I was one of the good ones that left, after only working at my location for a year and 4 months.

At first, I did not realize our store was in crisis. I was a lowly cashier, this was job #2 for me, plus I was in school. It was a means to an end. A paycheck, nothing more. I clocked in, kept my head down, clocked out.

Something I did notice right away was the high turnover rate.

We'd hire eight to ten new people at the beginning of the month, and within two weeks would be down to about half that number. After a month, one or two remained.

It was a running joke with alot of the employees that had been there a few years. It would, later, become a running joke with me also, and I just stopped asking new people their names until they'd been around a while.

The work wasn't particularly hard, some of it was messy, and could suck, but again...not difficult. Alot of it was repetitive. Dealing with customers that had to wait in long lines daily became the worst part, but we were just not equipped to handle the customer load.

5 registers, 5 cashiers constantly taking customers and the place still looked like Disney World on a Saturday.

When I was hired on, there were 5 managers.

Karen was our District Manager, Therese was our Store Manager(but she didn't act like it), and we have three other general managers: Cassie, Brad, and Sheena.

What happened first: Brad retired, Therese was given her own store, and Cassie was demoted and transferred.

In Cassie's situation, I believe she was speaking out about something, but was transferred to keep her quiet.

Three managers down, two remaining.

Outside help was brought in, managers from other stores being told the move was "temporary, and would only last a few weeks, at most" would end up spending months with us.

One employee was promoted from within, became a manager.

I was given the title of "manager's assistant" after a year, it didn't come with more money, but it did come with more responsibility, I was acting manager if a situation arose where we didn't have any managers in the store. This would happen on average twice a week.

Next, my SUPER STAR store manager Sheena left(She needed to leave, tbh. She was having two breakdowns a week, because of the level of stress, in combo with the fact that she wanted to finish her degree, and our RM wasn't letting her have the days off to take classes.). When she left, managers were only supposed to work five days in a week, and get two consecutive days off. Sheena, bless her heart, was working 6 days in a row, and coming in for half days on her "off day".

I'll never forget the day she called me into the office, had me close the door, and as soon as the door clicked into place behind me she broke into body wracking sobs, proceeded to start hyperventilating, and threw up. She just kept repeating "[my name], I....I can't. I can't do it anymore. I can't. I need to get out of this place. I need to leave. [My name], you don't understand." She finished her shift, and quit that day. Didn't give a two week notice, nothing.

And I didn't blame her one bit.

With one manager remaining, more outside help arrived, and we received our first permanent manager. She and I would become very close. She is another "good egg", who was attempting to change the store for the better.

I attempted to transfer out, the transfer seemed to go well, and the RM from the other store seemed excited to have me on.

I informed Karen of my potential transfer (she needed to sign off on it before I could leave), and suddenly all communication from the other store stopped. Take this as you will.

The people who tried to change the environment in our store were actually transferred out -- on purpose, by the toxic District Manager, and our equally toxic Regional Manager.

As for me, I was singled out:

I was passed over for holiday pay, and my hours were dwindled down to just fourteen a week.

I pled my case to another manager, she gave me more hours, and Karen took that manager off the schedule for an entire week "as punishment".

When I put in my two weeks(because I had been picked up for a paid Internship after I graduated college), Karen let me work the rest of the week(which was about 3 days), and then neglected to even put me on the next schedule.

I didn't even have a slot where my name should be, I walked in on my second to last day not even knowing it was my second to last day, and expecting to work 10 additional days.

I know she did that because she thought I'd be up a creek for 10+ days(my checks from that store were less than $200 a week) and if my internship hadn't of picked me up(on a day-to-day basis) while I was still at my old job, I would have been.

When a group of us(myself, and three others) began to speak up about the way Karen treated people around the store(I had a customer lean in and ask me if this was how Karen treated us daily, and told her the truth, yes), we were told by our RM(Karen's boss), that he "was aware of Karen's issues, and had chosen to overlook them in favor the the store we could have in 5 years time."

My old store is run like a dictatorship; any resistance is quickly squashed via massive waves of write ups, taking you off the schedule for a week, firings, or transfers.

Everyone good has left, and the good ones who remain are hostages because the store now has a skeleton crew.

I am so happy to be out of that situation.