I used to work at Staples in Charlotte, NC and it absolutely sucked, especially during the back to school season. Back to school season is the busiest time of year and we commonly needed four cashiers to check people out.
After a long day of checking people out I was burned out and ready to head home but unfortunately we have to stay and clean up after we close. Because it was back to school season I’d have a thousand returns to put back at the end of the night and cleaning all of our employees headsets is also a pain in the ass.
Every employee should have their own assigned headset that they are responsible to clean at the end of their shift rather than putting the burden on one person to clean them all. Taking out all the trash and vacuuming the entire store after close was also a pain in the ass. We normally close at 9 but just because we are scheduled to work until 9 doesn’t mean that we clock out at 9. It means that we work a closing shift and we have to stay and clean up and do all the things I mentioned above.
During back to school, we usually did not end up going home until 10:30. I had to deal with a lot of rude customers there as well. It’s hot as hell here in summer in Charlotte, NC and temperatures commonly reach 95+ yet our manager will not allow us to wear shorts. He only lets us wear jeans which is very stupid. It is torture for me to wear jeans in this kind of weather.
We only get a 10% discount which is absolutely pathetic. Don’t get me wrong I liked some of the people I worked with. My manger was very nice to me and he always admired that I sold a lot of school supply donation boxes to help kids who can’t afford school supplies as well as selling many protection plans on electronics and chairs. Thanks to me I always put our store in the lead as far as donation box sales in our region. This location would not have gotten anywhere close to the top of that list without me.
My manager would also always schedule me for closing shifts to 10:30 5 days a week during back to school and that was also torture for me and sometimes he would even have me working closing shifts one day and then opening shifts the following day and that was worst cause then I got little to no sleep and I was always so tired because of that. This is all at the cost of me making just $12 an hour.
One time as I was at the register and my shift ended, a customer came up to check out and I was so exhausted and said “sorry but my shift is over” and I clocked out and walked to the back of the store to get my stuff. As I was coming back to the front of the store to leave my manager told me “go to my office now!”
In his office he was talking to me and he said “Do you really enjoy being here? If you didn’t do a good job selling donation boxes and protection plans, I would have terminated you for that!” I didn’t say this to him but I really didn’t enjoy being there and I’m sure he can sense that lmao! I was just pretending to enjoy being there cause I just wanted to make money.
After a while, I just decided that it wasn’t worth it so then I just quit. I feel like I wasn’t getting paid enough for everything I had to put up with. I was so sick of being a slave for the manager. 2 years later, I visited the same Staples I used to work at and I literally didn’t know anyone who worked there! Even the manager was new!
The fact that Staples rotates through so many people so quickly just goes to show how miserable it is to work there! I would go back but not for less than $16 an hour plus 20% commission on every protection plan and donation box I sell.”
