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Dillard's Informative - Rant of Dillards - Working Experience
Working Experience
THE VILLAGE, ARIZONA -- Let’s get started! For about 7 months I was an employee at a Brand New Dillard’s in Arizona, Ill say it was the one at the new outdoor mall / Village. I was originally hired for fragrances. My first manager surprisingly was barely able to walk and chew gum at the same time better yet manage 30-40 people. I thought it was weird that they would have 8-10 people work in one section of a department, i.e. one register. Supposedly I was to make $145 an hour in sales. We were lucky if we had 900 dollars in sales all day, split between everyone working from open till close. People (mainly one lady who was a “pacesetter”) would bicker, fight and steal sales to be number 1 leading to a very tense work-environment. They kept me in this area for 4 months even though I was consistently under my sales goal and had no chance of making it for a raise. But every morning at our “meeting” (i.e. propaganda BS) we were told to expect a BIG DAY and OPEN CREDIT APPS!!! That seemed to be even bigger then selling merchandise. Everyday they talked, like they were brainwashed, about how the customer needs the Dillard’s card and to sign up at least one a week. Always ask if they’d like to redeem their reward points! You only have to spend $1000 dollars at Dillard’s and you get a $10 off coupon on your next purchase if you use your Dillard’s Card. Credit app this, credit app that, hell we even had to go to Credit College if you didn’t open 1 a month to learn how to push these cards on people.
At 1 “Credit College” our manager said that we need to get them to sign up for the card any way possible. When asked by an employee “if you were a customer would you sign up for one”, his answer was “no way, the rates are way too high”. Hmmm…….wasn’t this the magical card that gets people to spend more at our store even when they don’t have the money to pay for the merchandise. If it’s so great why wouldn’t you signup (maybe a 19-27% rate depending on the card might have something to do with that). Anyway, after Inventory (scanning and counting everything in the store) there was plenty of firings and layoffs for just about any small reason you can think of. A week or two later they started hiring more people back, and they were getting paid less then the people that opened the store. Easy to see what’s happening here!
After inventory, I was told that I was being moved into another department because I wasn’t hitting my sales goal even though I still had 2 months to my review. I started my first day in the new department and my training consisted of “F1, F1, and F1, We need you on markdowns.” I wasn’t shown the layout, wasn’t told about the merchandise I was selling, wasn’t told about the history of the brand names, nothing. I’ve never done retail before and I’m supposed to sell some guy clothes and answer questions on it shrinking, what material it’s made with, i.e. Also, now my sales goal jumped to $177 an hour. Great that’ll be easy. If I could actually sell first. I worked mornings so the first 15 minutes we have our “Credit App speech and Show and Tell”, good thing we’re all adults. Then a good hour of maybe 1 or 2 shoppers in the whole department while I have to open the register, recover the mess from the night before, back-stock and move/organize any new merchandise that was unloaded this morning and more. Now at about Noon-1 o’clock, the second shift gets in, time to beat them to a sale! Then, the manager of Men’s, who resembles a dorky meerkat with bad intentions, would give me a project. “Organize the stockroom, fold and hang all this merchandise, go upstairs and grab hangars or whatever”. Why? It’s a little difficult to sell your overpriced no-named clothes when I’m in the backroom sweating and hanging up these ugly shirts. Why would a store order such a ridiculous amount of big, thick oversize jackets and ugly grandpa long sleeve shirts in Arizona anyway? Beats Me.
Either way, it was an easy job if you could find something to fold or something else to waste time, like figuring out what you got paid per hour/second/millisecond (it was worse then watching grass grow) until your lunch or closing time.
I was let go for a stupid reason that many other employees were getting away with scot-free, its something that was done by most of the women working in ladies shoes, most of the women working in the women’s department, and a few of the managers that I knew about. They would take and use merchandise for the day or even just keep the merchandise, basically skimming from the company. 2 women I knew would walk into work wearing their shoes and then put on a fresh pair of shoes from the stockroom of women’s shoes (L & D). I’ve also seen them buying 75% off shoes and switching them with a full-price pair of new shoes while keeping the old box (L&D again). The cosmetics manager would snatch up testers, samples and damaged (yeah……….damaged) goods (R). There were affairs and hook-ups going on between managers/associates and even managers/managers (too many to name). Managers would talk behind your back, or give out non-sense schedules to make you want to quit so they don’t risk paying unemployment. Also, hiring new people at cheaper hourly rates rather then keeping the old employees. You know, the ones that unloaded the trucks, opened the store and ran their inventory for them. They worked/scheduled too many people in one area so that it’s a fight to get a sale, making the whole day tense.
The few positions that do have commission have no chance of getting close to making any; they’re always in the negative for commissions. When people do get close to hitting commission more then once, they hire more people to make getting sales harder and harder so they don’t have to pay a commission bonus of $100-$300 a month. But don’t think that’s it. If you don’t hit your SPH then your treated as lazy and not a team-player. Basically treating you like an expendable idiot unless you bow and cater to their egos, and even then you’re just buying time. When I started there were about 35 people in cosmetics and 30-35 in Men’s. Now there are about 15-17 in cosmo and 10 in men’s. If that’s not a horrible turnover rate, I don’t know what is. And it’s roughly the same with the other departments.
I can say that I will never work in retail again, just because of this terrible experience of working in this horrible company. The only person there that had and still has my respect is the top General Manager of the store. He’s a great guy that I think got caught up in a bad company and just has to wake up and smell the coffee. Anyway, this company is sinking faster then a brick in water and I can’t wait to see it be bought out and finished. Hope this rant helps you to pick any other place to work besides Dillard’s. I will never go there for anything again and I tell everyone I know not shop at a store that doesn’t care for its employees or even their customers.
At 1 “Credit College” our manager said that we need to get them to sign up for the card any way possible. When asked by an employee “if you were a customer would you sign up for one”, his answer was “no way, the rates are way too high”. Hmmm…….wasn’t this the magical card that gets people to spend more at our store even when they don’t have the money to pay for the merchandise. If it’s so great why wouldn’t you signup (maybe a 19-27% rate depending on the card might have something to do with that). Anyway, after Inventory (scanning and counting everything in the store) there was plenty of firings and layoffs for just about any small reason you can think of. A week or two later they started hiring more people back, and they were getting paid less then the people that opened the store. Easy to see what’s happening here!
After inventory, I was told that I was being moved into another department because I wasn’t hitting my sales goal even though I still had 2 months to my review. I started my first day in the new department and my training consisted of “F1, F1, and F1, We need you on markdowns.” I wasn’t shown the layout, wasn’t told about the merchandise I was selling, wasn’t told about the history of the brand names, nothing. I’ve never done retail before and I’m supposed to sell some guy clothes and answer questions on it shrinking, what material it’s made with, i.e. Also, now my sales goal jumped to $177 an hour. Great that’ll be easy. If I could actually sell first. I worked mornings so the first 15 minutes we have our “Credit App speech and Show and Tell”, good thing we’re all adults. Then a good hour of maybe 1 or 2 shoppers in the whole department while I have to open the register, recover the mess from the night before, back-stock and move/organize any new merchandise that was unloaded this morning and more. Now at about Noon-1 o’clock, the second shift gets in, time to beat them to a sale! Then, the manager of Men’s, who resembles a dorky meerkat with bad intentions, would give me a project. “Organize the stockroom, fold and hang all this merchandise, go upstairs and grab hangars or whatever”. Why? It’s a little difficult to sell your overpriced no-named clothes when I’m in the backroom sweating and hanging up these ugly shirts. Why would a store order such a ridiculous amount of big, thick oversize jackets and ugly grandpa long sleeve shirts in Arizona anyway? Beats Me.
Either way, it was an easy job if you could find something to fold or something else to waste time, like figuring out what you got paid per hour/second/millisecond (it was worse then watching grass grow) until your lunch or closing time.
I was let go for a stupid reason that many other employees were getting away with scot-free, its something that was done by most of the women working in ladies shoes, most of the women working in the women’s department, and a few of the managers that I knew about. They would take and use merchandise for the day or even just keep the merchandise, basically skimming from the company. 2 women I knew would walk into work wearing their shoes and then put on a fresh pair of shoes from the stockroom of women’s shoes (L & D). I’ve also seen them buying 75% off shoes and switching them with a full-price pair of new shoes while keeping the old box (L&D again). The cosmetics manager would snatch up testers, samples and damaged (yeah……….damaged) goods (R). There were affairs and hook-ups going on between managers/associates and even managers/managers (too many to name). Managers would talk behind your back, or give out non-sense schedules to make you want to quit so they don’t risk paying unemployment. Also, hiring new people at cheaper hourly rates rather then keeping the old employees. You know, the ones that unloaded the trucks, opened the store and ran their inventory for them. They worked/scheduled too many people in one area so that it’s a fight to get a sale, making the whole day tense.
The few positions that do have commission have no chance of getting close to making any; they’re always in the negative for commissions. When people do get close to hitting commission more then once, they hire more people to make getting sales harder and harder so they don’t have to pay a commission bonus of $100-$300 a month. But don’t think that’s it. If you don’t hit your SPH then your treated as lazy and not a team-player. Basically treating you like an expendable idiot unless you bow and cater to their egos, and even then you’re just buying time. When I started there were about 35 people in cosmetics and 30-35 in Men’s. Now there are about 15-17 in cosmo and 10 in men’s. If that’s not a horrible turnover rate, I don’t know what is. And it’s roughly the same with the other departments.
I can say that I will never work in retail again, just because of this terrible experience of working in this horrible company. The only person there that had and still has my respect is the top General Manager of the store. He’s a great guy that I think got caught up in a bad company and just has to wake up and smell the coffee. Anyway, this company is sinking faster then a brick in water and I can’t wait to see it be bought out and finished. Hope this rant helps you to pick any other place to work besides Dillard’s. I will never go there for anything again and I tell everyone I know not shop at a store that doesn’t care for its employees or even their customers.
Comments:
Posted by Suusan B. on 2008-05-05:
Just because the other kids get away with something doesn't mean that you should do the same and not be willing to suffer the consequences. You took a job that was based on commission and what you describe sounds pretty much like the retail game everywhere. And in case you haven't noticed, the economy in the U.S. isn't too hot these days and I suspect that the reduction in the workforce at Dillard's is a sign of the times.
Posted by spiderman2 on 2008-05-05:
so you stole from them and got fired and now you are ranting about it. That is what I get from this letter.
Posted by slingingPeter on 2008-09-02:
Ha Ha I used to work for Dillards that almost describes my day!! Dillards is a joke!!
Posted by Neb on 2008-11-17:
No.. what he wrote was descriptive about the company. Yes its a huge seething pit of despair. Yes its sales, however its the most visious sales company that I have ever worked for. This being the forth. Dillards policies dont help either.
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