I've been in retail for a long time. My first retail job was when I was fourteen years old, I did take a long break while I was in high school, and didn't have another retail job until my junior year of university. So, non-stop, I've been playing the retail/food service game since 2008.
Each job has had its ups and downs just like any other job. However, there are companies out there that really suck, and there is one company that I would never work for again, no matter how desperate I get. That company is Caribou Coffee, why yes, I will use the real names of companies I worked for. I will state this disclaimer however, anything I state about a company that I name will be only and ever how I feel about the company and my experiences. It does not reflect any view of the company.
Caribou Coffee wasn't retail, which is why I threw in the "food service" remark, there are two food service companies I have worked for, and both have sucked. Caribou is more recent than the other one.
At Caribou Coffee, I was hired as a shift supervisor. This means that I was a shift manager, essentially. I wasn't a full time manager, I didn't get full time benefits, but I did work mostly full time hours. That's what I did to myself, before I was actually a full time manager. I live a full time lifestyle. I have a dog, cat, and a few other critters to feed, I have a car payment, a credit card, student debt, and help my parents with bills since I live in their house. So, I always have needed to work full time, not to mention I throw myself into my job, minus a few mistakes here and there, I am always the person that the scheduling manager would give full time hours to. Not that I'm complaining about the hours and the money that ended up on my paycheck, however, there are some issues with working full time hours without being a full time worker.
At PetSmart, I had amazing part time benefits. I had health insurance, PTO, and a 401K. Yankee even offers their part timers bonuses when goals are met. Caribou offered their part timers nothing. Sure, I had the option of a 401K but it's hardly worth it when I was making barely over minimum wage, I needed as much of that paycheck as I could get, I couldn't think about retirement.
Caribou offered insurance to part timers, but you had to average, on a weekly basis, twenty hours a week. Once I slipped below that, I had corporate calling me telling me that they were revoking my insurance, and since 2014 was the start of fining people without health insurance, the three months I spent uninsured wasn't good. There were co-workers I had that needed health insurance and had trouble getting it on their own, and Caribou would threaten to take it away completely based on a manager scheduling you.
The first Caribou I worked at was a mess. There were far too many shift supervisors, though most of them were in college and would only work weekends and summers, but once summer hit, I was not the favored employee. Those college kids, or the "dream team" as they had deemed themselves, were given all the hours. I went from thirty hours a week to fifteen. It was a massive change in my paychecks and my life. It was a serious hit to my finances and debt. The store manager favored these girls and it drove me and all the other shift supervisors crazy. He would also pull out the, "sell this if you want hours" threat. I worked mostly evenings, because when I was hired, that's what he needed most, that and midshifts. At a coffee shop, those are the slowest times. He wouldn't "grade" those sales on a curve, he would "grade" on quantity. I get that he had a goal to hit, and he wanted to be number one, every manager wants to be number one. However, out of the, sometimes, twenty customers I would see my entire shift, I would sell two pounds of coffee beans. Out of the two hundred customers they would see in the morning they would sell ten. I would sell coffee beans to 10% of my customers, the morning shift would sell coffee beans to 5% of their customers. That being said, I was losing hours based on the fact that my quantity of coffee beans sales was less than the morning shift, but my quality of selling was better.
It wasn't only just the "dream team" that drove me crazy, and mind you I loved all of those girls, it was also just the way things ran. This store manager was not the greatest manager. He was lazy, and under scheduled on shifts he refused to work. We would have BOGO days...you know those buy one coffee, get another one free things? Yes, we had those days, and I would close most of those days. They were busy from the moment the store opened to the moment the store closed. Many times, I would be scheduled with one other person, and that was it. I remember one of these closing shifts when I didn't get out of there until 11:30pm. We didn't get to any cleaning or closing tasks until the store was closed. The next time I worked, I got "yelled" at for leaving so late. Mind you, I had texted the store manager telling him that we were swamped and needed help. We had contacted every other person that worked and no one "could" make it, I never heard a peep from the store manager after my plea for help. It was just me and my Team Member. By the end of the night, I was on the verge of tears, but I refused to cry in front of my team member, I waited until I was in my car and she had driven away to let the tears from the stress flow.
This manager would also not follow policy, until he decided he wanted to be a training store manager, then he was a stickler on the policy. The store was messy, and disgusting. You know that notion of "don't work in the kitchen you like to eat at?" This was one of those. The convection oven was never cleaned, the espresso machines were rarely cleaned right, and the floor was grotty. That store, while under the regime of this store manager, never passed its "Eco-Sure Audit" which was basically a health code audit. It was to make sure policy and cleanliness was being kept up on properly. Some points were unfair, I will give that voice, but those were points that every other store manager understood you would have to eat, but you had to hit the other ones, that were under our control.
The second Caribou I worked at was much different, and better, even though I still had issues with a single co-worker, but there are just some things you can't escape from a job, and that story is a different blog post all together. Though, I will still never work for the company again, simply because of the way the company itself treats its employees. As a shift supervisor, I made, what will be minimum wage in my state as of August 1st of this year, I wasn't given breaks, had no part time benefits, and the few that I did have were revoked all because a manager decided to stop scheduling me as much because he favored pretty girls for his own selfish desires. If you ever asked me if this was a good company to work for, I would tell you to never touch it.
It wasn't all bad, I made life long friends at Caribou and still some shifts, one of which was Christmas Day (pictured below), that I look back at and smile.
Each job has had its ups and downs just like any other job. However, there are companies out there that really suck, and there is one company that I would never work for again, no matter how desperate I get. That company is Caribou Coffee, why yes, I will use the real names of companies I worked for. I will state this disclaimer however, anything I state about a company that I name will be only and ever how I feel about the company and my experiences. It does not reflect any view of the company.
Caribou Coffee wasn't retail, which is why I threw in the "food service" remark, there are two food service companies I have worked for, and both have sucked. Caribou is more recent than the other one.
At Caribou Coffee, I was hired as a shift supervisor. This means that I was a shift manager, essentially. I wasn't a full time manager, I didn't get full time benefits, but I did work mostly full time hours. That's what I did to myself, before I was actually a full time manager. I live a full time lifestyle. I have a dog, cat, and a few other critters to feed, I have a car payment, a credit card, student debt, and help my parents with bills since I live in their house. So, I always have needed to work full time, not to mention I throw myself into my job, minus a few mistakes here and there, I am always the person that the scheduling manager would give full time hours to. Not that I'm complaining about the hours and the money that ended up on my paycheck, however, there are some issues with working full time hours without being a full time worker.
At PetSmart, I had amazing part time benefits. I had health insurance, PTO, and a 401K. Yankee even offers their part timers bonuses when goals are met. Caribou offered their part timers nothing. Sure, I had the option of a 401K but it's hardly worth it when I was making barely over minimum wage, I needed as much of that paycheck as I could get, I couldn't think about retirement.
Caribou offered insurance to part timers, but you had to average, on a weekly basis, twenty hours a week. Once I slipped below that, I had corporate calling me telling me that they were revoking my insurance, and since 2014 was the start of fining people without health insurance, the three months I spent uninsured wasn't good. There were co-workers I had that needed health insurance and had trouble getting it on their own, and Caribou would threaten to take it away completely based on a manager scheduling you.
The first Caribou I worked at was a mess. There were far too many shift supervisors, though most of them were in college and would only work weekends and summers, but once summer hit, I was not the favored employee. Those college kids, or the "dream team" as they had deemed themselves, were given all the hours. I went from thirty hours a week to fifteen. It was a massive change in my paychecks and my life. It was a serious hit to my finances and debt. The store manager favored these girls and it drove me and all the other shift supervisors crazy. He would also pull out the, "sell this if you want hours" threat. I worked mostly evenings, because when I was hired, that's what he needed most, that and midshifts. At a coffee shop, those are the slowest times. He wouldn't "grade" those sales on a curve, he would "grade" on quantity. I get that he had a goal to hit, and he wanted to be number one, every manager wants to be number one. However, out of the, sometimes, twenty customers I would see my entire shift, I would sell two pounds of coffee beans. Out of the two hundred customers they would see in the morning they would sell ten. I would sell coffee beans to 10% of my customers, the morning shift would sell coffee beans to 5% of their customers. That being said, I was losing hours based on the fact that my quantity of coffee beans sales was less than the morning shift, but my quality of selling was better.
It wasn't only just the "dream team" that drove me crazy, and mind you I loved all of those girls, it was also just the way things ran. This store manager was not the greatest manager. He was lazy, and under scheduled on shifts he refused to work. We would have BOGO days...you know those buy one coffee, get another one free things? Yes, we had those days, and I would close most of those days. They were busy from the moment the store opened to the moment the store closed. Many times, I would be scheduled with one other person, and that was it. I remember one of these closing shifts when I didn't get out of there until 11:30pm. We didn't get to any cleaning or closing tasks until the store was closed. The next time I worked, I got "yelled" at for leaving so late. Mind you, I had texted the store manager telling him that we were swamped and needed help. We had contacted every other person that worked and no one "could" make it, I never heard a peep from the store manager after my plea for help. It was just me and my Team Member. By the end of the night, I was on the verge of tears, but I refused to cry in front of my team member, I waited until I was in my car and she had driven away to let the tears from the stress flow.
This manager would also not follow policy, until he decided he wanted to be a training store manager, then he was a stickler on the policy. The store was messy, and disgusting. You know that notion of "don't work in the kitchen you like to eat at?" This was one of those. The convection oven was never cleaned, the espresso machines were rarely cleaned right, and the floor was grotty. That store, while under the regime of this store manager, never passed its "Eco-Sure Audit" which was basically a health code audit. It was to make sure policy and cleanliness was being kept up on properly. Some points were unfair, I will give that voice, but those were points that every other store manager understood you would have to eat, but you had to hit the other ones, that were under our control.
The second Caribou I worked at was much different, and better, even though I still had issues with a single co-worker, but there are just some things you can't escape from a job, and that story is a different blog post all together. Though, I will still never work for the company again, simply because of the way the company itself treats its employees. As a shift supervisor, I made, what will be minimum wage in my state as of August 1st of this year, I wasn't given breaks, had no part time benefits, and the few that I did have were revoked all because a manager decided to stop scheduling me as much because he favored pretty girls for his own selfish desires. If you ever asked me if this was a good company to work for, I would tell you to never touch it.
It wasn't all bad, I made life long friends at Caribou and still some shifts, one of which was Christmas Day (pictured below), that I look back at and smile.
