The Community Advice Thread

[cleargreenwater]

Yikes, Sharifu. Well, you get all the credit in the world for doing what seemed like it was the best & most responsible thing, lining a new job up before you moved, etc. Really, it seriously was all the right things. Unfortunately flying blind into an area you just don't know what you're going to be getting once you're there. The home office was probably thrilled to be able to send a proven person, who required no training from such a difficult crew, and knew what she had to do, to an under-performing, dingy and decrepid store without having to teach anything, it was probably like found worker for the home office. It's a shame of a bait & switch after working with the company for all the time you did.

I would say formally resign, because then you can put on record the quality of the location you're at, idk about the 2 weeks notice though. I guess it would depend on how petty and vindictive you think the coworkers would be for those weeks in between. x_x

Uhm....I wouldn't completely write off retail jobs for the time being. Unfortunately they're popular with people in college because they are the most flexible with scheduling and yet still can get some hours out of them. At least now that you're there, though, you're "boots on the ground" and can actually SEE the stores you're applying to, judge if it's a safe location you'd feel comfortable closing up in, you can get a feel for the managers and place and employees, and choose a place that's a better fit.

Look at you though, barely there a few months & already neck-deep in a semester! Go Audra!

[Sharifu]

Well honestly, I did go to California last October with Petteri to visit a friend, and I did go to the store to see what it looked like. I did think that the parking lot was kind of gross, but I can probably deal with that. The registers looked pretty much the same so I thought it would be easy for me since I know how to use the registers and my job I had in Oregon. (I was a cashier for years at my previous job) I thought at least it could be a guaranteed job and my pay rate might be transferred over. I didn't really know the answer to that until a few days I started to work at this new store. My pay went down 22 cents. Not a big deal I guess but I don't know how they came up with that. It costs a whole lot more to live in San Francisco then Medford, Oregon. I am part of the union which I pay a lot of money already just for working there for a month. (I know the union is there to help the workers but it seems like to me they find any reason to charge you a ton of money) They charged me for a full month's fee for January when I only worked in January for the last 5 days of the month.

I think just what bothers me so much is how dirty some of the places are in the store. (Which I didn't see when I went shopping there last October to see what the place looked like) The bathroom is really gross, pretty much all the time. At least in the women's bathroom, the toilet paper holder for some reason is broken and doesn't hold the paper in. The first day I worked there, the bathroom was decent, it was early in the morning so it was before too many people used it for the day. I went to grab some toilet paper and both rolls just fell on the floor. They were not being held in, just sitting there, loose in the holder. I didn't know it was like that when I grabbed the paper for the first time. And both if the stalls are like that. A lot of times I go to use the bathroom, the toilet paper is either sitting on top of the holder, or on the side bar where people can grab onto the bar to pull themselves up, or on the back of the toilet on the handle that flushes the toilet. Come on! How gross! Why does no one fix this? I don't know how clean someone's hand was that last handled this roll... Or just the fact it sits on the back of the toilet grosses me out. Or how do I know the rolls weren't previously on the floor? A lot of times there is just no toilet paper in the stall. Or the toilet seat covers are gone. There has been times someone left a huge layer of toilet seat covers on the toilet... And/or tons and tons of wadded up toilet paper on the floor right in front of the toilet. They looks like they could have been used. I'm getting grossed out just remembering all this. Why is this not cleaned up more often? How come the managers are ok with this? The manager is a woman and has worked there for a long time, she must use this bathroom and know it is like that most of the time...

And the break room, the tables always seem so sticky and dirty, but how do they expect employees to wipe the tables clean if there is no sink in the break room? Maybe I am spoiled, but when I worked at Target and Fred Meyer in the past, there was always a sink in the break room, with soap and paper towels so you can wash your hands and be able to wipe your table clean.

And the employee lockers... They are day use only. Which is fine, I can get used to that. But so many of the empty lockers seem dirty. I usually have been using one that looks the cleanest, but one day when I went to work, someone was using that locker. So I am looking in lockers that have no locks on them so I can use one, and pretty much all of them are full of TRASH. They post signs saying those are one day use lockers and to take everything with you when you leave for the day, yet it's ok for them to be filled with trash all the time? Yuck!

I am not going back... I was originally going to give my notice, I was thinking of leaving right before March 25, since after that my Spring Break was going to start and I was going to go up to Oregon for my Spring Break to visit and spend time with my family.

My this last weekend, on Saturday night when I got off from work, I was so happy I had 4 days off from work in a row. I was talking to my mom on the phone, and she said, "Too bad you can't come up here for that time", and I told her I wish I could but I need to work on my animations for class. I was depressed about my job and missing my life I had in Oregon and missing my mom and her dog, I kept thinking about driving up there after all. I could work on my animations there... And then we talked about it more, and she said she was happy about the idea of me visiting her, although if I did that it's really only full two days in Oregon, since two days are pretty much driving. So I said, maybe I'll just call in sick on Thursday so that makes it more worth it to go up there to have one more day there. (I rarely call in sick when I was not sick, but I was just hating my job so much I didn't care) So on Sunday I drove up here and it took 7 hours including the stops I made to use a bathroom, get gas and get something to eat. The more I was talking about the reasons why I hate my job with my family and friends/co-workers from my previous job, the more and more I just wanted to quit now. So originally I was calling yesterday to put in my two week notice over the phone, but the manager wasn't there. I could of talked to person in charge at the time, but I was afraid it would be Helen and she has been such a b*tch to me, one day she almost put me in tears. The store manager has always been nice to me, but I don't see her very much, but she was the person I wanted to talk to. And she since wasn't there, I was just not wanting to go back anymore. I called later that day after much stressing and anxiety and I made up a story that I had to drive here for a family emergency and I don't know when I'll be back. I had to talk to Helen though. She told me that she had the next three days off so I needed to call in the morning and talk to Tricia, the store manager. But Helen did ask me if I would be able to be back within the next week, and I said no. She told me she would leave a note for Tricia but that I should still call back to talk to her in the morning. So I tried calling Tricia this morning and I was put on hold for over 10 minutes and she still never picked up. So I thought I would call back later... But honestly I don't want to call back later. I don't know if Tricia saw the note or not or what it said. But I find it weird no one has called me today when I had a shift today that started 6 hours ago. Maybe they just know I'm not coming back anymore. I don't know. I feel weird about this. I don't like to be such a flaky person, I like to be reliable, but I just don't want to go back there now. But at the same time I feel somewhat relieved. I am still in Oregon now, I was originally planning to drive back to California today. But now I can stay longer in Oregon, I just have to be back for my animation class on Tuesday. And now that I don't have to work at that job I can have more time to work on my animation projects. I couldn't really work on them yesterday as I was stressing out so much trying to decide what to do about my job. And really, is it worth it? It's not... I don't know if in the end this was a good idea, well I know it was not, but I didn't want to face the music of everyone questioning me why I was leaving when I just started working there. I could of just said well my husband got a good job so I decided to go to school full time next quarter. I really felt like I couldn't tell the truth and tell the manager that I think her store is nasty. (Especially since I think she was the nicest person to me so far) and that the manager that is right underneath her made me so upset before, I was afraid she would tell Helen)

I don't know, I want to pretend like I never worked there. I think whenever I apply for a job again, I don't even want to list that job. I was hardly even there.

At this point I don't know if I should try calling again to see if I can get a hold of Tricia. I just want to make the phone call and be done with it. I hate this.

[Sharifu]

Uhm....I wouldn't completely write off retail jobs for the time being. Unfortunately they're popular with people in college because they are the most flexible with scheduling and yet still can get some hours out of them.

Ugh, it doesn't seem that way to me at all... Someone from a Costco store called me today after I applied online. The guy I talked to, in the end of the conversation didn't want to hire me because I couldn't work on Friday. Even though I was available all day Saturday and Sunday, most of the morning and afternoon on Monday and all day Tuesday. All because I couldn't work Friday. Ugh. I was only offered a part time position which he said himself is 24 to 36 hours... I said I was available 4 days, this really annoys me.

Don't mind me really, just venting... I miss my old job in Oregon. I got paid more there too then what Costco offered me.