Archived Seriously? Cutting hours in the last week of the busiest month of the year?

[talan123]

So our store has been missing sales and they wanted us to start cutting way back on hours. :dash2:

To the point that they didn't have anybody in electronics the other day. They are now adding the GSTL in the schedule as salesfloor to make the schedule appear much larger than it actually is.

Yes, you read that right, they didn't want anybody there to actually do the sales. For a $130k day, I was alone on the salesfloor until 12PM. This is beyond stupid, past moronic, and heading into idiocy. I dealt with two stoners who were so baked they didn't even know where they were and there was no AP.

I wish I could see an endgame for this company that included anything but failure but it got to the point that I have cut off the spigot to them. I will no longer be buying stock from the company as part of my 401k because these are absolute basic business decisions that EVERYBODY should know.

If you want to sell things to people, you have to have people to get the products for them. My store lost at least $3000 the other day in sales from people just walking off because they couldn't get help. We didn't have these problems last year and we as busy.

Red cards are now the devil at my store. The company wants us to push for more and are coming up with way's to get people to apply for more which is great, theoretically. The problem is that I don't have the man power to get those applications going and sell a TV at the same time without leaving somebody's information vulnerable. So I stopped asking people to apply for the Red cards, not out of laziness but out of lack of time. The system to help them save money is costing them more resources down the road which is the worst thing a business can do.

Anybody else having this happen?

 

[invictustaylor]

yeah pretty much. Furthermore, even though official policy is target is not suppose to spend money on outside food, the executives had a very nice hot meal catered in yesterday for their "meetings monday." It was of course to thank them for "all their hard work."

 

[Logistics Monkey]

could be worse, we have very little help and now this week they are sending a bunch of our team out for "support" help. What a joke

 

[uncorporated]

Same. Yours sounds a lot worse though, unless you're exaggerating a little. $130k and you were the only one on the floor?? I worked last Sunday, they gave me an extra person for backroom/push/zone/fill endcaps/etc. and there were about 5 people total on floor, and that was still pretty damnd bad. I think our projected sales were like $110k or something and we did more. Our STL is pretty cool about making sure we can stay over if we want and such, but then when people don't want to stay over because they're absolutely exhausted and/or actually have lives, things just get backed up. A handful of the newbs quit already lol. I was asked to come in on my day off to fill a cashier shift, unfortunately, for them, I was on an ATV 10 miles into the woods. =]

I don't understand it either. This company seems to be run by a bunch of idiots that think that the ultimate way to make money is to simply cut costs, as in like just don't have any one working, because you know our wages are a huge frickin black hole to the business's income.

Enjoy the holidays, because once they're over, things just get worse. 15 hours a week on minimum wage? Sure I can live on that. Np. I appreciate the compensation you're giving me for all the bs I put up with during the holidays, and I appreciate the thought that you don't really need me off-season. ty. diaf.

 

[tgtfla]

we are not making sales,we have almost no cashiers and no salesfloor help,call buttons going off all over the place,and the operator going crazy trying to find someone/anyone to answer calls,when I was leaving yesterday the register lines were nine deep and gs had seven people in line,but never mind all that because we are the greatest.........

 

[invictustaylor]

Protip: Don't checkout a walkie! If one is given, refuse it. If they still insist, accidentally leave it at TSC! I've noticed on days that I don't have a walkie, we have no backups at the checklanes, no call boxes, as well as no guest calls! Furthermore, nobody tries to get ahold of me my entire shift!

 

[FormerSpecialist]

it's the same here. i was running all day, doing back ups and helping in electronics. idk what our projected sales were today but it was a mad house when i left. i know our scores for electronic and tm's on the floor are way down.

i could feel the burn as some team members watched me walk out the front door.

 

[redeye58]

I was already 20 min past my cut-off time. My ETL says "We got it. You can go." My mid looked terrified but I had to get out of there.
I want out of the front end so badly....

 

[uncorporated]

we are not making sales,we have almost no cashiers and no salesfloor help,call buttons going off all over the place,and the operator going crazy trying to find someone/anyone to answer calls,when I was leaving yesterday the register lines were nine deep and gs had seven people in line,but never mind all that because we are the greatest.........

But you're "not making sales." Just like you'll never work hard enough. This is retail, you work for a corporation, which means... what? The sky is the limit? Nope. There is no limit to profit. That's how corporations run. Stock is expected to continually go up.

Do people really think that this will continue for much longer? Be skeptical if you wish, if you're lucky you'll never see the consequences in your lifetime. Don't worry, I'm sure your kids will have a great future.

I was already 20 min past my cut-off time. My ETL says "We got it. You can go." My mid looked terrified but I had to get out of there.
I want out of the front end so badly....

I know how you feel, but you can't let it stress you out. Consumers are cattle. You think it's wrong to think of them that way? It's the way the business sees it, including you. Do what you can. What you can't do, you can't do. You get paid by the hour? Unless you're salary. If you are, then that's what you asked for. =P Next to the profit the business is making, and even what DTLs are pulling, they're not really paying you anything. The "team" crap is just psychological bs. I mean, I care about people, and I care that my co-workers are happy. But you are there to make others lots of money. That's it. Stressing out that you can't do enough? Even though you can see yourself that it's due to the decisions the powers-that-be are making, just to make a bit more of a profit? Don't do that.

 

[Guest Attendant]

I went from 40 hours down to 24 hours the final week of december. But it went right back up to 40 the first week of January.

 

[MrMrIce]

We have been killing sales (Alot of days we pass it by 20k) yet hours are being taken away from every position.

 

[Baristar]

They keep cutting hours at Starbucks so that one person is left working there for hours in these last 2 weeks. Yet nearly every day they've had to send one of the cashiers who's trained over to help that one person with a line of 10 people and counting. I don't understand why they keep doing it, because then they're always short on cashiers, and have to bring them off the sales floor.

It's some kind of vicious cycle that they can't or don't want to break. And it leaves customers bitter and testy, and unnecessarily stresses out the employees.

Also, it is unusual to have been working at a Target for over 5 months, and to have only seen the STL once? Most of my coworkers have never seen him.

 

[uncorporated]

They keep cutting hours at Starbucks so that one person is left working there for hours in these last 2 weeks. Yet nearly every day they've had to send one of the cashiers who's trained over to help that one person with a line of 10 people and counting. I don't understand why they keep doing it, because then they're always short on cashiers, and have to bring them off the sales floor.

It's some kind of vicious cycle that they can't or don't want to break. And it leaves customers bitter and testy, and unnecessarily stresses out the employees.

Someone is paid to come up with bright ideas. If it's not working, then you must just be slacking.

Also, it is unusual to have been working at a Target for over 5 months, and to have only seen the STL once? Most of my coworkers have never seen him.

Uh yeah... The last STL we had didn't do a whole lot, but the one we have now doesn't spend more than a half an hour in his office a day, I'm willing to wager. Those who actually work can appreciate him, while those who are used to getting away with not doing much don't like him being around much because he puts them to work. This is coming from a smaller store though. If you're from a super target or just a larger volume store, then the STL probably has a lot more on their plate. But to not see them in 5 months??? Then again, you said you were front end? You're not going to see them much anyways, especially if you're too busy working to notice them floating around. If things are going smoothly on the front end, they should be focusing on making sure product is getting to the floor so sales can be made. Of course, corporate can make this difficult if they require the STL to phone in on pointless meetings and such.

 

[frontendwizard]

They have been cutting hours at my store since black friday and today they realized how behind we are so they brought in people from another store to help out. What a joke.

 

[Baristar]

Someone is paid to come up with bright ideas. If it's not working, then you must just be slacking.

It works, but it just results in a lot of stress on everybody. I feel like a brilliant idea would be to schedule enough people, at least during the holidays. It doesn't hurt me as much, but the GSTL/GSAs have a lot more stress on them, and they usually have to cashier to cover instead of getting their other tasks done well.

Uh yeah... The last STL we had didn't do a whole lot, but the one we have now doesn't spend more than a half an hour in his office a day, I'm willing to wager. Those who actually work can appreciate him, while those who are used to getting away with not doing much don't like him being around much because he puts them to work. This is coming from a smaller store though. If you're from a super target or just a larger volume store, then the STL probably has a lot more on their plate. But to not see them in 5 months??? Then again, you said you were front end? You're not going to see them much anyways, especially if you're too busy working to notice them floating around. If things are going smoothly on the front end, they should be focusing on making sure product is getting to the floor so sales can be made. Of course, corporate can make this difficult if they require the STL to phone in on pointless meetings and such.

He's usually pretty distinctive because he has a line of people waiting to talk/report to him. At the grocery store I used to work at, the equivalent of the STL would actually bag with me on busy days. Seeing as my Target's STL is kind of a stern-looking guy naturally, he's not helping his image by being so scarce.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Our Stl backups Starbucks when they get real busy. 10 folks deep.

 

[InForTheShortHaul]

Happened at my store also. All the seasonal help was let go and we all had at least one shift taken away from us next week. Its insane.

One person was crying in the bathroom, I guess they told the seasonal help they would be kept on at a minimum until Jan 1st. Merry Christmas.

Nothing like being told you're going from 35-40 hours to 20-25 hours because the higher ups suck at math. The worst was when the STL said we need to work "that much harder" to still get everything done with less people and less hours. We were already pushing it as it was!

Who needs extra money this time of year anyhow, am I right?

 

[commiecorvus]

I was walking past the TL office only to hear the head honcho say in a sing song voice "Guess which store came in under hours?"
Like this is somehow an awesome thing that we have been operating on the ragged edge of the bloody razor.
There is point where people just burn out and the E's have got to see that.

 

[eleuthreophile]

I have NEVER understood why people are excited to be under payroll. Great job, you made your team feel like sh*t and prevented people from being able to afford rent and caused TONS of unneeded stress, but at least the numbers look pretty! >: (

 

[Barcode]

we've been trying to get people to work as many hours as possible... My ETL-GE was even okay with me going a little bit overtime last week :]

Feels like every shift we're calling people in to work, or asking people to stay later

 

[Isiseyes]

We have been going crazy with asking people to extend and with overtime. We have been killing sales by 15k to 20k each day that we have been gaining that extra flex payroll.

 

[Ajax11]

We've been so short handed on the floor lately, we had to have the ETLs come in before opening to push all of the Toys / Seasonal PTM.

If only I could have had a 4 person toy team before the store opens, they would have never seen an out. Instead I get 1 person and no one in the backroom available to pull PTM.

 

[Baristar]

I was walking past the TL office only to hear the head honcho say in a sing song voice "Guess which store came in under hours?"
Like this is somehow an awesome thing that we have been operating on the ragged edge of the bloody razor.
There is point where people just burn out and the E's have got to see that.

That is just cruel. They're so absorbed in their race to the bottom....

 

[3LetterDevil]

Thank goodness our hours in pharmacy are pretty much "set" or we'd be screwed! We're already getting our butts handed to us because it's the end of the year so people are trying to get the last of their fills before their deductibles reset and then there's the whole Walgreens/Express Scripts thing and if they tried cutting our hours, we'd REALLY be screwed. Our script counts have almost doubled in the past week and I've stayed an extra 1.5 hours this week alone!

 

[invictustaylor]

don't the etl's get a bonus or a percentage of the hours that they don't use?