u/DeathWishKira

I'm asking because this is my first job and I'm still trying to figure out how this works. So, for context, I graduated high school last year and I'm not a college student, my college is great in letting me flexible as I'm a full time student but I only go to school for 2 days, which is great because I need the money (my parents are dead, my mom passed in my junior year, and my dad passed while I was in second grade, so I've been working to get money to live off of by myself for 3 years now). Anyways, that just context of why I'm stupid, not know all this work stuff, and why I need my availability changed.

I had my availability set for two days, and now I'm going to school on two different days now for the Summer, so I'm trying to set up my new availability. I sent it in on Thursday, last week, right before my break. My HR only works on Weekdays so I knew she saw it, and I wanted to make sure she got it incase I did it wrong, because she wants us to do all our requests online and not on paper. So when I went on my lunch I asked her if she got it and she's goes, "Oh.., yeah, I got it, you know...", and that was it. I then didn't have work on Friday so I couldn't ask what she meant because I realized that her tone was weird about it, so as I was working the weekend, thinking about it , I was wondering if I should go talk to her and ask her about it if it still isn't approved when I work next, because I work on Thursday this week.

So really, my question is if I need to ask her if I need to show proof of my school dates before she approves it, or just in general why she hasn't approved it, or do I wait until the date I set the change which is the 13th?

Honestly just curious because I applied for both Lowes and HomeDepot when I graduated high school, and Lowes got back to me first, and I've been wondering if it would've been better, worse, or the same if I accept HomeDepot.

So, here's my experience at Lowes so far from working there for 8-9 months:

I started working last year, in September, so it's been roughly 8-9 months since I first started, and I'm a part-time cashier. It was really good for the first couple of days, the lady that trained me was likeable, and customers would come into the store just to greet her, even my co-workers loved and praised her. She was kind of a celebrity in a way. My best time was training with her, and later being able to work with her rarely.

Everything changed right after I was finally able to work by myself. I realized that people wouldn't answer me like they had when I was training with the lady who trained me. I'll call the code for loading, or just when a customer needs help in electrical or hardware, and no one would answer. It took me from using the Zebra to call the person individuality, to calling everyone three times before one of my Head Cashiers or Managers answered on the phone, "Can someone get that?", before someone replied and went to do it.

Self-checkout and Lumber are also the worse areas to work at, lumber a little bit more because your dealing with the Pros. When I was moved from self-checkout, usually for breaks or to cover someone, I found out there were things I wasn't taught that I needed to be taught. You see, when I was being trained at self-checkout, they sent us to Garden and Lumber to at least learn how to work there because they would end up send us other there incase that section needed to be cover, but the cashier who was supposed to show us to do phone sales and a lot of other stuff, just didn't, and the lady that was originally training me had told me not to worry because we wouldn't be sent there. But I've been constantly sent to lumber.

Another issue is the deals Lowes does. I don't know who, and I don't know why no Manager fixes it, but they place deals when the deal isn't even for that item. When the item doesn't come up with the 25%, or the different price, customers get upset, and I have to send them back to take a picture because I need to see the item number. Then they get made when the item number is for a completely different item and tell me I need to fix it. This happens a lot in lumber with the wood as well. Garden is also not excused, but an issue more in garden is that they don't put tags on the stones. We had a book that we would find the item and then just scan the barcode, but they've been getting rid of the book and have a system we use online now to find the item, which makes it more difficult. The customer will often get impatient and angry when you can't find it, and it'll put stress on me because I'll always get a long line and I just need to get through it or I'll have more than one customer angry with me.

It genuinely took me a whole 6 months to get my co-workers to finally answer my calls, much less to get more up in the ranks to where I'm not being treated like something to ignore. I only was able to do this by treating my co-workers like customers, being nice to them, letting them complain, and doing what they asked. It's a system of owing someone when you help them. It disgusting, and I hate going to work.

It's also not enough for you to live off of if your not a full-time, or constantly covering someone's shift (I didn't usually cover people's shift because they always had me working on the days that I don't go to school, which is only two days a week). I just recently finally got my hours to 8 then the 4 hours they were giving to me as a part-time employee. I only worked 12-16 a week, sometimes a little more, but now I'm getting 40 hours a week.

I don't know if all retail is the same, but the only struggle I have is that I have co-workers that don't answer me or want to do their job, which, okay, but it leads to me being yelled at by the customer. It's to a point that anytime I go in for work and grab a schedule, I highlight who I know will answer me just because I got closer to them or did a favor for them.

So, what do you think? Do you think you have it better at HomeDepot? Worse? Or roughly the same?

I swear that I'll always have beef with whoever started the rumor that Lowes would be selling Pokémon. It's happened a lot recently where I'll have a customer come in, go straight to self-checkout and whisper to me, "do you have Pokémon cards?", and when I mean whisper, I mean like you can't even hear what they just asked you, like they just mumbled something in another language. Like, I get it, stores, like Target, have started locking the cards at the registers so no one steals or takes more, but seriously? Then the customer will look at me like I'm hoarding it when I say we don't sell them, before doing the classic line of, "Oh... well I really wanted to get one for my kid." Bro, how dumb do you think I am? I have customers try to do it for the tiny buckets, I know you don't have a kid, you just want me to feel guilty and pull one out magically to give you.