So I recently quit my job at this place called “At Home: The Home Decor Superstore” which is basically a knockoff Homegoods but almost as big as a Walmart. As a customer the store is decent at best but has inflated prices compared to other companies and worse quality overall. Oh, and damaged items no matter if its literally unusable, only get 10% off max. Displays don't qualify for a discount unless they're damaged.
As a former employee this place is just awful. If you want to work for pocket change this is the best place for you.
As of 2022 for a typical At Home employee in IL, you start out at $16/hr which isn't bad but still under a livable wage ($19.29+ for 1 adult 0 kids in my county) even if working full time.
A Typical shift for a store operation associate starts at 7am and ends at 3pm. You mainly work on truck the whole day unless truck gets done then you stock stuff on the sales floor or are backup on register. Truck was easygoing for the most part but occasionally was backbreaking work. Stocking stuff is dumb as hell because they organize by color and size and not by UPC or SKU. There are also no big aisle letters or numbers but only tiny labels on the bottom of the shelves, so you have to just guess where to put shit and hope the managers don't get pissed cause you put it in the wrong place. Customers would always get frustrated with us because we couldn't give them an isle number but just point and say “over there in that specific area”
Management was bearable for the most part except for one. The bad manager (lets call her D) D is the front-end supervisor and acted super sweet and submissive to customers and employees on the sales floor but she often stuck her nose into the backroom and her personality would just flip from day to night. She'd swear like a sailor and act super aggressive if a cashier asked for help. She'd be sassy to them us the walkies. She barked orders at us even when our backroom supervisor was already working with us. She also went on witch hunts if someone did something wrong and made a huge deal out of it to single out an employee and make them look stupid for doing something they did not know how to do. Shes the kind of toxic person who takes pride in knowing she's a bitch and that she's not liked by others. She also consistently talked shit about all of us employees calling us “fucking lazy” because we weren't going at her “high on cocaine” speed (she took pride in drinking around 10+ coffees or multiple energy drinks each day) and making fun of us for requesting schedule accommodations calling us “babies” and to “suck it up” cause she had to deal with bad hours when she was in our shoes. The other managers knew we didn't like her and that she was unfair/rude but never said a word to her or disciplined her for her actions. She would frequently abuse her power as supervisor when the lead store manager was gone and demanded the truck team HAD to stay and finish the truck even after our shifts were over. She would also withhold lunches and breaks until she gave the okay while the other managers would ask us. She had a toxic personality where she would act rude one day and then the next day reward the store by ordering free food and act like your “bestie” the next to emotionally manipulate you. Most coworkers agreed that D was fake and on a power trip. D was the most rude, unprofessional, and unpredictable boss I've ever had, and I've had around 10 jobs by now so I have seen some rude bosses before but not like this. Management would not call or text employees that were skipping or were late and just could care less about anything as long as they sold enough credit cards and made the DM happy by sucking each other's dicks or whatever.
The hardest part of the job for me was having to frequently lift 100+lbs objects 15-20ft with only a ladder. The powered lift they have is broken. This poses a major safety issue and is just asking for an OSHA complaint one day. Oh and the number of other health and safety concerns such as: the amount of dust, mold/mildew, plastics, and glitter that was inhaled each shift. The mold on the underside of some furniture. The leaky furnace that reeked of natural gas. The damaged lithium battery packs in the scooters that looked like they would explode. The time my boss just watched as I almost got crushed by a full bail of carboard when pulling the pallet jack down a slope. The time I almost cut my eye with glass because there was broken glass inside a pallet that I lifted that I didn't know about. The fact that they did not sanitize the scanners, walkies, or breakroom keyboards and tables. Everyone would take their scanners and walkies into the bathrooms with them daily. I also had the pleasure of cleaning someone shit from the sink my 2nd week there cause everyone + managers refused to get rid of it and just left it to rot and stink up the place. I know I didn't HAVE to clean that but I'm a germaphobe and the kind of person that likes to get things outta the way and dealt with.
The only good parts were that most my coworkers were fantastic people to work with, sometimes customers would tip me for helping load stuff in their cars, and you get a 30 min lunch on top of your break for working 6+ hours. You also get 25% employee discount.
The reason I left was because the hours/days weren't stable and of course the above problems. if you're a stocker your hours depend on how many trucks that come in. I went from 25+ hours a week to just 7 hours because of truck supply. They didn't mention that in the job description of course and didn't let us know ahead of time.
TLDR: Mgmt sucked ass and one of my bosses basically acted like Regina George from Mean Girls instead of a grown ass adult, just straight up bipolar and unpredictable. Major safety and health issues and they cut our hours with no notice.