Thank you for calling Kohl's where you can expect great things! This is Trevor how may I help you?

I work in retail. Have since I was 16 and able to.

My current job has been my most grueling job to date, and not because of the work I do. For a job, it's not extremely physically demanding, but it is demanding in every other meaning of the word.

After working at Gamestop for almost a full year I wanted a way out, and here it was Kohl's. The group interview was a day before my 18th birthday and it went great...even though I went to it wearing a white t-shirt and plaid shorts. I signed a bunch of papers and a couple weeks later I put in my 2 weeks into Gamestop. I had no idea what I had just got myself into. Gamestop, after a couple months, would eventually need a Assistant Manager and the New Store Manager (whom I was escaping from). They would have been forced to put me up as it, making me the youngest Assistant Manager ever in our corporate history. The perks of the job are phenomenal if you take the initiatives...but this I would never get to see for myself.

Kohl's ended up being my punishment for making a poor job move decision. I got my call to come work as a freight member which was easy hours. 6AM to 11AM or later with a minimum of 15 hours a week. I thought, "The rest of my day would be clear!" and she had told me I had an orientation to attend a couple weeks later.
Less than 3 days later I am called to start work without ever having my orientation. Low and behold I walked into chaos and only one person I recognized from my group interview(Mary) was there. Unlike other people, I was not given a locker, I was just supposed to be cheap labor before the store opened and not be a permanent person. I wasn't ever told this, but this conclusion could not be refuted when I put it all back together now. I was thrown to the dogs of the backroom. Older people fighting over where to put stuff, the head supervisor/managers saying one thing and then doing another. They tell me to start throwing the truck which I had no problem of doing until I turned wrong one time, and there went my back. I had pulled my entire back. I limped off the truck and asked what I could do. Doing menial work while hoping my back gets better quick, I meet a guy who is around the same age as me, and didn't have an orientation either. Hearing this, the 2nd in command manager Doug told us to meet him in the back training room in the office to get a run through. As I sat down in the chair I could not get comfortable. My back was throbbing and I sat there helpless. Once it got to the "report injuries to your employer" part of the video my ears opened like floodgates and I instantly asked for an accident report. After filling it out, Doug said to me, "Don't come back."

What he didn't know is I had to. The next morning, just as early as the last I went into work and showed prevalence or stupidity and kept my job for another day. My back was still in horrible condition and I gimped along, but I still had a job. Days went by and I never received proper training, or finishing my orientation. Eventually my back recovered and I went to doing another job called "Replenishing". It had been 2 to 3 weeks since I started and I got the hang of everything...but Doug walks up to me one day with a lady I had never met and says, "This is your boss." I extend my hand, introduce myself and begin to talk to her. She had just started the day before that. She was puzzled as to why she was my boss too. I liked her immediately. She laughed at my jokes and thought the way I said, "Steeks" instead of sticks was hilarious. What I didn't know, is about 2 weeks later she quit.

My body now in better shape, they moved me back to doing Freight. A lot of people had left because the overwhelming ego's were too much. There were a few I still liked within them. There was a librarian lady who was only doing the job until she could find a way to move up in her full-time job...nicest person in the back room. But obviously, the bad outweighed the good most of the time. There was a position Doug had put into everyone's head...and 2 people were especially gunning for it. That equated fast into control freaks. His name was Anton, her name was Shelly. They're tempers flared largely because of this position neither one of them would ever get. Shelly on good days would ask me to do things, or would help me out...but most days she commanded and made you feel like dust...which in all honesty, everyone back there were treated as such. She had back up though which fed the fire. Anton wasn't much of a different story. He was angry emotional as all get-out. I will still remember the day me and his best friend at the place were working side by side on the freight belt. His friend was taking his sweet time while I tried diligently to get rid of a mixed box of items. He yelled down the belt, "It shouldn't take you 3 fucking minutes to get rid of one box!" Pissed off I just worked on as the people who heard it just looked at me. The next morning he apologized, THEN, took it back. "I shouldn't have said that. *other random talk* Actually. No. I'm glad I did say that. I take back my apology."
Put them both together, thinking they should get things done in different ways and eventually they exploded at each other. Somehow I got caught in the crossfire and was down to no hours a week because I got blamed for things I still cannot explain to this day. Eventually, I asked Doug and Wendy(The store manager) to hear me out. I've never been in a room so cold with lack of caring for an employee. They gave me an excuse, after and excuse which I found out later...is all they do do right. It all came down to me saying something along the lines of, "I'm still a person when I come here. My feelings are supposed to leave at the door, but I refuse to be treated like shit and just another replaceable employee." A week later, I had hours...and Wendy called a meeting in the back room apologizing for looking at is in such a way that we were not people, just drones.

Ego's exploded over this "job". Eventually, Anton walked out in the middle of a shift, and Shelly lightened up a lot at the end of her days...and then quit because she wanted to be a stay at home mom when her husband got a better job. The greatest sigh of relief could not have been better, yet it was not over. Doug took over as supervisor as they searched for someone to actually be in place of them. There were maybe 7 original people left on the team of normally 14...but near the beginning about 32. Everything was about "urgency" and "faster"! Doug had his favorites, and here's where I introduce 03, 3rd in command...Tami the manager.

Tami was a smaller woman, with a very fast walk, Beatles like hair-cut and the biggest weirdest eyes that look like they had no eye-lids I ever did see. Her voice was so piercing it still haunts me. When I talk about people who are stickler for rules, I often think of her. I wore jeans, because I was told by Doug and Wendy I could...and she flipped. Anyways, this is a tangent.

Tami also had her own ideas about how our store and employee's were supposed to act or do things. I applied for the position of Freight Supervisor but never got a interview. I was just a joke. Before she left, she and Doug implemented a seemingly nice woman from our Register Supervisor's become our Freight Supervisor also named Tammy. Tami the manager left to a store in Perrysburg not to be heard from again.

Tammy at first was really cool. She joked, she had fun, she knew we couldn't always get our giant workload done to corporate satisfaction...because honestly, our corporation expects everyone to be a robot and fit ungodly time frames, but she was realistic. Apparently, after a while, she was pressured to make us work harder and crack the whip quite a bit. She quickly turned into a passive aggressive person too. Before any problems between me and her started, she noticed I had been busting my ass to get things done and do them correctly with precision. I often worked every opportunity and thought I was finally getting the pay off from quitting Gamestop. I was a fool. Pressure had gotten to her from the higher ranks and she was cracking, fast. She would scream and yell, "C'mon guys! Faster! We need to be done by this time!" and I would continue to buck myself up, swallow the knife and go at it my fastest. A few weeks, or months went by with this reign and it finally broke me one day when I realized she wasn't working her hardest, but other people were there's. Another notoriously lazy person who somehow got high in the ranks named Alicia was helping cut boxes on the truck one day. Well they struck up a conversation and the conversation was a lot better than doing work, because my supervisor sat her hand on a box and walked with it. 1 box gone from my end...I look up and she's laughing. 2nd box off the line and she hasn't moved an inch, still talking. 3, 4, 5 boxes later and I say loudly, "Hey! What're you doing?" And I get the response of, "Waiting for this box to get down the line." And I cock my head, look at her puzzlingly and say, "You tell us to go faster and we have a deadline to meet and yet you can't pick up a box and put it away?" Apparently that struck Alicia wrong too, because they talked while I wasn't around...even though I was in the right to say what I did, it was me against 2 Supervisors because lord knows no one else will defend another person there for their lives or persecution. I was quickly pulled to the side and reprimanded, but that did not stop the way that I felt...and apparently the way I was getting treated would soon see it's biggest hit yet.

Ignorantly I had let other co-workers add me on Myspace and had everything possible public...because that's just who I am. I would rather people see inside my head than wonder their life. Well, one of them took it too far. I came home from that day and posted a bulletin about how I really disliked my job. The people putting others as decoy's and not taking responsibility for who they were and how they worked. I didn't put last names, or names at all, just said "certain supervisors." It was venting, but I had no one to talk to. My hours were the exact opposite of all of my friends so everyone was asleep. The person from my work who was on my friends list at the time, Heather, who just so happened to be one of the people who has responsibilities but will pawn them off onto others so if it's not done right, she won't get the blame for it...*ahem* went back to our work later that day, approached my supervisors, told her I was spreading a lot of stuff around the internet about her and then went to Doug and Wendy and said I was violating confidentiality. She flat out lied and said I used names and said a bunch of things I didn't say. Next time I worked I looked at the schedule to see my name gone. A new guy had already been hired too, and I looked around. At first I thought maybe a fluke was going on...but then I realized after 1 week of having no hours, 1 week of being off the schedule and talking to Doug, something else was going on behind the scenes. He told me to come in certain days to work even though I wasn't on schedule, so in essence, he was helping save my job too, but I was underneath the radar completely. His words were, "Next time I talk to Wendy I'll see what's up." A friend of mine who still works with me named Zach knew what had went on and one day heard over his radio that Wendy was on Line 1 for Doug. He ran across the store to get me and said over the radio, "Make sure to talk to Wendy about Trevor," and he got the response back of, "Oh....yeah." Minutes passed and Doug came back with, "Have Trevor meet me in Men's Fold." Minutes later at the end of my shift I appeared and he said, "Well, you have your job back. But you're "The Problem". Wendy said to me, "If you want to keep the problem, then it's all on you." You'll be back on the schedule soon."

I had never fought for a job so hard in my life. A week later I had another meeting with Wendy and Doug. They tried their mean faces but the shit doesn't work with me, I should know, my mom used it all my life. The meeting didn't go over so hot, but I was still there. A couple weeks later after having maybe 4 hours a week I hear they're looking for members on another team, the exact opposite of my current schedule. The team was called Ad-Set and was a whole different group of people. Tensions had run high for long enough and I approached Doug about switching. After warning Cristy, my soon to be new supervisor, she took me in anyways. For a while, I was working from 9PM to 1AM, then going back in at 6AM till whenever. The new team was something way different. It was still female dominated, but I was the ONLY guy. People when I joined were already leaving left and right. The hours weren't right or they were getting other jobs which was great for them, but I can't even remember 4 of them that I met maybe 3 times. I still had yet to get properly trained on any job I worked in the store, but this one I caught onto quickly, so quickly that the team had never ran smoother. I had taken over an entire area with 1-2 extra area's to spare by the end of the night and completing them all...something no one else had ever done. I became an asset, quick. One of my worst qualities came out when I first started this kind of work...since I had caught on so quick and knew I was vital, I became mini Supervisor Two. Sometimes when people would ask Cristy questions I would answer before her. I know how annoying that could be, but general knowledge is sort of my thing and it's hard to stop it. I got so good at my job that things became jokes, and I was just saying things to say things because I was honestly bored. I had a snappy comeback for everything whether it be related anywhere along the lines of work. A couple weeks went by and I looked at my hours dwindling again...and soon I realized my supervisor wouldn't even ask me how my area's were going or would avoid contact with me at all. One night she asked me to follow her into the training room and began scolding me for being undermining of her power as supervisor. She then said when I would joke about not wanting to do extra area's such as Accessories/Handbags and Jewelry I should be fired for insubordination. Then it came right down to it in one of the line's she said. She often joked about random things and sometimes it was a sexual based, but not meant toward anyone comeback I would have...well apparently she had been having problems at home with her husband and that's what it boiled down to. The line was, "I don't appreciate your sexual come on's to me or comebacks. I don't know if you think they're funny, but to me, they're not funny. (says the person who always laughed at them anyways) Me and my Husband almost split up a little while ago and I take my relationship seriously." As if I actually wanted her...it still makes no sense. She contradicted herself a couple days later and told the new 2nd in command (Oh, I left this part out...Doug left and got his own store in Canton) "He would never want a fat old lady like me. I knew he was kidding." and then told me!
Eventually, she found a full-time job and left and cured that problem. With her leaving, she left the position for part-timer supervisor open...which could've left a nasty taste in a couple people's mouth's from our team, and even made one person quit because she didn't get it. Personally, it was looked at as the faster members (Me, Leeann or Rachel) to take the job, but they took someone who started maybe 2 months after me when I switched to Ad-Set named Matt because he had management experience elsewhere. This story continues, but I've even bored myself to death...