My time with this company, a bit over a year and a half, was a complete nightmare. Kate Spade was my dream company and I couldn't believe my luck in landing a management position with them. I approached my job with laser-focus, dedication and passion. Unfortunately, my loyalty was not rewarded, but instead consistently and systematically dismissed and discouraged.
This was by far the most dysfunctional and unprofessional environment I have ever worked in. The constant stress, disapproval and lack of support from DMs and HR was truly astonishing. The best way I can summarize my time there is as an abusive relationship. My excitement for the brand blinded any common sense I should have had regarding exiting my position a long, long time ago.
In my roughly 18 months with the company I saw management turnover to the tune of 6 people, and eventually, myself. I saw associate turnover in even greater numbers. Conversations regarding quitting were a daily occurrence throughout the store as manager's pleas for support fell on deaf ears of corporate. By the time I left the longest standing associate had worked there for 3 years and had seen over a dozen managers come and go at our location. Obviously, this is proof of a systemic issue in terms of how in-store management is treated by higher-ups, but the company refuses to acknowledge and repair this.
My introduction to my time as a manager involved uncovering a case of years-long theft by a current employee and former employee working together. My store manager refused to believe this was going on, and so I had to take it upon myself to collect evidence off-the-clock and alert Loss Prevention of what was going on. My determination to do what was right and prevent this kind of misconduct in the stores went unappreciated and un-thanked. My discovery was treated in our store more as a nuisance and less like a sign of years of professional retail experience and loyalty to the company.
The store manager at our location consistently displayed a lack of brand awareness, professionalism, work ethic and moral compass. Between discount abuse, racist comments, nepotism, incompetent hiring, time theft and lack of any real productive work she was a mess and a leader who none of the employees had any confidence in. The final straw for me was her consistent use of racist language which led to me filing an HR complaint and directly contacting my DM. It was 7 months and a new District Manager before the SM was finally let go after my complaints. Lack of urgency seemed to be a recurring theme with corporate management...
When the management team finally got whittled down to myself and one other manager we were working 50+ hour weeks (she was salaried, so was not making any more money, and the time and a half for my extra hours was not making a real difference in my paycheck), doing the workload of 4/5 people without and increase in pay or support. Our DM was totally hands-off, prepping for maternity leave (totally checked out!) and not at all interested in coming up with a solution to the situation we were in. The whole time the loyalty and aggressive work ethic of myself and the other manager kept a $4mil+ store afloat without so much as a thank you. (Oh wait... we did get a $10 Starbucks gift card. That makes it better, right?) If the two of us had been smarter we should have walked away together and put them in the same impossible situation they put us in for two months.
The fill-in DM while ours was on maternity leave deserves a whole post on her own, so I will keep it short and as sweet as I can: She was the most aggressive, unaware, bulldog of a woman I have ever had the displeasure of working with. I hope that she finds her calling in a field that does not involve working with people. There was nothing in her approach that spoke to the Kate Spade brand and it's core values.
There are so many more horrible stories and experiences that I have from my short (but seemingly endless) time at Kate Spade that I could write a book. While myself and my fellow "long-term" manager tried day in and day out to not let that place crush our souls we were emotionally beaten, discouraged, unappreciated, scolded, unsupported, and manipulated. Corporate management expected us to make money at any cost. The company's metrics for allotting hours were delusional, the product allocation was amateurish, the pay gap was insulting (the store manager was making over $35 an hour (if she ever worked a full 40 hour week) when after a year of service and having over a quarter of a million dollars in sales I was "rewarded" with a generous .30 cent raise!) and the consistently brand-unaware promotion of outside people was a slap in the face.
I'm sure Kate Spade is a lot of fun if you work at the corporate level and get to leave at 12 on Fridays in the summer, sip champagne and throw birthday parties and baby showers for each other all the time, but if you are an actual employee at the store level - the people that are the support for this company's success, the people who bring in the money and are the (tired and discouraged) faces the public sees every day - then I would not wish this job on my worst enemy. It will affect your self-worth, self-confidence, self-awareness. This job will turn you into an empty shell of a person who feels like they will never be good enough, when really, you've probably been great at your job all along.
