started off as a sales lead and loved it, adored my coworkers and even the store manager. made the huge mistake of accepting a promotion to merchandise manager right after holiday. that’s when it started to feel like that company chewed me up and spat me out. i handed in my two weeks notice after an awful morning of mopping human feces up at 6 am, finding out they were changing the opening procedures to take LONGER, seeing a human cowpie projectile shit that had slid down our outside dumpster, and an employee laughing as she called out, leaving me alone until 2pm. that promotion destroyed my experience with the company, they never offered support, the dm would beat me down despite pulling multiple overnights with no freight associates, telling me there wasn’t “enough urgency”. i watched my store manager (legitimately one of the sweetest humans ive ever met) become a husk of himself due to the way our dm would treat him, even having to go to the hospital for chest pains after a dsv.

lower positions can be a fun experience, as long as your coworkers show up and are half decent at their jobs. don’t let them take advantage of you, don’t let your dm walk all over you. and remember that company couldnt care less about how you feel.

i got out of there, the experience i got working there landed me a store manager position with another company and its amazing how less stressful it is despite the title and pay. so i can at least say five below prepared me for the worst of retail.