Title says it all. I recently picked up a job at a local nursery, thinking working with plants cant be to bad even if it is corporate. The day of the interview, I go into the store on time and ask for the manager. They have me sit down and wait as he is busy with other things. Another guy who was there to interview had been waiting for 45 minutes and they had him sit with me. Him and I chit chat for about 15 minutes until the manager finally comes over to interview us. Now it has turned into some sort of group interview because the manager obviously doesn't have time for interviews. He asks both of us the usual questions and then had us answer a “Plant Quiz”. I finish up with this and then leave.
I drive myself all the way home, which is about a half hour away, and the store calls me to offer me a position. I say sure, that sounds great. Then they proceed to ask me if I can come back and get my onboarding training done that day. I'm a little hesitant because I had just drove all the way home and they want me to come back. But I say ok and drive back down the hill. As I'm sitting there getting my onboarding done. They were having another person wait to be interviewed. Poor girl probably sat there for 20 minutes until someone came over…
I'm immediately put on the schedule and start work the next day. That morning I show up I get a quick tour of the store and some supplies. I start to break down pallets and unload the product onto shelves and then the micromanaging begins. I was told by my direct manager to go through a checklist and count the product to double check we got everything, pretty standard protocol. Then I had this “Buyer” who wasn't even wearing the nursery's clothes tell me that I'm just wasting time by double checking to see if we received all the product and just to get it out on the shelf. Red Flags start raising to me at this point.
Throughout the day, I am helping customers as much as I can but I don't know where anything really is because Im new there. Another manager comes up to my manager and says that there is someone waiting to be interviewed but the Store Manager was busy, and asked if my direct manager could go over and talk to the interviewee for the little. Its like they don't even respect the value of time for these potential workers.
Before I take any sort of break, I am required to go out to the parking lot and help collect carts. They hire people to do that for the store. It's not a part of my job description so why I am required to do that. Plus its just taking time away from the projects that I need to get done.
One of the last things that really sent me to leave and not look back was the fact one of my co workers mentioned to me that before I showed up, my whole department just up and left, and now they are scrambling to get the department filled. I asked why and he mentioned various reasons but one that stood out was the micromanaging…
Just needed to vent, I usually not a quitter and feel bad for leaving some of them hanging, but I feel like I missed a bullet and am just going to keep applying to other positions. Thank you for reading if you made it this far.
TL:DR Got a job, noticed a bunch of red flags on the first day, quit, feels bad.