Sorry, this is a long one! Never posted in this sub before, so please let me know if I should change anything; thank you!
I work at a fairly large retail store in the east/southeast of the US that brags about having exclusive/expensive brands. I've been there for over a year, my coworker (who I'll call “F”) had been there a few months, and my 2nd worker (“S”) has been there for less than 2 months.
We work in customer service. This department also takes care of fulfilling online orders for the whole store, handling store supplies, gift wrapping, returns, etc. When I started last year it was an enjoyable job as I genuinely liked helping problem solve and loved learning to professionally gift wrap. I also loved making sure all tasks were completed for the day. Of course there were some management issues, but I didn't let it faze me much.
Until we got a new store manager.
Our previous one had transferred, and everyone was nervous if this new one would be a better fit. She started off really nice and kind. However, it became apparent pretty quickly that she cared about nothing but numbers.
At night, we take half an hour to close registers, get everything sorted for associates to turn in their register money (because of course we have to help with that too), and do audits. She would dump last minute orders on us in this time frame. I have strong recollection of her even doing this 5 minutes to close when I was the only one working. Even the other closing manager was appalled.
But I really lost my respect for her when me and F were both working and were really sick. She had stomach issues and I had a migraine that was making me want to throw up. I explained to the store manager we were just trying to stay to help close so to please treat us kindly. She responded sympathetically. Then came out and printed another 20 orders for us to fill.
The overworking only got worse from there. That's when me and F had decided we needed to leave.
The amount of work expected of one or two of us was even starting to affect our health. It came to a head when I printed a document of all the work done and how much I'd implemented in the department since I'd started, and my demands to stay. Then I sat with the store manager. She even agreed I had done all those things written and more for the department, but “unfortunately” they couldn't give me a substantial raise and if I wanted more money I'd have to transfer to sales, where the associates pull in “real money.” That's when I was done.
So me and F had started looking diligently for new jobs for the past few months. Not long after, S started. We took to her, and explained we would not be staying long. She quickly realized why.
I did speak to then both about pay, and like another slap in the face, found out they both are making more than me. 50 cents (which I'd never grovel to get) but the principal of it fueled my search for a better career. (Btw I was happy for them and they were mad on my behalf about the pay difference, they're good people.)
I got 4 or 5 job offers. Right now I've accepted two, both making substantially more. I'm working on training for one and waiting for the background check for the other. F has started training at her new job. F put in her two weeks last week, and I followed a couple days later. Apparently that didn't really do it for them just yet. But when they found S's letter of resignation today, they got really upset/mad. That means the department will be down to 2 associates and the store secretary who will have to help in customer service again. So now the store manager and assistant manager are closed up in their office trying to figure out what to do about over half their customer service department leaving.
It really goes to show that treating your associates right will keep them. We enjoyed our job till we got taken for granted, now management is going to have to sort it out. Not our problem anymore!
Tl;dr – management has been pushing and pushing in our dept, without any real recognition/raise, pays my coworkers more than me when I've been there longer. Me and two of my coworkers put in our two weeks, and now management is panicking and apparently really upset that over half the team is leaving.