Just about everything else outside of the Pros.
If you're looking into working for this company as a cashier/sales associate, be prepared. Most cashiers are part-time, and due to constant hour cuts, you're the first one to go. Don't be surprised when you go from 25 hours to 10 hours on the same weeks schedule. Along with that, you are simply required to do more work than is possible. As a cashier, you will be required to stock, recover the aisles, sweep, mop, and other menial tasks, all while ringing out customers. The best part is, half the functions on the register, you can't do. If someone has a return, exchange, or if a customer simply doesn't want an item anymore, you have to call the manager. All that responsibility work wise, and this company won't trust you to void off an item. The minimum wage you will start out at, will not be worth it. Get a register job at Target, they pay better and you don't have nearly as much responsibility.
The Key-Carriers/ASMs of Dollar General are simply shafted. While full-time employees generally get close to 40 hours a week, after continual hours cuts, don't be surprised to see that number float around the low 30s until a buying season comes around. (Xmas, Thanksgiving etc.) The amount of work that is thrown to you on a daily basis is completely unmanageable. You must recover(straighten your shelves) your entire store before you close. In larger stores, this can take up to 4 hours. On top of that, you will be required to stock X amount of rolltainers/totes (This number is always more than it should be) before you start your recovery. You are required to check the computer multiple times a day to see if there are any tasks that need to be completed immediately. (There are usually 1 or 2 tasks that require immediate attention per day) More often than not, you will be stuck with almost exclusively closing shifts. The store managers are almost forced to open the store most days, as they are able to come in whenever they would like. If your store opens at 8AM, the store managers may be forced to come in at 5 or 6AM in to get a few hours of work in before the store is open.(This is almost necessary considering there are NO HOURS to go to hourly employees.) So if you like working 5 night shifts every week, with an unbearable work load, then this is definitely the job for you.
Store Managers in this company are walked all over. So far, in this fiscal year (2 weeks now), our hours have been cut both weeks. This means that the store manager, who is salary and therefore doesn't count against those hours, has to pick up that extra work. The amount of work that these people have to do is completely unmanageable for what they are being paid. The amount of stress that is put on them to have a well performing store is so high that it drives away all of the good managers. The ones who continually stay could generally care less about the store, the employees or the work. If you like working 60-70 hours a week 6 or 7 days a week, and enjoy knowing that every day you will leave your store failing, then this job is for you.
All in all, this company has a ton of potential. Over the course of the past year and change, I've seen a huge turn for the worse. Right now the big push is for "Customers First," but we can't even make that happen considering we have multiple points during the morning and afternoon where there is literally only one person working in the store for over an hour. The workload continues to increase, while the hours continue to decrease. Not only are we unable to take care of the customers properly, but we can't even keep our stores properly maintained. Every day that you leave your store, you will feel like you've left it failing, as you won't be able to complete the simplest of your daily tasks, let alone go above and beyond. The only reason why I would suggest anyone work here is to get your foot in the management door. It is relatively easy to move up considering there's such a high turnover rate. Other than that, avoid working here at all costs.
A quick mathematical breakdown for those who are interested.
At some points during last fiscal year, my store had 130 hours for hourly employees. If your store is open from 8AM-10PM, that equals to 14 hours a day that you are open. If you have 3 full time employees that are at 40 hours a week, that adds to 120 hours, leaving a grand total of 10 for part timers. With that 14 hours a day, and 7 days a week, that equals to 98 hours total every week. That's 98 hours of having 1 person running a register. This leaves you with 32 hours off of the register to complete your weekly tasks. This includes stocking rolltainers/totes. If you average that it takes 1 hour to do 1 rolltainer, and you receive 15 rolltainers, you're down to 17 hours. If you have 30 totes, at 6 totes an hour (off the register) that's another 5 hours, leaving you with 12 hours. Stocking the Paper U-Boats will take about 2 hours, leaving you with 10 hours. Mind you, this doesn't take into consideration that you need to be recovering for 4 hours every night, which is essentially burned hours, where nothing is being produced. This also doesn't take into consideration the closing hours, where the manager has to count back the drawers or any of the other closing procedures that each individual store has.
