This story started this past Saturday.
I was scheduled an opening shift and was just doing my job. My store opened at 9am and by 8:55 there were people waiting outside to enter. If I had to guess, I'd say that by 9:15 or 9:30 there were already dozens of people shopping in the store.
Time went on and the manager says over the wire —
“Just want to let you all know you're doing a great job this morning. We're already at $7,800 in sales, so we're definitely set to meet our projection for the day.”
When I heard this I looked at my watch… 10:45am. Only an hour and forty-five minutes after opening. Holy shit. After a couple minutes I had forgotten about it and started working again.
More time has passed. It's now around 1:30pm and my manager comes onto the wire again —
“Another update for you guys. We're sitting at around $43,000 right now, so keep up the good work. Don't forget to push the credit cards.”
Fucking $43,000 in around 4 or 5 hours. Where is that money going? It sure isn't going to the minimum wage workers they employ. You know, the ones they actually bother to schedule so they have just enough people as to where to store doesn't absolutely collapse.
I'm in awe at this point, so I go to my manager and ask what the projection is. $68,000. $68,000. I want to say that I'm in a small town. This isn't a sprawling city. This isn't the only store for hours. This is just a typical Saturday at this one location — out of over 1500 stores.
When I got in the next day (Sunday), I asked if they had met the projection for yesterday. Not only had they met the projection, they had passed it. $79,000 in one day. $11,000 more than what they were expecting.
Now, I had always figured the store took in a lot of money; but for some reason hearing it progress throughout the day really got to me. If it wasn't for the 6 or 7 people actually working on the floor, that money would not be there. So here I am wasting my time for this billion dollar company, while their store is making $6,500/hour. You CAN NOT tell me that they can't afford to pay their employees more. They're desperately hiring because people are leaving to get better pay elsewhere.
It's shit like this that makes me so angry. There are people who, for some reason, constantly bust their ass for this company only to be handed fucking chump-change. It's absolutely, 100%, grade-A, disgusting.
Oh, also. In case you're wondering. That Sunday's projection was $59,000. They finished the day with $65,000.
Edit:
This isn't some high-end, fancy place. It's literally a big-box retail store. I don't want to say which one, but think of some of the classics apart from Target and Walmart, and you'll probably be correct.