I am a low-level retail manager. I actually enjoyed my job, they taught me a ton of skills to add to my resume, met so many amazing people that brighten my day, we got recognition for our work, and we were encouraged to think for ourselves and be creative instead of being micromanaged to death.
I've noticed everything going downhill as the company got more and more penny-pinching over time. They took yearly raises and bonuses away from most associates, prices went up nearly 300%, hiring freezes despite HUGE turnover, cutting jobs, more performance pressure, and more work.
The store is basically now like Amazon obsessed with performance culture try to run on the bare minimum. We regularly get assigned insane goals that no human can accomplish, with threats of write-ups, just trying to pressure us to do more on a daily basis, knowing fully it can't be done. We walk around in tears all the time from verbal abuse, the stress of doing 3 jobs for the price of 1, and being told our best isn't enough.
They tell me I need to pressure my associates more and threaten them to work even harder when they are some of the best performers in the entire store, I refuse. I love my associates, they are great people who do a great job, I will and have fought anyone who tries to tell me they need to be faster or they aren't enough. I refuse to be part of their exploitation.
At the tail end of last year, we got a new store manager. His favorite thing to do is talk shit telling us we are easily replaceable and he'll fire everyone if he has to. The store looks like fucking trash with nobody running it but a skeleton crew, everything is dirty and you can barely shop without tripping over the freight that's sitting everywhere, we can't afford to hire because everyone we hire nopes out in less than a month and hiring is expensive.
The funny thing is, he's yet to fire anyone. The other managers just started mass quitting and nobody is dumb enough to put in for those jobs, even when begged to. So we have all these manager openings that have been vacant for over a month they are freaking out about how to fill.
My associates know I am anti-work and we have been talking for months about leaving the company. Over half of my associates plus myself plan to walk all on the same day, only a couple new hires will remain so they are going to be in some deep shit. Oh well, they can just go replace easily replace us lol. Can't wait to see how long my job sits unfilled like everyone else's.