Just quit as a grocery manager for Sprouts Farmers Market for the second time!
I will never go back to retail especially food retail.
I quit a few years ago mostly due to low pay and understaffing. Corporate at the time didn't help. They had more corporate personnel than store people. Loved the people I worked with, even the GM and I ( we started off pretty rocky) realized we were taking out our stresses from corporate on each other and built a good working relationship.
But about a year ago a business venture fell through and I found myself returning to my old position. Most of the people I knew had moved on including the GM. But a few stayed.
With COVID I was able to negotiate a good salary and got assurances in writing that my department would be fully staffed to the best of the GM's abilities. It was awesome! Corporate was purged and only a handful of the old guard remained and they are good at their jobs.
Everything started off good. Had the beginnings of a new crew. I knew it would take time to hire just cause of the job market but the GM assured me she was trying to interview everyday.
Started to get a good professional relationship with the GM and we were constantly communicating with ideas to make things better.
Then it started to get weird. Meetings with the GM became less about ideas and problem solving and more about her complaining about other department heads. I sidestepped as much as possible and tried to offer solutions for her issues with these people just to keep it as professional as possible.
Eventually the meetings became mostly useless. I had not gotten any people hired into my department and when I asked why all I got was no one wanted to work, even though as soon as a position was open in any other department it was filled. Turnover is extremely high at this store.
It got to the point I didn't even try to meet with her. It was just 10 minutes of bitching about other employees and lies. I had better things to do.
The last 2 months I had only one stocker and myself to work deliveries to the shelf and do all the other administrative duties I had. We were getting 800 cases plus a night.
When I begged for help the GM would come up with some bullshit equation that if we worked so many cases an hour it would be no problem for 2 people to do the work. Didn't bother to factor in all the other work I needed to do.
I was working 60+ hour weeks. Then my one stocker quits. GM tells me she is hiring 2 people next week but I need to get through with a couple clerks who only work a few hours a week.
At this point I was already done. I had my new job lined up and put my 2 weeks in. They are now screwed. Cause they have no coverage for the department.
Then it all comes out. She was never trying to hire more people for me. I was making the department function, so she was going to pocket the unused labor in her bonus. On top of that, one of the people she was trying to get to take my position internally spoke to me after doing the interview. Not only would she not add people to the department but I was a “whiny bitch” for asking.
It was right then that I realized I couldn't spend one more minute there. I grabbed my jacket and said bye to a couple of the people that I was friends with and walked up to her office by the registers at the busiest part of the day and knocked on her door.
When she opened it ai said spoke as as loudly as possible and said I heard the shit she had been spreading and that I was fucking done! I tossed my store keys on the side desk and walked out. It felt like an elephant lifted off my chest!
She is fucked. Now she has absolutely zero coverage for her busiest department just at the beginning of the heaviest season for the store.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes!
Sorry for the long post just need to rant