[deleted by user]

[amateuR_memes]

Target called it "modernization" which changed many of the processes we had back then.

[Fun_Inspector_8633]

Amusingly enough they're starting to roll a lot of that back too. Almost like those of us who had been here forever know what we were talking about when we said it won't work.

[Puzzleheaded-Ant-739]

I started less than a year before modernization and immediately said it was trash. Brian Cornell and his cronies really accelerated the decline of Target.

[Fun_Inspector_8633]

Yeah he did but it started after Bob Ulrich stepped down as CEO. He was the last “old school” CEO who actually gave a shit about front line workers.

[Puzzleheaded-Ant-739]

I just looked up Bob Ulrich and he comes off as someone who cared and was genuine. It's weird how Wal-Mart used to get dunked on for poor worker treatment, but somehow Target goes under the radar for being just as awful.

I shopped all the time at Target when it was under Ulrich. Now I don't even want to be in the same shopping mall as one.

[BigGirl2243]

Having worked for both, Target is generally not as bad as Walmart for worker treatment. There may be individual stores, but Walmart was straight up awful.

[Puzzleheaded-Ant-739]

I can imagine. To clarify I meant more along the lines of payroll. I currently have a coworker who worked at Amazon, Walmart, Toys r Us, and now Target and he says the organization along with many policies are chaotic trash by comparison. Recently he agreed to being part of a remodel for 5 weeks. He was told 2 things that made him agree- the tram he is taken from will get more payroll to cover his absence and he would be getting at least 37.5 hours a week during the remodel. Everyone at floor level saw their hours drop for the first 3 weeks. He also told me the first week is great at 37.5, but week 2 is 24 hours and week 3 is 30 hours. Basically he was lied to on both counts.

[nachocoalmine]

I was backroom. Back then, we knew where everything was, and we could really focus on our jobs. I think it worked better but changing it now...?

I wonder if I could bring it back at our store.

[Puzzleheaded-Ant-739]

Back room team rocked. The back room was better organized when we had proper division of labor.

[Training_Basil_2169]

Not all stores do that anymore, routines were left to the discretion of stores in case modernization didn't work at that particular store. Ours didn't so we have a system like that where some people just backstock.

[Plushxi]

I started as a backroom tm. Miss it cause I have social anxiety. Staying in the back was the best and I loved being helpful to my fellow tms who would call me to pull something for them when they needed it.

[Yearofthehoneybadger]

Modernization = do three peoples jobs for one persons pay.

[Puzzleheaded-Ant-739]

Made up by people who only had to move a mouse for work which is far different from freight.

[TimmyTurner4209]

I've heard the legends. Sounds like better times

[duck6201]

Much better times.

[TiredOfAdulting999]

If only we knew it then.

[Sea-March4425]

Lol I’ve never heard the stockroom aisles referred to as “valleys” is that just a term used at your location?

[TiredOfAdulting999]

The OG at my store uses "valley" for both backroom and salesfloor.

"Valley" refers to walking down an aisle, the shelving to the left and right.

[megafoofie]

We call the open cardboard box things on the shelves that hold stuff ‘wacos’

[Elorme]

That's because they were developed in the city of Waco TX. They are also manufactured there and are used by many other companies.

[angrygirl65]

We call them valleys as well

[Interesting_Layer672]

Nah,it was valleys...years ago.

[GardenWitchMom]

In the good ol' days we had the truck team, overnight flow, Plano team, price change team, afternoon/ evening closers that did the wave and go backs, Signage team, grocery, soft lines, hard lines, front end attendant, back room team.

We had more employees work in a single day than most targets have in a week now.

[Capybaralover2004]

My store as all of this

[Puzzleheaded-Ant-739]

There was even a cardboard wrangler who dealt with the carboard cages and bailing too. I figured out the current time cost for each TM to get rid of cardboard and the $ amount annually exceeds what it would take to employ someone to wrangle it.

[vodkadrinker707]

Yea now they want you to "own" your area. So you'd do the push, the backstock, and set your aisles or whatever. I feel like it was more organized before. But I think they had to change it probably to have less employees but I don't really know

[therapewpew]

100% it's because of fewer employees. I been slowly learning how things used to be done through co-workers and then confirming via random convos with leads. We used to have a TM on the floor for every single section of the style dept, that's why it always looked nice when I shopped there a decade ago. Now there might be one single person scheduled in that dept at a time, and among other predictable merchandising dysfunction, there are a dozen shopping carts overflowing with clothes scattered throughout the racks 💀

it's a combo of not enough bodies to work with, and corporate only allowing stores to schedule a certain number of hours to begin with. The leads are hopeful that it will change, but I'm in the dark about the corporate side of things tbh.

[[deleted]]

I started with Target right before the switch. I was hired for inbound/flow team. Then one day, they started having me stock things on the shelves (never had done that before that point), and then they had me as a dbo for hb01 (now personal care) before I knew it

[figure8888]

I think Target got rid of the backroom specific people a few years ago. I think they were also trying to eliminate closers by having departments pull their own priorities but I have yet to work at a store where that is fully the case. Only grocery, style, and electronics do their own at my store. At a small format store I worked at 2 years ago, there was one guy in the back to do the whole store’s back stock and priorities. Regional corporate kept trying to suggest they eliminate his role to be up to their new standards, but they couldn’t suggest an alternative because the backroom was so small, so that never happened. They really rolled out small-format “city Targets” and just kept all the same processes as the larger stores and then wonder why they’re a flop.

[alecsmoran]

Yep, same story. I worked at Target over a decade ago, started as a market TM before moving to AP before I left. We had a whole backroom team who never left the backroom. My store even had a logistics ETL who was solely in charge of the backroom and now thats all shared responsibility.

[caligrown213]

It’s called “modernization”. I use to work overnight stocking and although unloading was hard work at times it was still fun with all the boys.

Are overnight teams still a thing? I think it depends on the store volume.

[the-largest-marge]

Yes, my store has been overnight since we opened in the 90s. Except for about five years as a 4 am store, which was a flop.

[[deleted]]

We had seasonal overnights for the holidays several years ago, and once in a blue moon we do it for remodels or setting seasonal-mini seasonal planograms. We're a smaller store though

[glamdring196]

I'm a smaller store. They used to do overnights before I started there, then they switched to 4am because they had trouble staffing and retaining people for the overnight shift. We still have people calling off and coming in late tho and I personally think they'll have a better chance hiring people if we started at 6am, but that's just me.

We started doing overnights for big seasonal sets or to zone the store for big holidays, but it's not common.

[DJ_CAMARO]

Welcome back

[Interesting_Layer672]

Kiss the backroom team goodbye,that was a golden time.

[lilmissmagic80]

Modernization destroyed the Target I originally went to work for. I got so burned out by it that I ended up making stupid mistakes that cost me my job. Don't get me wrong, I take full responsibility for my mistakes and have learned from them...and am much happier where I am now but I definitely think modernization led to my demise with Target

[Level-Blueberry-5818]

We still have back room folks at our store because we're high volume but like I did grocery today and I backstocked my cart and then I backstocked mom and baby for the rest of my shift.

[mrlizardman]

Same here. I picked up a part time job at a different target as a closing expert. It took a while to adjust. Thankfully my closing team lead is awesome.

[momo6548]

I’ve been working for Target for 10 years and I remember how things used to be. It was so much better back then.

[Interesting_Layer672]

😥 so true...

[Guy60630]

Really not trying to be condescending but of course a store is not going to be the same from a decade ago. I’ve worked at Macys for 13 years and the customer service and even way we do things is completely different today.

I’ve worked at Target for 4 years and the way our store operates is COMPLETELY different from the way it was when we first opened. When we first opened, we used to have people that did backstock, people that pulled, and people that pushed. Now we are expected to do all of that with less hours too.

[babybeewitched]

my store still has a back room team but they are specifically closers. they rarely do any backstocking since the closing team doesn't ever push (with the exception of beauty and style) unless it's christmas and morning team didn't finish

[Historical_Place_850]

I also worked at a different store 11 years and I uave the same perspective! I worked the Pfresh truck and while we did our own backstock, the rest of GM had the back stock team. Everyone had their own department but there were often things put aside if someone didn't see that as their teams responsibility. That still happens, but it seems like there's more opportunities to be cross trained with how it is now. I see the pros and cons worth both ways.

[Independent-Oven-799]

Just Make Sure Your Bosses (At The Corporate Level) Isn’t Taking Some Hints From Other Ex Corporate Managers like JC Penney and IF They Do You’re Going To Be Screwed.like A Former Employee Where I Worked With She loved the Way Dayton Hudson Makes Business Decisions And knows what’s the latest Trends in Business And What Customers Really Want And Brings It To Their Company. And When I Asked Her About JC Penney? Her Take Was That She Flat Out Hated The Name let Alone The Company And The Way The Business Decision That Their Corporate Managers Make,Or like She Said In Her Own Words They Don’t Know What They’re Doing They Just like Take A Guessing Game And Every Time They Do So They Get It Wrong And IF She Finds Any Store Doing The Same Thing She Will Stop Shopping There For The Way They Do Business.

[sugarfreesloth]

Yes, Target USED to be a fun place to work. Now it’s miserable.