Someone at work mentioned that this blog existed so I had to check it out for myself...
Yep, those photos look pretty accurate to me! On the morning of January 18, 2007, the regional manager came into the store and boy was she pissed! I wasn't there to see her, but the instructions she left for management was to have every department, recovery and freight employee in the store in the Men's department cleaning.
Now, we all had mixed emotions on this one. Why should we have to help in one person's area when there is so much more to be done in the store? We have our own departments to maintain and they will soon be out of hand if we aren't there for most of a workday. But whatever. If Miriam (sp.) wants to see the Men's department cleaned up because of some pictures posted on the web, then fine. Just don't expect the rest of the store to look good as a result.
Let me start at the beginning. There are several factors which play into the condition of this particular store, three of them being:
- Store Management
- Lack of staff
- Customer demographic
If you've ever shopped Kohl's you already know they're a fast-growing discount retailer. Just this month they've reached the billion-dollar mark for one-year sales. That said, there is always a sales and people looking to get even more of a discount.
Your average Kohl's customer shops the store with Wal-Mart money and expects Barney's service. They take several pieces of clothing into the dressing rooms, try them all on and then leave them there. Okay, this happens. But then you all expect us, the employees, to clean it all up because "that's your job," you say. Right? Well, as long as we're having to go behind each and every PIG that shops, we aren't able to assist you on the sales floor, aren't able to get more product onto the floor (replenishment), and we aren't able to keep the sales floor in pristine condition. And don't get me started on the KIDS that run through the store! Sure, you say it's never YOUR kids, but we see differently. How many times have you turned around and had to call your child's name? You don't know what they were doing, but we do...more on that one later, though...
Then you have those customers who get to the front registers, decide they don't want something and just leave it at the front. Okay, no big deal, but what happens when you - the BUYING customer - wants something that was left at the front? We can't get there fast enough to put things back bacause of those customers who left things in the fitting rooms for us to clean up!
You also have impatient customers who complain about having to wait 3-5 minutes in line on a SATURDAY AFTERNOON! H E L L O!! If we're all cleaning up after you all who don't put things back where you got them from, how do you expect to be helped out of the store quickly? Simple, it just doesn't happen.
Kohl's is what you call a Self-Service Store - you find what you need on your own and put it back where you got it from. When you need help, the associates are there to help you. Oh. There aren't any associates around to help, you say? Well, we've been called to the front registers to help check people out. Surely you understand that we can't be in two places at the same time, right?
And then there's the Customer Service desk...people return things for all kinds of reasons (nothing wrong with that) and we (department associates) are supposed to make several trips a day to the service desk in order to grab those undamaged returns to put them back on the sales floor. No big deal, but we're also supposed to be 1)on the sales floor helping customers, 2)replenishing said sales floor, 3)helping out on registers, 4)cleaning up your childrens' spills, 5)getting UPC numbers for customers who have merchandise without tags, 6)cleaning out fitting rooms, etc.
Not everything can be blamed on the customer. I am not suggesting that at all, but you all do need to take some responsibility. It isn't every customer, but it is the vast majority of Dallas shoppers. Some of you blame it on the mid-to low-income customers with little money and several children. You aren't looking at the Highland Park and Plano shoppers we get each day, the ones who expect to be waited on hand and foot, the ones who think they deserve more than the next customer.
We try to be fair to everybody that shops there no matter where you come from. We do our best with what we are given.
Now with that said, there's the management team. Oh boy. In a nutshell, they're pretty much good for nothing. They leave everything up to the department supervisors and part-time associates while they sit in the office eating donuts and taking lunch breaks. They are so concerned with their vacation time and what they're doing over the weekend, that we're left to figure things out on our own. We do a pretty good job considering we have NO help from management.
*Only two of them really care and they know who they are. Thanks for your help, you suggestions and concern for us little people.*
Have you all met the store manager? He's the one whose name and picture you see up on the wall at the Customer Service Desk. You may direct all complaints to him if you want instant gratification.
Instead of hiring more staff, they leave shifts uncovered and ask employees from other stores to come help out. It really is embarassing to those of us who are there and do what we're supposed to. The store has been understaffed from day one. The company doesn't want to put the money necessary into payroll to hire new associates and they don't want to spend the money that is available to have current associates scheduled to work.
When you have people that are only scheduled to work 5-10 hours a week, do you really expect them to be cheerful about their jobs? I certainly don't. When we're at work all we hear are complaints from managers, customers and even other employees about how nothing is getting done. There's only so much we can do before management steps in and takes responsibility!
Yes, there are those associates who are there simply to collect a paycheck and do nothing to deserve it, which in turn means the rest of us have to pick up more slack!! When does this end? Unfortunately, it is a never-ending cycle! We have to come in and bust our bottoms each and every day for customers who will never notice (for many reasons), managers who never step in and for a company that doesn't care anything about its associates.
Do I think it was wrong for the person to come in and take pictures of the store for the sake of embarassing the associates and company as a whole? Absolutely not, but I do feel it was necessary for a response.
I am now off to the company's "After-Christmas Party" at good ol Dave & Busters. I was pressed for time in writing this and will be back after work tomorrow with more.
-Kohl's Dallas Employee
P.S. If any of you wondered why you don't get a "Thank you for shopping," it is because those of us who go above and beyond don't get a "Thank you for all your help."
AND --- It was right AFTER CHRISTMAS that the original blogger visited! What do you expect? People were shopping our store until after Midnight and most of us had to be back there as early as 6AM.
In case you missed it, this is a response to Hurricane Kohl's.
338 Comment(s).
Posted by Current Employee:
I have worked for Kohls for many many years now. I believe that the root of many of these problems is the lack of hours available. When I first started working at kohls most departments had 2 people working in them during the evenings and were always staffed in the mornings. In the last couple of years though that has completely changed. Now many departments are left unattended, sometimes until 2pm or later, on a daily basis. When we do have someone in a department they are more than likely by themselves. Between covering other departments for breaks and getting called up to run register, since they are understaffed as well, we barely have any time to clean up or fill in merchandise in our own departments. People have not gotten messier over the years we just have fewer workers to clean up after them. Also with more workers and more experienced workers we relied less on management. Back then they could sit on their asses while taking the occasional phone call. As for why I haven't quit if it is such a bad place to work, they are good with schedules which I need since I am in school and now I'm making more working part than any other retailer would pay me.
Wow. I have worked for Kohl's for over a year now, and I thought it was just the store that I worked at that was run so incompetently--guess not. My only difference in my complaint is that I am a full-time specialist at my store in the jewelry department. Most of my weeks consist of anywhere from 40-45 hours a week. It seems that most people posting would be happy with those hours, but by the time my work week ends I am tired beyond belief. My scheduling is ridiculous so I can't even have the semblance of a personal life, and the amount of work that the Kohl's coroporation expects it's employees to get done is ridiculous. I really would love to learn where they test their workloads. A store with no customers? As for the managment in my store, the only ones that care are my immeadiate supervisors--the store manager is one of the most decietful people I have ever met and more times often than not seems to let her moods control how she runs the store and treats her employees with the greatest lack of respect I have ever seen. Anyone know if there is a hotline we Kohl's employees can call to complain about the way our store is being run?
Posted by Mike:
WOW! This employee hit it right on the head. I worked at 3 different Kohl's in Maryland all throughout college, but only because it was flexible. As soon as I graduated I was OUTTA THERE! We had the same EXACT problems at ALL 3 stores. Extremely understaffed, lousy managers, messy customers, etc. And Kohl's IS supposed to be a self serve store where you pick up items and put them back yourself. Working in the shoe dept I would sometime spend my entire shift picking shoes off the floor (left out of their box all over the middle of the floor!). Unless you have worked there and know what it's like, you can't judge, but that's what most people tend to do.
Posted by Kate:
Oh wow! I was just browsing this site to look and see about Kohl's and if any of my complaints were relavent. And I'm glad they were.
I'm a student who is nonskilled and while I realized that there are a few jobs out there for me, I still want a good one.
I thought I had found it at Kohl's. The managers seemed to care and the training was better than at Safeway and Coldstone, where I previously worked.
Come my second week, I was itching to get out of there. I work at POS and I get good credit apps.
But the thing is, if I don't do anyting, I get the same treatment as if I worked my ass off.
Also, I'll call for change because I'm in desperate need of it and no one comes for like twenty minutes! And if I try to go back to get it myself, I get yelled at because I'm not trust worthy or something.
It was funny because I got a "yes you did!" card from my manager only to find out that he wrote the exact same thing for EVERYONE that day. Talk about personal right?
I have an interview with a local restaurant as a hostess and I hope I get the job because after being treated like dog shit and all, I'm ready to get out of there!
Oh, and my problem is not being given enough hours, its being given way too many!
No one seems to care that I worked 43 hours a week last week, because everyone else called in!
Another complaint, when I told my manager I was sick, he laughed at me!
No joke.
If any of you keep working there, your nuts. The new processes, shithead managers that are only out for themselves and will NEVER get beyond store manager are geared to cut hours and "streamline" the business. However, they forgot the worker bee makes the store run, not the management. 3 years was enough for me. To Kohl's I say --- you meet the same people going down as you did going up and going down is a lot worse. You may be hot shit now but just wait 'till the bonus's stop. The economy dictates your blood money salary. And it ain't look'n good. Mickey D's for you assholes.
Wow, this was good timing to read all of your comments. I had just applied at 2 Kohl's stores and was hired, instead, in a different line of work offering me twice as much as what Kohl's was going to (I did not know what Kohl's would offer at the time). So I go online to see if I can get an idea of what people are paid for hourly jobs at Kohl's, and ran into this site. Of course I read everything I could but had 2-3 comments still to read when the phone rang and it was the 1st Kohl's offering me the job I applied for at not much more than minimum wage! I have years of experience, and I know what a lot of you would have liked for me to tell them, but I just told them I was declining their offer. Then I came back to my computer to finish reading... ;)
Timingiseverything:
Good thing you did your research!:)
I do not think the experiences shared here by those working in retail are unique to Kohl's. Over the past 10 years changes occurred in the retail industry. When consumers began demanding low price/high quality goods, stores responded by lowering prices and offering little or no customer service. This puts enormous pressure on the few sales associates that the store has working at any given point in time.
:Po:)
Amen to the other Kohls Associates! I'm tired of being everyone's maid or personal shopper! I have always been respectful of others hard work even before I started retail, I have always returned merchandise to the floor because I picked it up, so if I don't want it, I'll put it back. Customers at Kohls get the freedom of trying on however many items they want and then they just throw them on the floor. Even the Vera Wang. Would they go to a expensive store and just just throw them like a piece of trash? I am so tired of picking up after people, I am just trying to make a living when I have been laid off from 2 jobs going overseas. I know this won't make much of a difference, but if customers would only have a little understanding of what we have to deal with just to get by from day to day. It all comes down to being respectful..
Posted by timingiseverything:
I want all of you current Kohls employees to know that this site has rekindled my awareness of the hardships of working in retail. I did it for years, then had an office job for years--enough years to forget what it could be like cleaning up after people who have no respect for the store or employees. It's all flooding back to me, though. I am a positive person and choose to stay focused on the good in people (and the majority of people being well-intentioned), so I do think the employees that feel trampled on just need to empower themselves and look for a better job or position, but I truly don't walk into Kohls or any other retail establishment without the utmost (and renewed) respect for the polite employees working there, remembering what they put up with in spite of their smile. Thanks for the insite, and I will always be respectful to you employees, I promise!
Posted by Jerry:
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Thank God I don't work for Kohl's The shit store from hell!!! I quit, and in the nick of time. That is the worst experience of my working life-and I've cleaned houses of complete slobs to put myself through school! I'd rather be homeless than have to work for that dump again. The hell hole that I worked in was in an upsale suburb of Chicago, and we had customers that shit on the floor. Can you believe it? Actually shit on the floor in the photo frames section!!! Then there are the people who piss in the dressing rooms. Oh, and lets not forget the the used tampons, the chewed gum, the bottles of who-knows-what left on in the shopping carts.
Don't even get me started on the so-called store manager. She is a creature that acts like a human, but couldn't be more of a demon if she tried. Ever since she took over the store, employees have been dropping like flies. I don't have to work, so I was happy to walk away. I feel bad for those that need to work there for the health insurance. They want to censor what employees talk about on their break, in their off time, basically whenever, as long as they are employeed by satan. There needs to be some 3rd party involvement in reguards to employee realtions. I'm not the biggest fan of unions, but this is a company where employees would benefit from it. The way the management talks about employees over their headsets is inexceptable. They think that the others in customer service can't hear them, but we do! And those comments are the ones that should be censored. If employees only knew what was being said, comments about apperance, weight, intelligence, everything. I hope someday corporate goes into this particular store, and revamps the enitre site. It will probably never happen, because they are too concerned about the almighty dollar, but miracles do happen. As far as the customers are concerned, they are mostly ok. But when you swear at me because something is 10 cents more than you thought, you deserve to die a slow and painful death. And the 30% coupons, if you don't have it with you, you don't get it. I could tell my bank that I deposited a million dollars into my account, but because I don't have it with me, should they give it to me? All the customers that swore at me, shit in the aisles, and dressing rooms, I hope you contract the flesh eating virus, and die a slow, painful death. To the rest, shop elsewhere. I'm out!:):P