Awful, Draining Experience... - Production Coordinator FedEx Office Employee Review

There are a lot of cons to working at FedEx Office. 1.) No scheduled lunch. Often, no lunch at all. Stores tend to be chronically under-staffed, and so when you ask for a lunch (which you will have to ask for every day), it tends to be looked down on. You are expected to rush through your lunch and get back to work as soon as possible. Management, of course, gets lunch every day. 2.) You will have to stand on your feet for 8+ hours, depending upon your shift. There is a no sitting down policy. Even if there are no customers in the store, you are expected to stand. Management, of course, gets to sit down. 3.) The training is abysmal. If you want to learn -anything-, you have to hound over-worked co-workers for training opportunities. A lot of co-workers are miserable and impatient, and don't really have time to teach new employees. Management couldn't train if it wanted to, because management tends to know zilch about actual day-to-day operations. I had a manager who had worked there 5+ years and still didn't know how to mount a poster. Pathetic. 4.) The customers are given free reign. Even if you have a dozen huge orders due soon, if a customer comes in and says, "Give me 1,000 color booklets" in X hours, you HAVE to accomodate the customer's request or else be "disciplined" by management. Even if you follow written FedEx policy, and the customer is unhappy, you WILL get a "talking-to" by management. The customer is always right at FedEx Office in the worst possible way. This breeds an "employee vs. customer" atmosphere, where the employees end up not wanting to help customers at all because they are bitter from very poor management. 5.) You will have co-workers who don't do work. They charge their cell phones in the shipping closet, take at least 10 bathroom breaks a day, disappear when customers come in, go on Facebook, etc. As long as hardworking employees pick up the slack, management doesn't do anything about the bad employees. Management doesn't care about employees -- it cares about "the store" and performance. So if Rosa does all the work, and Sal and Hank do nothing, but everything still gets done, management won't say anything to Sal and Hank. If Rosa complains, Rosa is viewed as having poor relationships with co-workers. 6.) So much gossip and co-worker cattiness it's unbelievable. You can't tell anything to anyone without it getting around. I could go on, honestly, but you get the idea. FedEx Office is a terrible place to work, from my experience. I would only work there if you -absolutely- need the job, which is the position I was in. Once in, though, never stop looking for another job. Get out as quickly as possible, because it will drain you. ADVICE TO NEW EMPLOYEES: 1.) Be assertive. If management asks you to stay late, or work days you normally don't, and you feel obligated... guess what? DO NOT FEEL OBLIGATED. Say no and stick to it. 2.) Stay out of the gossip. Anyone who talks about someone else to you, will talk about you to someone else. It's better to just stay out of it altogether. 3.) IF you want a promotion, take ownership of your training, because the training won't come to you. Also, take ownership of your promotion. Be assertive and ask for it. 4.) Ask for your lunch break! It is your right. Don't let them bully and guilt you about taking it. 5.) If you have a problem, and management doesn't do anything, write HR. I found that HR would get things done that management wouldn't, but every district is different. 6.) Ask for more money after their initial offer, because they will offer you the lowest rate, hoping to get away with it.