoning, and training other team members and just other "leadership development" tasks he's set for me to work on as I eagerly work to promote into a PA and hopefully soon a Team Leader position.

Some leaders get it right, but most don't have a single clue how to act.

Micromanaging is all about control and correct conditions. The people want control about everything related to their area. I dont have a deli at my store so I have no clue why a silver cart is more important than a regular one. However, I have worked a t grocery store and unless its open and bloody its shouldnt matter.