Pay for performance! It would be alright if all I had to do was sell and open credit apps, but associates have to do virtually EVERYTHING: markdowns, retickets, putting out stock, setting the floor according to the planogram, maintain hourly sales goals, maintain credit goals, helps customers find things, returns, set sales, change signs...EVERYTHING, yet we are refered to as sales associates and are paid based on our selling. During markdowns, they'll have you come in 2 hours before the store opens to markdown, and this counts against your sales. If you're a hard worker/good employee, management will want you to help them with all these different projects, during which you aren't on the register, which means you're losing sales. The lazy or incompetant associates aren't asked to do anything, so they just sit on the register racking up sales, meanwhile the good associates lose sales and get their pay docked. I hear they are FINALLY changing this, and will have operations teams to do all the 'dirty work' like how Dillard's and Macy's do, though they'll probably increase our sales and credit goals since that's gonna be our main priority now.
Also, if you work at a smaller store like I do, there is virtually NO opportunity for advancement within the company. They advertise things like the ASM Development Program, which trains sales associates to be area managers, the only problem is that smaller stores like mine don't have money/hours allotted for a manager trainee, so the only way I'd be able to train would be to transfer to a larger store and apply.
