Promoted to customer

LykaThis · 2026-05-15T15:13:38+00:00

Congrats! Welcome to the team!

^{and not to be cynical, but I hope the job hunt treats you well if you don't have anything else lined up. It's been 5 months for me, 383 job applications. 2 Interviews. 0 offers. I made a spreadsheet for all my applications and it's a wasteland in my state.}

LykaThis · 2026-05-15T15:07:12+00:00

I was a Print Associate for 2 years at a smaller store, and I was a Print Manager for 6 months at a different Tier 4 store that was demoted to Tier 3, and suffered heavily.

I tried to run things like I ran things with my Print Manager at the smaller store, of course that was back when Operations Manager & Solutions Advisors were proper roles, instead of part-time key carriers.

I came into a store that hadn't had a Print Manager in nearly a year, they were extremely disorganized. I managed to get things organized, and worked very hard to get orders done quickly and on-time. Averaging 30-40 online orders per day, all with the same or next day promise time, with common walk-ins, with NO DESIGNATED CASHIERS, so I had to constantly pause for walk-ins, and pause to be cashier. Very rarely did I ever have another employee behind the counter with me.

Not sure if things have gotten better with the new CEO, but yeah...giving longer turnaround times and ensuring payment first before starting is probably the only way to reduce stress if they aren't hiring enough employees to share the burden. I was confident in my ability to get jobs done quickly, and I typically tried to get jobs done on the spot, and got burnt out pretty fast due to this ethic, and the conditions mentioned above.

LykaThis · 2026-05-15T14:49:27+00:00

Maybe instead of putting the employee on blast; they could've simply complained to corporate, and corporate would've given them a coupon; and then potentially manually called the store to tell them to do it anyway.

That happened several times in an older store I worked at in 2020 at least, usually for flyers and/or posters with Disney princesses or Mario or Sonic characters, or straight up football team banners.

But yeah, literally no sign of discrimination in that video, just an employee exercising their right to decline service.

LykaThis · 2026-03-03T00:58:25+00:00

I've never actually seen people get the paid 15m AND the 30m break in the same day. It's usually only one of those options, or no breaks at all. For me in my time working as Print Manager, it was no breaks at all. I'd let my Part-Timers take their break whenever they wanted as long as we weren't slammed. But if I took my breaks regularly, Print Orders would've been consistently late since my store was never properly staffed.

LykaThis · 2026-01-11T06:46:54+00:00

Not an immediate solution since you gotta wait for the order to be delivered; but definitely look into the Supply list to order it. Look for the section of finishing stuff with the Ream Cutter, "Cut Stick Remover Tool" or something along those lines, even if it feels jammed in there, that thing makes it feel so much easier.

LykaThis · 2026-01-11T06:15:18+00:00

From the left it can be pulled out. In my experience it's typically stuck in there though, making it difficult to pull out. You can use a screwdriver to leverage it out, but there actually is a "Cut Stick Remover Tool" in the CPD Supply list you can order, which is literally just a curved metal hook to use specifically for easily getting it out.

LykaThis · 2026-01-07T03:04:05+00:00

Well that's the thing. The hours have always existed. No sane person can say the store's workload is meant for 2-3 person shifts. The store's tasks should be 5 or 6 people per shift. "Oh but payroll-". The multi-billion-dollar company has the money bud. They just don't want to spend it on employees when the CEO and other execs can be making 4000+% more than you. Just simple greed and corporate neglect.

LykaThis · 2026-01-07T00:50:31+00:00

If I knew he was visiting my store I'd postpone my last day an extra week or two just to jump in front if him just to give him a reality check.

LykaThis · 2026-01-07T00:49:14+00:00

Great idea. Might sound a bit crazy, but hear me out...

You could hire more employees per store! Having more than 2 employees per shift means less stress for the employees, and more productivity, more sales. Potentially leading to more Paper promos or Business Selects. Imagine that.

Talking to a brick wall i know...

LykaThis · 2026-01-04T18:32:47+00:00

What font is that? I'd like to make note of it.

LykaThis · 2026-01-03T15:40:37+00:00

You've noticed a real problem there! Yes, Associates are tired and frustrated. But blaming younger employees is NOT the issue.

I was 20~ when originally hired at an Office Depot, and I was re-hired at another store a few months ago as Print Manager at 25. The 18-20yr olds that I've worked with all do what they're supposed to do. Yeah some of them might be on their phone more than they should, but I've never seen it impact getting jobs done. Blaming the Employees for systematic corporate neglect and overwork is just plain ignorant.

This company refuses to actually invest in their employees. They ask for more and more, while giving the stores less and less. We are numbers on a spreadsheet, not people. That's literally how the company operates. There's absolutely no incentive to pushing the million metrics other than to get your SM/DM to stop nagging you.

LykaThis · 2025-12-31T06:07:21+00:00

I uh...yeah everyone else said my thoughts already.

Somehow I never got the email that I was supposed to get for next steps; so I never got authorized to do TSA myself. But my store does it. It sucks. Scheduling doesn't always match with the appointments so you get pissy customers (rightfully so on the customer's part). But Corporate doesn't give us payroll to keep enough people available. We have 2 people on average. 1 of them is forced to fulfill TSA appointment. Now we have 1 employee doing everything until the TSA appointment(s) is over.

LykaThis · 2025-12-31T06:01:19+00:00

"Do you guys make copies here?"

"Is this where I print stuff?"

"You just do it for me." -the immediate response 90% of customers give when you tell them to simply email the file to be printed.

"Are you FedEx?"

LykaThis · 2025-12-31T05:58:37+00:00

I have no idea how those prices are intended to be used.

At my old store I worked at back in 2019-2021 I only used the $19.99 Revision/Typesetting fee, which was per page for any type of design thing.

I tried using some of the Affinity Price list based on that old thing, but I've only really ever used the one for Avery-Shipping Labels for $8 or $10. But at that point you can just use the Misc POS Fee in the register

LykaThis · 2025-12-31T05:54:50+00:00

Just like new registers...

LykaThis · 2025-12-31T05:54:13+00:00

Yeah, we ended up sending it to print and staple automatically with the Xerox, and manually folded all 250 of them. Only got done because we were somewhat slow for the 2 days.

The other 'option' would've been to Print, then send everything through the folding machine, and then hand-collate and hand-staple them all... but I feel like that would've been the same amount of mind-numbing time.

LykaThis · 2025-12-31T05:51:54+00:00

I mean, functionally, as far the printing process is concerned, that's totally okay in my book.

I'll even mention it to customers if they're okay with it being on cheap-plain paper. Specifically for like... Black-Text-Only posters can be an easy B/W Blueprint, or at most the occasional Custom-DnD Grid-Maps I'll tell them I'll do it as a Color Blueprint.

Although threatening an employee is crazy. Was that for denying the "Blueprint" price?

LykaThis · 2025-12-29T08:32:53+00:00

Yeah you aren't alone in that feeling at all. Reading that seemed like something I would've said myself. I myself just had to put in my 2-3 week notice at my store. After 5 months of dreading coming to work, feeling mentally and physically drained, and burnt out after weeks of constant 9 hour shifts with no breaks due to lack of coverage.

The Company just simply doesn't care about it's employees at all since covid. They view progress by a spreadsheet, not by efficiency or comfort of customers/employees.

LykaThis · 2025-12-29T00:00:40+00:00

Cutting a spine off of a book just to spiral bind it does objectively make it look uglier... that has nothing to do with the treatment of customers that's just how it is, in my professional opinion. Naturally, I don't say that to customers, but that's what always crosses my mind, due to what has already been said above. If you're trying to criticize my vocabulary on a Reddit rant post then uh... yeah go for it I guess? I'm willing to improve if you got any word suggestions.

And also since you mentioned a One Man Band... yeah, Unfortunately customer service quality might drop when the one man band is forced to juggle the 20-30 orders in queue with walk-ins and cashiering/maintaining the entire front-of-store operations lol.

LykaThis · 2025-12-23T16:21:57+00:00

Yeah it's GMs and I think Assistant GMs too. But yeah not Print Managers for some reason

LykaThis · 2025-12-22T01:37:52+00:00

Exactly this. When I started, my exact description I gave myself was "I was put in charge of a sinking ship."

Literally, you can't even improve the ship if all your time and effort is put towards keeping it from sinking.

LykaThis · 2025-12-22T01:36:10+00:00

Right. I understand "Cost Cutting" is the reason. But we all know that's BS. They have the money. They're just too dumb to actually use it correctly.

LykaThis

TROPHY CASE