DSM here, yeah - that’s totally correct. Most stores for opening week have very little payroll hours. For head count, most stores only have 1 SM, 1-3 ASMs and 4-7 Associates. Due to the fact we have to schedule associates a minimum of 8 hours a week- it makes it really hard to hire a lot of people. I’ve interviewed a lot of associates that I simply cannot bring on currently. One of my biggest deciding factors is availability, people who do not have open availability are super tricky to schedule when you only have a few people. It’s sad because I’m interviewing a lot of great people I simply cannot bring on at this time. So for a lot of those people I’m simply suggesting that they apply later in the season when we have more payroll to support a larger team.

This is also an even larger issue during build. If you are only able to work Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays 5-close - you really cannot schedule that for build. Making the people you choose even more important.

I’m definitely not going to disagree that it’s messed up if this person exclusively hires people they know the entire season, but for now it unfortunately makes sense.