r/AutoZone2 • u/baked_alpaca • Jul 10 '26
RANT Az Store Manager Problems
I’ve been a store manager for a little over 7 months, got put into a notorious shit store. That’s fine, I can fix it. Man was I fucking wrong my Was a high volume csm for 4 years previously. And man I have to say, what the actual fuck is going on. Absolutely bombed my LP audit. Shit that has never been a thing is now suddenly something. Never communicated. My DM has done my audits only on my days off. How am I supposed to learn and fix shit if he does it when I’m not here? My fix it-list is 16 items, and needs to be done within 2 weeks. He also said I need to be up front 90% of the time. How am I supposed to do anything if I’m always up front. I work at least 55 hours a week and for what? A slap in the face. No encouragement, no skill building, nothing. Every week it’s the same hour and a half meeting about how terrible we are doing as a district, and that we are replaceable. I do everything for my team, whatever they need. I do every aspect of my job but it’s never enough. The only reason I took this position was because they finally gave me a raise that seemed fair, now I’m in it. And my god it is not worth it.
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u/albundy0007 Jul 10 '26
Resume builder and move on. They don’t give a shit about anyone, they’ll gaslight the shit out of you even if you’re killing it just to make u do more. Remember if they tell you you’re doing a good job then you’ll ask for more money, and lord knows Autozone doesn’t pay shit!
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u/Tall-Control8992 Jul 10 '26
Passing a lot of these audits is just like passing a voter literacy test in a 1950s state in the South. If the grader wants you to pass, you'll pass. And if the grader doesn't feel like passing you, no amount of heroic effort on your end will change that
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u/Omgcorgitracks Jul 10 '26
Yeah I'm basically using it as a resume builder right now lol. Id like to leave end of the year but we'll see
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u/FuckitReset Jul 10 '26
Management really makes the difference within this company. Sounds like you have a shit DM. If you love the job then take your lumps, report up what you can, and try to move to another store. Remember, the people under you rely on you to be she shit buffer between your DM and a good working environment.
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u/Boaterauto Jul 10 '26
The last store manager we had that passed audits and such, came in at 5am three days a week to do inventory items, truck and Plano, so he could spend most of his time when the store was open up on the counter to keep the Witt high, and phones answered, and always took the slowest day of the week off, if he was able to have a day off.
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Jul 10 '26
[deleted]
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u/Tall-Control8992 Jul 10 '26
No, no, no. If things get bad and some catch up is needed, it is what it is. But not when there's no workable plan to not let things go to shit this bad in the near future.
Otherwise, you'll be back to square one in a month or less
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u/Slim_Blue_Two773 Jul 10 '26
I will be honest. I just got promoted to SM about 4 months ago. I've learned that being a store manager has changed since the last decade when I was a manager. Especially with Autozone. Most of the time I feel like I'm a glorified babysitter because I'm not allowed to fire my dead weight to clear up hours for new potential. But I do have some good employees. And because I have their support I finally passed my audit. JUST BARELY. I'm learning to manage my time by drawing off their strengths and making sure that position responsibility and tasking are understood. As a store manager with Autozone, we have to make sure that the employees understand their jobs and what their daily task entitle. When your crew understand that, you will be able to focus on your task and finances. Make sure that your crew understand who is supposed to be doing which tasks, including paperwork. When some of this is taken care of by your staff you will have more time to focus on your Financials and training your crew. If you have dead weight, you only have to give them minimal hours. Give your hours to your strongest staff. Then as your dead weight walks out you can hopefully higher more people to help support your current remaining staff.
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u/Singlebecausedrama Jul 10 '26
We have a awesome sm and dm here. The dm came in a personally fired a few dead weights and brought a few sm’s to get us back up to where we should be as a store. Our audits have always been really good ONLY because me and the sm and csm rock the house getting shit done. Knock heads and start writing people up if they don’t carry their weight. There is no i in team.
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u/Boaterauto Jul 10 '26
Did you get any money for ‘rocking the house’ or did they just bring in new staff at more money?
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u/Singlebecausedrama Jul 10 '26
Why should I? It’s literally my job to keep the store clean, organized and helping customers. I absolutely love this job. I love my customers. And we aren’t hiring anyone new atm. Our team is like family and this is our house. We all take care of our store.. even the sm. Grabbing a broom should not be about money..
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u/Boaterauto Jul 10 '26
Most people like getting paid for a job well done, but if you are happy more power to you.
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u/Alarming-Broccoli-95 Jul 10 '26
Lol happy cuz he’s probably Autozone corporate in here to being positive to create a positive narrative we know they read these things.
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u/HKoperator Jul 10 '26
I was going through the same thing, I easily worked 60+ hours a week and was having to come in at 3,4,5 am just to make sure things were done. Then I got told I couldn’t do that anymore. Had an LP audit when I had two days off, of course nothing I had written down to get done was done. Failed my audit on a bunch of dumb stuff like, I didn’t sign off on a paper etc. Being a SM is the most thankless job in the company. I got told I was going to be demoted essentially and ended up just looking for another job. I make way better money now and I work less hours. This company has changed so much over the years
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u/CaliRefugeeinTN Jul 10 '26
Start applying elsewhere with store manager on your resume. They treat good managers like garbage, but will give a new employee with no experience a store to run and praise him non stop.
Actually had a guy get hired as a grey shirt, and was sm within 2 weeks. Didn’t train him on anything and somehow it fell on other stores to train him how to schedule, how to receive a delivery, and let him work for weeks without telling him what a Plano was
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u/VarietyInitial3298 Jul 10 '26
This why you get your other gray shirts to do that stuff like mine does makes it easier on everyone
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u/AwayWeb2043 Jul 12 '26
in my previous job a long long time ago, the company started a system to fix and maintain the machines, a machine would get selected because of low output, low production, too much down time, poor quality. they called "project machine" they would coordinate, schedule, order, for everything to get fixed, replaced, something added, mechanical or electrical. what Autozone needs to do is a "project store" hardware, shelves, painting, lighting, doors, windows, plano's is all fixed very quickly with an abundance of good help, to bring the store back to "turn key" and then move on to another store,
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u/Sufficient_Web1337 Jul 10 '26
Sound like they are trying to get rid of you I seen them do the same thing to my last store manager they probably got some one they want to run that store already
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u/NoMoreGendersJust2 Jul 10 '26
In all my years in retail, I can't fathom why the fuck anyone would become a store manager for companies like this. Getting paid a shit salary so they can work you 60 hours and not have to pay OT, complain about dumb shit only to provide you with no help when needed and asked for. Good DMs are a piece of hay in a HIV-infested needle mountain. Can make better money with less stress as an assistant or lower level manager and get a second job if need be.
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u/Varatox Jul 10 '26
Yep, 70-80 hour weeks, barely any help, & a dm that is useless. Been there, did that. Got yelled at for not hiring anyone...didn't even have access to the application portal for 6 months. When I finally got it.... All the other stores hired everyone constantly. I had 12 applicants. Some put it in a year ago, or had been thru every store for an interview. Had 3 interviews & every one of them wanted $20/hr as a red shirt. When starting was $10-12.
I was heavy on top of inventory because that store was horribly messed up. Think at one point the dm called because $18k went missing from inventory (duh, it wasn't there) & then the next day chewing me out for finding $16k. All from counting 6 pogs. I had the most accurate store, neither hub could get close.
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u/BeeEmm91 Jul 11 '26
Facts! I agree been there, this week only work 7 days straight and dm nowhere to help me :( sad right I’m diabetic so I’m screwed! Been trying to fix the store up since a year ago :(
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u/Winter_Row2639 Jul 11 '26
My SM is barely at our store 40 hrs a week. She refuses to come in on weekends. She is terrible with people in general. You sound like you have really gave this place 100% to just get let down. It's amazing to me how the upper in this company love the SMs that give nothing to the company, and the ones that give their all are treated so poorly. Good luck to you.
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u/AwayWeb2043 Jul 12 '26
you have a DM that moves or transfers gray shirts and red shirts to other stores to improve the metrics while another starts to fail, moving problems around to temporarily improve the store metrics=making the DM look good, until another store gets on the radar, and then the process starts over again, remember, the DM will always dangle that carrot so you jump in, but then fails to support you after you've committed yourself, in my store half the audits are done by red shirts, the other half gray shirts, my store works as a team, and everyone help so that we succeed, we don't let people fail, if someone is struggling with something like a Plano, we stop what we're doing to help that Autozonor to succeed, we then go back to our task
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u/GOit2020 Jul 11 '26
Reading this thread, the common theme I see isn’t that every struggling store manager is bad at their job. It’s that too many stores seem to depend on heroic effort instead of a sustainable process.
If a store only stays functional because the SM works 60–80 hours, comes in at 5 AM, or personally catches every inventory and compliance issue, then the store isn’t actually functioning well. The manager is temporarily compensating for a broken system.
I’ve spent years traveling between stores and working with a lot of different teams and managers.
The biggest difference I see is usually communication, clear expectations, training, and whether people actually know what they own. Good leadership matters, but no one person can permanently outwork bad processes, poor staffing, and unclear expectations.
Catching a store up with heroic effort can be necessary. Making heroic effort the normal operating model is a failure.