Collateral Damage

After reading Minna’s post today (actually written a few days ago ) I had an inspiration for a blog. Misery loves company, right? So, here’s my tirade:

I finally found a job. It’s at Hollister, unfortunately. It’s the only place I could find (aside from Bath & Bodyworks but more on that later…)

Here’s how my first few days at Hollister started:

4 May 08: They wanted me in at 10am for orientation. Unfortunately I had to meet my East Asian Art History class at The Freer Gallery of Art in DC at the same time. Fine. I was told to come in Monday as soon as I was free.
5 May 08: I go in for orientation. The assistant manager tells me that the district manager is using the office so I should watch a movie about loss prevention (people stealing stuff). Once that’s over she says that I should call Wednesday for the schedule and to finish orientation. Fine.
7 May 08: I call Wednesday morning but apparently the manager is out until Friday so I am told to call back then.
9 May 08: I call Friday morning and the Manager in Training tells me to come in whenever I feel like it so I head there around noon. He can’t find me in the system and says the store manager will be in at 1pm so I should come back then. I come back around 2pm to give them time to switch everything over. The manager says he can’t find me in the system either and I should come back the next day. He says I should work from 1pm until 6pm so I say fine and leave.
10 May 08: I go in at 1pm and fill in some forms and start folding clothes. After about 45 minutes of doing this they tell me to greet people. I ended up standing at the front of the store, straightening things for the next 4 hours and shouting HI HOW ARE YOU?!? at incoming customers. I didn’t even get a break.
I finally leave and notice they didn’t count some of my time. They counted me at working 4.75 hours when it should have been 5. I am told as I am leaving to call the next day about my hours.
11 May 08: I call in at noon and am told by the Manager in Training (MiT) that I was supposed to be there at 10 and work until 3. I tell him that I put in that I can’t work before 2pm Sundays (I usually go to church with Gael) and I’m supposed to be heading out to my parents’ house for Mother’s Day. He begs me to come in and says he’ll let me off early. He also says he wants to train me on register. Register sounds a hell of a lot better to me than greeting or folding clothes.
When I get in, I inform him of the discrepancy in my hours. He says he’ll clock me in as coming in 15 minutes earlier than I actually did because he already sent the time sheets in to payroll. I also inform him that he has my address wrong so we change that and finish filling out my forms.
He has me restock the store because apparently when people are closing they don’t do that. The place is a wreck to I try my best to figure out where things go. I don’t get to leave early.
When the manager gets in I talk to him about my pay because the assistant manager had told me that if I have more retail experience, I can get a higher pay. The manager says that’s not true and he has no control over pay- corporate sets all that. When I go to leave I ask him when I should come in next because I didn’t see my name on the schedule and he says the schedule is already made for the week and I should call on Wednesday to tell them what hours I can work.

I’m beginning to think I should have gone with Bath and Bodyworks. I didn’t because I didn’t want to work with all women and they said that one week I might not work, the next 1 day, the next 5 days… I didn’t want to have to deal with that. Hollister had said I could basically work whenever I wanted but the pay is 36 cents less. I thought the amount I worked would make up for the discrepancy in pay rate. I’m wishing they were a little more competent and had their shit together. I’m still applying like crazy to part time office jobs but nothing has come up so far.

Other things stressing me out?

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