This was once a good company to work for. - Store Manager Michaels Employee Review

Too many to list. I was expected to run a store on minimal staffing. At many times, I would have one cashier, one sales associate to cover the entire selling floor, and one framer. It is impossible to meet standards on this level of staffing. When private equity took over this company in 2006, the corporate culture became nothing but cut, cut, cut. Framers were given impossible selling and productivity goals to meet. Every Christmas season, I dreaded the rush to complete customers framing orders. As long as we got the sale, it didn't matter if the customer was happy or not. As staffing levels decreased, store managers had to increase their workload. I won't even go into stocking and planograms on minimal staffing levels. The company preached customer service at the end, but did not provide the resources to make it happen. The quality of field management also went downhill. This applied to store, district, and regional levels. Long term management was being forced out, and were often replaced by people of lower ability. My district manager only cared about whether the windows were painted, and not about in-stocks and merchandising. This clueless individual liked to come into my store at 4:45 p.m. just to ensure that we would have to stay all evening to tour the store. I would not have minded so much if I could have actually learned something from this person. In my career, I've worked for people I liked and people I didn't. My last district manager was the first whom I had zero respect. Long term district managers were fired and replaced by these lower quality people. It was very obvious that age discrimination was taking place.