A Cry For Help

Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 2

Hello all. I have been reading this forum off and on for a while and have decided that the time has come in which I chime in. However, in doing so, I also need your input.

I have been with HD nigh a year. Before that, I worked in several retail stores ranging from mom and pop shops to Target. However, none of them has done to me what HD has.

I have been with HD since my store opened (a year ago) and I was also part of the opening crew. Ours was a new store with a new layout with special order appliances, flooring and more on the second floor Mezz. and we were the first of our kind. When we opened, we had an on fire team with what seemed at the time to be an on fire, excellent team of managers and associates. That quickly changed. In the beginning I thought that HD would change my views of retail but in fact it has left me with an even more bitter impression.

When we opened I was in lumber/building materials. My management team listened to associates and genuinely seemed to care. However, soon things changed. Soon we found ourselved with a barrage of brass walkthroughs. Nardelli himself as well as the top five investors walked our store. It almost became a daily thing for suits to walk the store. Then come our first store inventory management changed.

Within this year I have seen management become apathetic, snide, rude and sarcastic to associates and customers alike. They screen their own calls and turn off their phones at their choosing. They can be found on a daily basis hiding out in their offices talking together in their own clandestine "pumpkin patch." Then, when an associate asks for aid, they are shut out and belittled.

With associates and management alike, apathy has become commonplace. People sit in the breakroom for 30 minute breaks several times during the day and management has been known to join them. They have been known to yell at customers for little reasons.

The associates that work hard are made to work even harder for those that do nothing and seem to be all buddy-buddy with management. I knwo work in plumbing and I constantly see people slacking off with management talking about nothing more than the concert they went to the night before or their plans for the evening. Then, when I even utter a word to anyone, I am told to get back to work.

One of the most stunning events to happen is that we had an associate who transfered to our store as a lot tech to become a specialist upstairs and within a few months of kissing the various A.S.M.'s asses he became the FES when he had NO previous cashier experience.

I have faced nothing but empty promises as of late, as well as sarcasm, apathy, and belittlement. I tried going to management..I got in trouble. I tried going to HR, my concerns fell on deaf ears. I tried going above my store with fear that somehow my management team would find out and yet again I would get in trouble...but again nothing happened.

At this point I don't know what to do. I -want- to like my job while I am starting my career elsewhere. I -want- to care about what happens, however I only find myself becoming cold to the situation. I can't simply quit because the jobs in my area don't pay enough for the cost of living here. I am barely scraping by on an 11.00 an hour pay.

I am curious, is this what it is like for most of you out there? Is this just my store? This is just tapping the ice. Anyone have any advice for me?

Thanks for all the reading so far.

Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 2

Ok...well I guess not. Whatever.

Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 1:42 am Post subject:

Stick with it only if you really enjoy the job. otherwise, leave. Management usually changes every two years or so, so hang in there in you like depot.

Joined: 26 May 2006 Posts: 92

If you look back in the forum, you will see I used to post quite a bit.

I, too, was DH of lumber in my store, and I had some good supers, but, in general, I found HD to be rule-heavy and unconcerned with the welfare of their employees.

I left and joined an old, local lumber company that is still family owned. The difference can be measured in light-years: Here, I am a real PERSON, and treated as such. Our customers are treated superbly and many have been coming to us for many years or even decades.

I am now transitioning back into teaching, which I left for a while 'cause I was just tired of it.

I would say look for a smaller company that will give a sh-- about you.

Joined: 21 Mar 2007 Posts: 8

My advice is: get the heck out'a dodge.

Stay low until you get a decent job (or at worst, one that will cover the bills until you do). DON'T invest any more energy here. To HD, you and me are less than the numbers-on-paper they're so pathologically worried about all the time. YOU, as a living breathing person, have worth. Pity HD is about the top guys making all the $$$$$ on the backs of the ASS-clown-socaites.

Your story sounds like what happened to me at my HD...I was new, things looked good and I was on top in sales/credit apps. I was even eyeing a DH position. HA!

Than we get a tired old re-tread for a manager whose sole comment about raises was: "The only reason you do a good job is so you have a job for ONE MORE DAY."

Uh, one more day...?

No thanks.

And I busted my back for this ungrateful company, through DHs who played favorites, who belittled me in front of customers, who covered for their "buddies" who came in late and obviously hung-over...yet wrote ME up for not getting ALL the pallets of freight out in 8 hours. (Gee, sorry that I'm the ONLY guy in D25 and D31!!!!)

The last straw was being called into the office for a customer complaint...well, BEFORE even listening to my side of the story, they let the customer vent his spleen at me. LOUD. I was called for every worthless #%@^& name in the book, and how I was a good-for-nothing by this little prick.

THEN, after the ASMs apologized to this guy up and down, they gave him a 10% off coupon, showed him back onto the floor, they asked me MY side of the story. Of course they didn't believe me...It "had to" have happened the way this brainless twit said. Then they wrote me up and informed me I was lucky to even have a job after this.

Note that I had **NO** customer complaints before this one...in fact, I had a couple mentions in the VOC reports about how helpful I was!!!!

I gathered what was left of my dignity, waited a week, switched my hours at my 2nd job to F/T, and handed in my notice.

It's seven months after the incident, and I am VERY happy. My job now is okay, and lookie here! I got mystery shopped twice since then and I got a 97/100 and a 100/100.

HD is shit. Pure and simple. No, sorry, SHIT can be used as FERTLIZER. It doesn't even have THAT much value.

Amigo, GET OUT while you can!!!!

Joined: 12 Feb 2007 Posts: 12

Big box sucks cock. Mom and Pop might be less money but you will enjoy it better than working for a bunch of capitalist pigs.

Joined: 14 May 2007 Posts: 13

I work for one of Home Depot Canada's competitors, and we have front end supervisors n one front end manager at each store. If its the same at Home Depot, then becoming a front end supervisor isn't really thing amazing. You get scheduled for 8 hours but u end up working 12 and you only get paid the same as regular sales associates, but you've got much more responsibilities.

	Forum Index -> Home Depot	All times are GMT
Page 1 of 1