I have worked retail management for the better part of the last 6 years. I’m in my mid 20s and am a college student. I have been at my current company for almost 5 months now and am about to go on my vacation that I scheduled out when I started. It was taken away from me because “it’s not fair to the other managers” according to my DM. I asked the other managers and they told me to take it. Regardless it’s two weeks away and the DM just took it away and said I had no business taking that time off.
Over the course of 5 months I have worked 5 days in a row, have one day off and then work 4 more days and then one day off. Basically your typical retail schedule. 40 hour weeks with spaced out days off. We have three full time managers and only one gets weekends off (store manager). The other full time manager just put their two weeks in, for a job that pays better and they get weekends off. I’m in the process of leaving and have interviews throughout the next couple weeks. That leaves the store manager without a management team and I don’t care anymore.
We run the store with 170 hours of payroll a week. We have an insane amount of product, we are the third largest store in the mall in terms of product. Of course corporate is wondering why we aren’t doing better, and are breathing down our necks every day. This store needs at least 300 to function. My DM visits constantly and makes us work when she’s here without a lunch break. They keep slashing payroll which means we aren’t going to bonus even though we are up in sales. If we are over even 1 hour in payroll we don’t get a bonus.
In all we are overworked and beyond burnt out, won’t get a bonus because they don’t give us payroll to function. They took away my approved vacation two weeks before I go on it, that was approved already. Saying goodbye to retail finally.