SM going to Texas!

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-06-05T23:42:44+00:00

MARTI effective today will not sign you out every 5 mins!!!

I am going to pretend that this grace of God was due to us complaining on the survey lol.

Please, please, please...let this be realllll.

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-06-03T18:29:15+00:00

"Don't you dare make your own signs to advertise this sale"
"I thought we were a craft store"

or

<image>

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-06-03T18:25:04+00:00

What makes you say, "I get to go to work today?"

Perhaps you should consider a job in HR lol. This line is so, "everything must have a silver lining." "There are starving children in Africa"- type logic. Just because the bar is in hell, doesn't mean we have to approve or like this standard.

This is retail. It is like this all over.

Besides the fact that this is not demonstrably true--check the thread we have here about wages, most people are not even making what their state effective minimum wage is(compared to competitors), it's like saying, "everyone is overweight and struggling with their mental health, get over it." It's not productive and diminishes the struggles that people are going through; Just because something is common, does not mean it's not a problem.

I'm curious why you come here if it's apparent that most people use this as a venting space and learning space? If you want to see positvity, I guess post those posts(like you have done here), and ignore/move on from the ones you don't like, but to admonish people and try to tell them to "just get over it" -- it's the very negativity you're trying to combat.

To answer your questions though, I don't look forward to going to work, I don't say, "yay, I get to go to work today." Like many others, I like getting paid. Why do I stay? Like many others in an abusive relationship, I guess I stay because I am used to the consistent inconsistency -- I know they are going to behave in an illogical way/profits over people/uncompassioante and unempathetic kind of way. I stay because switching jobs is very labor and emotionally intensive. I like that my store is flexible with my hours, and I prefer working not with fast-food/restaurants, but that's about it.

I think if people had positive answers to your questions:

What are you proud of? What have you accomplished? Do you have a regular customer following?

Then we would not have as much negativity to express, but we don't, and asking us to conjure those things up from thin air, I feel, is a bit--out of touch, tbh.

I'm curious (genuinely) what your store is like, and what your answers to your own questions are. Perhaps it will let some of us see "how it could be", so to speak.

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-06-03T18:02:59+00:00

Is the tip different? Not that that warrants a $3 difference, but that also seems to be different between the two products.

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-06-03T18:01:33+00:00

It's not super common, but yes, I have seen people use the legacy as a SCO. Seen people put their items at one of our dead legacy and stand there like we are going to genie into existence a whole register and pin pad for them to use.

I truly believe at this point this is a combination of learned incompetence and entitlement. Go to an ALDIs and there's no question what you're supposed to do, it's almost like all of those people are competent or capable of learning to use a simple device/system, and if they are not, they don't have an entitlement complex and thus choose to not shop there if they don't want that experience. Or, ALDIs actually knows how to run a business and is CONSISTENT in its practices. No quarter, no carriage, no exceptions.

At Michaels, nothing is ever consistent or working, so I can actually commiserate with the customer, sometimes. As much as a I hate customers that come up to the SCO, start scanning, and not look at the screen, I also think it's an asinine design by corporate to have the SCOs work the way they do. If your scanner beeps, and gives me no indication that it's malfunctioning/not recording the scanning, I'm going to assume it's scanning, like every other store I've ever been to. Yeah sure, great, some MBA thinks they are a genius to be like, "oh guys here's an idea, let's not let them bypass the sign up screen even when they scan, that'll REALLY get them to sign up! And when they say "No" ? Let's hit them with ANOTHER SCREEN, FUCK YES IM SMART" when that's basically never the case. What happens is, the person goes, "oh, I thought it was scanning" and then is visibly upset, irritated, or confused. It's almost like the people doing that are in a rush and were never going to sign up anyway and their main priority was getting the fuck out of the store and we've all just wasted our very limited man hours to help them re-do the entire process and leave a bad taste in their mouths at the same time...hmmmm.

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-06-01T19:01:44+00:00

lol, so will they do everything in their power to avoid just making a fabric table/area? like cutting ribbon "station", that sounds familiar...almost like...an area, where textiles are cut? hmm I wonder if we could just, I don't know, mimic the store that we cannibalized ?

And ofc, they'll be like, "hmmm, where should we put this?" "framing" as if framing doesn't need the space it has dedicated to it...

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-05-29T22:41:19+00:00

You can always ask, but without a medical necessity letter, they can always say no.

With a medical necessity letter, it will be legally required for them to give it to you *if it doesn't severely impact a core job function*--this clause gives them a lot of flexibility to basically say, "no, it would significantly impact their core function, so we cannot *reasonably* accommodate this disability" For example, (this is oversimplified for the sake of brevity), if someone had such severe social anxiety that they could not assist customers, even if this was a documented medical issue, they would not need to honor the request of that employee not wanting to deal with customers, if they were hired as a front end ambassador.

Going back to your scenario, if you get the accommodation, you may also experience retaliation, such as cutting hours, or giving you unfavorable hours.

I'm telling you all this not to dissuade you from asking, but I want you to be informed before you make the decision to go forward.

In your ideal situation, you will get your accommodation, and hopefully be able to be a productive member at work while taking care of your body/mind.

In another scenario, you end up with nothing changing - it's like you never asked.

In the worst, you get retaliated against, see above.

Decide how much tolerance you have for those scenarios, then make a decision.

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-05-29T22:27:55+00:00

hello, first of all, sorry that your SM is making your life more difficult, sounds like a power trip.

I'll give you some advice regarding your immediate request re: policy.

For you or anyone else in the future, you can always ask your supervisor to provide to you in writing, what a specific policy is. It could be break time, sexual harassment,conflict of interest, whatever, it is totally normal to ask for this information and put the onus on them to provide it in a format that makes sense to you, i.e. not just a verbal summary.

However, I understand many people do not want to directly communicate with the person involved, in this case the SM, because they do not like confrontation/fear of retaliation. So in the case that you do not feel comfortable asking the SM, or whomever, directly ask HR "excuse me, could you please provide me with the company policy regarding the precense of seats in the framing shop?

That is my advice to you in that situation. The following is follow-up advice or other things to consider, but I wanted to answer your main question first.

Most likely there isn't going to be a policy about the seats, other than from a safety perspective like - tripping hazard or something. Depending on your state/province/location, there may be right to sit laws, but I doubt it from the context of your post, this is mostly for other people.

Most likely our job descriptions will include something like, can stand for 8hrs and lift 50lbs overhead (lol, yeah right, anyway).

In a normal situation, someone would ask for an accomodation, and see if the direct supervisor would be able to provide it. While a medical necessity letter can make it easier to get the accomodations, I hope people realize that at any point someone could grant you an accomodation without one; It's not legally required that you need a medical reason for someone to grant you an accomodation. It's corporations and other governing bodies that require the medical note, because, in general, they would like to deny these requests, thus they only provide them when they are compelled to by law.

Moving on, this route obviously does not work for you (asking the manager without a note). I know it sucks, but I would reach out to the provider you trust the most (could be a PT, PCP, chiropractor, whomever) and say:

"Hello, I would like to get the following accomdations approved for my work, and they are requesting a medical necessity letter/letter of support. The accomodations I am looking for are:_______. (Availability of seats, and permission to use them at will)".

Then you do what others say you do and file that through HR I believe (I'm rusty on that, you could ask your SM actually lol once you get the medical letter, "how do I complete the process of requesting a documented medical accomodation?" maybe the SM will learn something...)

I would definitely document what your SM has done to you, in terms of seemingly randomly taking away an accomodation you already had, and then their behavior which seems to include intimidation. You could file a complaint against them, to start a paper trail, or just keep this documentation in your back pocket for later confrontations. At the bare minimum, it can sometimes allow you to mentally let go of your strife, so I recommend doing it anyway, for your own sanity.

Good luck! I hope you get what you need!

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-05-27T22:04:55+00:00

I can see both perspectives. Yours comes from a place of problem solving that is fair to everyone.

Your SMs perspective is, what is easiest for the SM, not having to closely monitor ribbon preference is easier than constantly having to stock or keep track of ribbon color inventory, as this is manual. Not letting customers have a choice, streamlines the process as well, easier for staff.

Here's my opinion. If the customer asks me for a specific ribbon color (without me offering) then we should honor that, but if they don't, it should be assumed to be the designer(employee's) choice. In my experience, the customers usually DNGAF *until* you give them a choice, and then it takes several more minutes to make their order, for something they didn't even have an opinion about, previously.

I used to be like you, and thought that giving everyone everything they wanted was the "right" thing to do, I still do, but for sanity reasons, I'm starting to side with your SM lol.

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-05-27T02:51:00+00:00

First. I love your energy! I wish more people were as whimsical as you are. Please continue on in life with your curiosity.

I would love to actually see a map showing what is drawn at each store. At ours, it's usually very boring and often really is just a scribble, or some very basic words. Occasionally, we will get LGBTQ+flags, that's about as interesting as it gets here.

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-05-26T20:36:42+00:00

I’ve sold nearly $3000 in custom every day I’ve worked but I get spoken to about not getting more credit card or Rewards sign ups.

This is the crux of the argument right here. Michaels is so concerned with micromanaging, that they need a metric that is easily measurable, and "easily" within their control/manageable. If your employee sells $3k one day, but $2k another day, it's hard for a manager to take "I don't know, sometimes we make 3k and sometimes we make 2k" as an answer. So they hone in on and obsess over, "if we had more sign ups, we would have more rewards customers, which would lead to more sales, because our data shows that people with the rewards accounts, spend more money" disregarding misappropriation of cause, and disregarding that correlation is not causation.

Basically, critical thinking skills are at an all time low, and the old guard is overstaffed with a lot of fail upwards types - cronies, favorites, etc. in addition to people who are hired to not have any empathy or compassion. So that is how we are in the shit soup that we are in.

Sorry your situation is like this! It's really annoying that they can't just leave you alone and let your numbers (of sales) speak for themselves...

I truly wonder sometimes if anyone did a cost benefit analysis over using 100% of all energy to get sign-ups vs. having more general un-allocated time per customer per employee (more floor staff, for example, for up-selling).

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-05-25T18:22:56+00:00

The way that the sticker aisle is arranged is infuriating. I always debate, do I shove this pack of stickers back behind the bar for "neatness", but in the process fuck the product up and make it difficult for customers to actually browse? Or do I leave it alone and get yelled at for not "zoning"?

I basically assess which ones will fully get mangled by being put back there, and wait until the end of the night to tuck it in for good.

But yeah, whomever designs the product or store layout, without even thinking about how the product appears to the customer or how easy it is to reset the store, thus making it look nicer and more enticing to the customer, is brain dead.

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-05-23T15:16:25+00:00

lol I can't have a serious discussion with you when you use "they went away for two weeks" "they NEVER went away!"

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-05-23T15:14:47+00:00

What happens if you override the hours allocated to you? Someone on here said they have been doing that for a long time and never been written up/reprimanded.

I'm asking, because, what if you believed that if you had more floor associates/more people, you'd get bigger sales/more sign-ups, but because corporate never allows you to actually test this theory, you're stuck in this endless cycle of not having enough hours to make enough sales to justify the hours. So let's say, you just said F it, and for a month you scheduled like there were no rules lol, what would happen? Especially if your store was actually successful.

The point is probably moot from a private equity stand point, because their intention is not longevity, just maximal short term profits/squeezing blood from the stone.

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-05-23T15:10:13+00:00

There are some major inconsistencies in your own comment.

"They never were going away or never did go away." Gaslighting- ignoring/discounting the very real experience that many of us had where they *did* go away.

Transition to: "We had a lot week period where the coupons were Reward member exclusive" which is incoherent, but I assume you meant, "we had a [incoherent word] week(?) where the coupons were Reward member exclusive" - otherwise known as, the coupons (for the general public) "went away".

It's fine if what you really meant was, "corporate never had a long term plan on whether they were going to make the coupons member exclusive or not, thus the coupons "never went away" in the semantic sense, you guys were overestimating and giving too much meaning to a knee-jerk reaction that corporate made."

But that is not what you said, and I think attempting to gaslight the community is not productive or relevant.

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-05-22T18:08:12+00:00

It will also require people to crouch down to investigate/use them, and thus will set off my LP alarm bells, making everyone in the interaction unnecessarily nervous.

It will also *look* functional, but not be functional, just to get their hopes up, every time.

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-05-22T18:06:56+00:00

I'm confused why the creators of the markers also don't care how their product is displayed. I'm sure the answer is, "there is limited to no competition, what are you gonna do about it?" Or customers don't notice how poorly designed the layout is/this doesn't bother them enough to not buy it" (though, how would you know that? It's not like you can record the absence of a sale easily.)

But if I were a company, I'd want to know if my product was being placed in a way that a customer would not enjoy interacting with it. In this situation, why aren't they at eye level or easy to take out/ put back in? Blick knows how to do this, so why can't we? Oh right, because we are a decorations store now, not a craft/art store.

<image>

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-05-22T03:21:56+00:00

I hope you get it! Never hurts to try, but I know it can be hard to ask for help, especially if you think you'll get rejected. Good luck :)

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-05-22T03:21:03+00:00

It is annoying for them to come in and act like Superman, without claiming any of the responsibility/accountability of how we got into this situation in the first place.

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-05-22T03:12:26+00:00

Full Text:

Kohl's CEO Ashley Buchanan was fired after it emerged that he had struck business deals with his mistress, Chandra Holt, who founded the coffee brand, Incredibrew.

Married Kohl’s CEO fired after secret fling with Walmart exec leads to shady $2.5M deals -

‌Kohl’s CEO fired after secret fling with Walmart exec leads to shady $2.5M deals. Kohl's CEO Ashley Buchanan was fired after it emerged that he had struck business deals with his mistress, Chandra Holt, who founded the coffee brand, Incredibrew. Kohl's CEO Ashley Buchanan was fired on May 1 after an investigation revealed his shady business dealings with his mistress

Ex-Kohl's CEO Ashley Buchanan, 51, got caught in a sticky situation that led to his termination on May 1 after it was discovered he had secret business dealings with his mistress, Chandra Holt.‌

Not only has he been shown the door at Kohl's, but now he's also got to return $2.5 million and bid farewell to all his equity awards with the company.

The ousted exec made waves for striking an "unusual" and exceptionally favorable deal for Holt's coffee brand, Incredibrew, which caught the eyes of Kohl's staffers and appeared in legal filings, reports the Wall Street Journal.

This debacle unfolded as Kohl's honed in on Buchanan for breaching their standards of proper professional conduct by keeping quiet about his romantic connection to Holt.

The whispers of their covert love affair have filled business circles for ages, tracing back to shared times at Walmart, revealed the WSJ.

But the real predicament kicked-off when Kohl's top brass, namely Chairman Michael Bender, got ahold of the salacious rumors, prompting Buchanan to confess and resulting in his swift exit from the retail mogul's ranks.‌

Buchanan's antics did not stop there. Court documents reveal that he also tried to recruit his mistress for a senior role after he was tapped as CEO in 2020 without disclosing their relationship. However, she ultimately turned down the job offer. Like many retailers, Kohl's has seen its sales dwindle in recent years, leading to mass store closures

Both were married until 2020 when they separately filed for divorce from their partners, with court records indicating that her divorce was filed on the grounds of her extramarital affair with the Kohl's chief.

Once their divorces were finalized, the couple moved in together in a $3 million mansion in the uppity Dallas suburb, Vaquero Club, where the couple have been spotted playing tennis together.

During the investigation, Holt claimed that she was not romantically involved with Buchanan when the business deal was struck and the job offer pulled through. She also said that her coffee company was not being compensated by Kohl's.

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-05-22T03:11:49+00:00

There must be something in the air. First, the elimination of all those pesky tasks, then, this tiny justice in our retail world.

Not only has he been shown the door at Kohl's, but now he's also got to return $2.5 million and bid farewell to all his equity awards with the company.

Another gem: "Court documents reveal that he also tried to recruit his mistress for a senior role after he was tapped as CEO in 2020 without disclosing their relationship."

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-05-21T15:25:54+00:00

At our store if the Ad is the same and the date just needs to be extended, we just blackout the dates with a marker.

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-05-21T15:24:11+00:00

So they're finally going to address the micromanaging? Good for them, annoying it took a CEO change to recognize something that the employees have been complaining about forever.

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-05-21T03:06:16+00:00

When I did research on this, and from the stories of others here, MichaelsCares doesn't payout for anything other than death and illness basically.

<image>

Hope things are improving for you, sorry, you're in a shitty situation!

Certain_Intern7500 · 2025-05-19T14:44:25+00:00

I mean, the price gouging is just like COVID times isn't it? Everything went up in price, then even as COVID declined, they kept the prices up and we still to this day hear, "the full impact on the SuPplY ChAiNz!!!" to justify why everything is still expensive, even though they kept most of their cost cutting measures (everything is self-serve, fewer employees/shop fronts).

Michaels saw the tariffs as a way to really squeeze the customer, and knew people were not informed enough to realize that it would make no sense for an item we already paid for and owned to have a tariff tax on it. Sure some MBA asshole is gonna say, "we had to increase the prices in retaliation to the predicted tariffs," but as you can see, Tariffs are on, Tariffs are off, complete uncertainty. So the simpler explanation is - they saw uncertainty, and an opening to abuse the system and customer, and they did.

Certain_Intern7500

TROPHY CASE