get me out of this godforsaken place
started drafting this post like a minute ago and accidentally closed out of my tab and none of it saved. just what i needed honestly!!!!! this post is extremely long and probably nonsensical at times but i just need to get it off my shoulders.
anyway: i posted earlier during my break just venting but i am genuinely considering promoting myself to guest. i've only worked here two months & some change, and in those two months i've not only experienced but witnessed harassment, intimidation, toxicity, and overall shit behavior from my TLs. yes, i know retail is hell. yes, i know that guests are going to give you shit. but the disrespect from our LEADERS is fucking atrocious.
first off: style gets a lot of shit, at least at MY STORE. we are a p-fresh target, so our style department takes up half (if not more) of the store. our TLs tell us that we're the highest paid department, but i'm not sure if that's true or if it's just something they say to get us to do things that are way above our pay grade. we have to cover tech's breaks, be backup at the registers (they don't call up any other sales floor team, JUST STYLE!!!), we have to hang and organize the reshop at the service desk because god forbid they hang and fold things neatly for us instead of just throwing it all into a plastic bin or 3 tier. also they give us a busted ass card reader zebra to do save the sales with and are surprised when we barely get any. the device is BROKEN!!! and no one will come and take it back to the front to be plugged in so it's always dead when the openers come in!
our TLs expect us to push out a 10 hour truck within 4 hours or less, not accounting for the time spent backstocking, pushing reshop from the service desk and the fitting room, locking and unlocking and locking and unlocking and locking the fitting room stalls over and over and over again, being backup at the front lanes, zoning our areas and picking up the guest's trash (because god forbid they throw their starbucks in a TRASH CAN instead of leaving it on a shelf!), covering for the tech boat and unlocking the electronics/beauty stockroom for the people who need to be let in and don't have a key, we have to be our own asset protection team because apparently it's OUR responsibility if a guest is tampering with an item (hello? WHAT ARE THE CAMERAS FOR?), all the while being told that we're too slow, we need to drop everything we're doing for a project like redoing the entire shoes section, and our zoning is awful.
jesus christ. i actually can't take it any more?? i've only ever worked retail jobs and have had some crazy things happen to me, but holy shit target is genuinely the worst. i don't think i've known such immaturity until meeting my TLs.
this is what really set me off: the other day, a truck day, it was only me and two other people. why? because they don't schedule anyone else. no one called out, they just think that three people are capable of running an entire 10 hour truck within the first half of our shift. so, obviously, we weren't able to do that. it was about an hour before i was going to leave and we were all at the fitting room to sort through the reshop and clear out the stalls. we're talking and working at the same time, and my TL comes up and is telling us that we really need to get truck done. and, yes, of course, i want to get truck done too. i don't want to come in and have to push truck on a non truck day, so i understand her perspective. she has a lot of drive and wants things done, well so do i!!! i love getting things done!!!
anyway, my coworker says something along the lines of "there's a lot of shoes to be pushed out, and i don't think i'll be able to get to it because of all the reshop that needs to be pushed out." okay, understandable. we usually get like 20 boxes of shoes and have to backstock at least 4 boxes worth on bigger truck days. and do you know what my TL does in response to that? she snaps her fingers at all of us, calling us slow and telling us to "get going on that". holy shit it made me SO uncomfortable. as someone on the spectrum with level 1 autism, i felt extremely targeted, no pun intended. i never disclosed on my application that i was autistic because i was worried that i wouldn't be hired (i had applied several times to target before and always disclosed it, and the one time i didn't... i got hired... hm!), but after i did get hired it was pretty obvious to everyone that i am autistic. don't know why, but that's just the way it is. no one really cares, but there are times where someone will say something and it's like... can you be a little sensitive?
anyway. after this happened, everyone was shocked that our TL would do something like that. it felt extremely disrespectful, especially because our TL is a white woman and we are all minorities. i pretty much begged my coworker to go to HR about this, and that we would all vouch for her as well. she said she would talk to our ETL; and she did apparently, but guess what? our ETL didn't GAF. she was literally laughing and talking with our TL the next day as if nothing happened. and our TL never even apologized to us. in fact, she IGNORED all of us and glared at us when she thought we weren't looking, then had the audacity to comment on our guest service. like, i'm sorry i didn't greet that guest whose back was facing me and who was also on the phone and asked him if he needed help finding anything, or, "who are you shopping for", jesus!!!
this TL is widely known to be unsympathetic as well. there was one time i was pushing truck with my coworker who is in a wheelchair and couldn't reach some items on her metro, so of course i helped her out; and we were talking about this TL, and my coworker said "she has zero empathy, like she's without a soul, it's like she's not even human". and i laughed and said that was crazy, but now i really see what she means. because i witnessed this first hand.
i'm still in my 90 days, and i've called out twice. once because i was ill, the second time because my cat had passed away unexpectedly. even when having my fucking cat cremated, i was worried and anxious about what my TL would say about my absence. that really tells you a lot, right? anyway, i went into work the next day, swallowing my emotions and slapping that happy guest service loving robot face on, did my work, did my work WELL, and guess what? my TL asks to meet her in the back, and proceeds to pry about why i called out. i was so caught off guard by it, so i told her my cat died. she looked me dead in the eyes and said, "it's really easy to be let go for calling out within your 90 days."
holy shit. you actually are not human. i have a life outside of work, as do you, as does everyone else. i actually felt like i was being lobotomized in that moment because??? what??? i don't know WHY she asked, because i am not obligated at all to tell her why i called out. but she caught me so off guard and kept asking over and over again, i felt like i had no choice. on top of that, she gossiped about it with our other TLs and presumably our ETL, because our ETL asked me about it later that day. and on top of THAT, my cat was dead! oh my god, i just cannot take it any more!
i literally spent both of my breaks today searching for other jobs. unfortunately, it's nothing but retail for miles. and i don't have a car! so i'm basically just fucked. i would have liked to have a conversation with our HR rep today, but she left before i could talk to her. and you know what? i'm even hesitant about that. because what if she doesn't take me seriously? no one else does! and what if she's also buddy buddy with our ETL and TLs that call us slow and treat us like shit? i was thinking about going on-demand, but i don't know if i'm allowed to even ask for that within my 90 days. i just want to get out of this shithole. i genuinely think this bullshit about "getting target back to the way it was" is making everyone a worse person. but yeah let's get super strict about the dress code and greet and smile at every guest within a 10 mile radius because that'll get our sales back up. fuck you