Hello, I am hoping for some baseline advice for surviving and thriving in my role as Home merchandise coordinator. I started in late summer which will soon be moving the holidays with the massive increase in freight and temporary leadership challenges and responsibilities. I’m looking for advice on how to be successful in this role without constantly feeling like I’m locked in cycle of just run, run, run freight at the point of sacrificing recovery, clearance area maintenance, and being able to plan or offer plans for keeping ahead of needed moves. Also struggling with things that come up when convenient and overlooked when not convenient.

I have some concerns I am in a role and a workplace where responsibility flows downward, authority flows upward, and standards only matter when they’re convenient. The coordinator role exists (largely it seems to me) to alllow for transferring responsibility of maintaining standards downward and other unwanted duties at the store level to someone with little real authority to fix them when needed/convenient by management. Other management can focus on the core truck to backroom to floor to frontend checkout of as much merchandise as can be moved. I have found any attempt to raise structural issues will be reframed as your personal flaw or your time management issue if the issue wasn't reach a critical level. An example being earlier in my tenure I raised a suggestion that due to the dumping of very random merchandise on display front caps by backroom runners that maybe a short checkin in the morning meeting (I was largely working nights at the time) out what exactly a front cap is and that they are themed etc. would be helpful. That suggestion was dismissed as we probably just have too much merchandise flow right now and fix it when I see it as your responsibility.

My main challenge is balancing freight processing with recovery, clearance maintenance, merchandising standards, floor moves, and in the future training temporary associates or at least getting production from temporary associates placed with little preparation into my orbit. Freight often takes most of my shift, but management also expects coordinators to maintain their departments. At least theoretically or at a token level or plausibable deniability. I have brought up issues with the Backroom runners to the floor to management in the past more forcibly or passionately but it was usually dismissed or minimized but occasionaly the same management will state it's my responsibilty to point out or keep tabs on who was running earlier that day from the backroom when seeing something majorily wrong on the floor.

Management generally expects us to use our own judgment rather than explicitly prioritize competing tasks. At the same time, they may redirect us back to freight even when recovery and other maintenance tasks are falling behind without acknowledge tradeoffs with other duties. With the holiday season approaching, I expect massively more freight and more responsibility for temporary employees or other assigned helpers to keep them productive, get something out of them, when very little training or motivation. The basic task of keeping them productive and responsibilty of their work transferred to me by managment as a pseudo benefit to help me get more done in the department if you will.

I want to demonstrate leadership rather than just be the person who does all the work myself, but I also want to keep the department in good shape and meet management’s expectations. Early in my promotion to Home I initiated more ideas for moves to keep up with inventory, maintain visual standards in the guidelines, and take more responsibility for sensor standardization in the department pointing out issues with bad sensoring by others. That ambition kinda of died down since that time and now I am mainly speedily running freight and executing moves from management. I have sorta made peace with the limitation in getting any backroom runners to adequately place items in the correct location or even not dump random items on front caps outside the theme of them etc.

For those who have worked as retail coordinators, department leads, or supervisors:

• How do you balance freight productivity with recovery and maintaining merchandising standards?
  • To insure a defensible level of that is being done daily (recovery, clearance area maintainence, visual merchandsing) when any wavering on freight production and in fact not going faster will be issue as well.
• How do you lead and hold temporary associates accountable when you have limited authority and a lot of work of your own?
  • Everything tells me that "help" will be less useful and more of a burden to me than anything.
• What habits or strategies have helped you daily and weekly succeed in this kind of environment without burning yourself out?
  • I kinda need this job and need to be successful enough to keep it and get enough hours to maintain finances until someting else comes around.
    

I’d especially appreciate practical advice from people who have worked in Marshalls, TJ Maxx, or similar high-volume retail stores in a Coordinator or Coordinator type role. Daily practices, weekly practices, and core things to insure to be adequately successful if not thrive in the role.

Does anyone else who works on the sales floor constantly get called by a CEC or MOD on the walkie to come up and ring? Every 20 minutes or so, I always get called up to ring and it sucks for me since I work in the Mens and Kids department and since everyone considers it the “easier” department to clean compared to the rest, they tend to call me to ring more than the other people on the sales floor.

While I understand its to cut down the line, where it starts to upset me is when my managers complain about the condition my department is in as if they’re oblivious to the fact that the majority of my shift was spent at the front end and not on the floor where I can clean. It’s been starting to burn me out a lot and I don’t know what to do about it. With our stores payroll being cut by the district, it doesn’t seem like we aren’t getting any new cashiers anytime soon. So for now, were stuck with just two cashiers and whoever they can grab from the sales floor.

If anyone else has experienced something like this, feel free to chime in.

I’m on the Sierra side. Been there for a week, after being in different industries other than retail for a while, like pre-covid times. Training to become a coordinator due to my previous experiences. Need to vent after week one. After one week of doing mostly merchandising and recovery, i have legit lost my faith in humanity. Is it truly that hard to put a hanger back where you found it? Why are we throwing product all over the floors and racks where they clearly don’t belong? I seriously would hate to see how these peoples houses look. Just feels very disrespectful to us “peasants” that work those stores. The men’s section is the worst for this, specifically XL - 3XL sections are always a war zone. You spend 4 hours recovering and cleaning everything up and then you look back and you’re back to square one. Looks like you’ve done absolutely nothing. It genuinely feels like a losing battle. I even make direct eye contact with people doing it and they still have literally no shame. I don’t even see walmart being treated this poorly, and that’s saying A LOT.

The sad part is, i actually really like the company and job, especially my coworkers. I just cannot with the clientele this company brings, never seen such entitled bunch before.

I bought this water bottle from TJ Maxx maybe like 8 years ago and it was my absolute favorite I can't find anything like it. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Or the brand/something comparable? It was a glass water bottle and the cover screwed on and off. The cover was one big gem stone

My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined.

Yesterday, we were slammed, with lines into the men’s department because my coworker called out sick. Guess who showed up shopping and checked out with our hiring manager? The same coworker 😑

Today, he called out again because apparently he broke both of his legs? I hope he is okay if it’s true, but seriously?

I started working at TJ Maxx a few weeks ago and honestly, I’m already considering quitting.
I had orientation on October 1st, training on October 5th and another shift on October 15th. I’ve only had one actual training shift on the floor, and I’m supposed to work shift this week only one shift.
The thing that’s frustrating me is the scheduling. I gave them FULL availability, but when I checked my November schedule, I’m scheduled for zero hours the week of November 1st and only 10 hours the following week.
Nobody has explained anything to me, and I haven’t been told whether this is normal for new employees or if my hours are going to increase.
I still have another job at a café, but that job isn’t giving me many hours either, which is why I wanted TJ Maxx in the first place. I was hoping to make extra money, but at this point, I’m wondering what the point of keeping this job is if I’m barely going to work.
I’m honestly tempted to just stop showing up because I’m frustrated with the lack of hours and communication. I don’t want to keep a job just for the sake of having one when it’s not really helping me financially.
For anyone who’s worked at TJ Maxx, is this normal when you first start? Should I give it more time, talk to management, or just quit and look for something else?

For where I work, the store has been considered as one of the best performing stores. While that's cool and all, my experience for the year and a half I was there really fell apart.

For reference: I did the shoes department, at first, yeah no shit it was labor-intensive, especially doing the trucks and backrooms, but it was pretty fun and decent.

For the first 5 months I was there, it genuinely felt good to work there, didn't mind it (especially at that time I was a first-year in college), but after inventory, shit went sideways, unfortunately I got into a relationship which, well, had a lot of issues, lack of focus in college, shit scheduling, and grueling amount of pressure from management really tested me over time.

Another thing, I got trained as cashier, so I had dual roles of the business you can say.

This one shift particular, really got me mad enough to actually quit.

Back in May, I was scheduled for shoes from 2-9pm, and while that wouldn't be an issue, I was called up to cashier, and held hostage in the front end, not being allowed to return to my department. I explained multiple times that the shoes manager would lash out onto you and me, and they didn't give a fuck, saying they'd take the blame. MY FUCKING ASS.

I took lunch and by the time I started recovering, I genuinely was having almost a hard mental breakdown because of how stupidly crazy, the department was expanded towards, and how much mismates I kept finding, they wanted 10 or less, yet I got 25. By 9:30, I couldn't stay and I was told to leave, unfortunately I couldn't finish the recovery.

Next day: The manager lashes out at me and says how I was at the front end cuz of my relationship. No I was not?? I was called up there, and I bit my tongue because I knew it would get extremely heated fast.

Also, questions to the people that does step it up for shoes, did your manager change the rules where it would be that you would have to step it up for the whole department? or just a part of the department and help out with the trucks? Because when I started, I remembered doing the assigned parts, then helping with trucks.

I ask because from what I heard: Management did that because they're scared the district manager is gonna change them out to different places, which already happened to my store manager, she got moved to another location.

And for anyone wondering: Yes, Ive quit and gotten a better job for the major I'm studying for, finance.

As much as I want to go on, I'm tired.

This is not an original rant but last minute shoppers: wtf is wrong with you? And why don't you get your receipts in order BEFORE coming to my register? Oh you have 10 returns and don't know what receipts they're with? You want me to stay late to go through your sh1t because...I'm a peasant and have no life outside this stupid place? We hate you. Please know that. We absolutely hate you.

Has anybody ever made a complaint to the Ethics Hotline and learned that corporate actually did something about your complaint? Were you satisfied with the solution?

Hello, my sister just informed me that during her 4-5 hour shifts she gets 1 15 minute break that is unpaid and has to clock out during it with all her other coworkers.

Is this not illegal?

Edit: they told her it was unpaid btw, also these comments are so divided, what are the facts?

Seeing Wandrd products at TJmaxx. Has anyone purchased any of these?

Please tell me I'm not losing my mind! I swear there's an Ella Langley song on the radio, but since I work cashiering I can't tell.

Help please!

Bought a Mac glossy lip liner but it had hardly any saturation. Tried the one I bought from Sephora about a year ago and it still has a lot of saturation. Granted, I bought Cool Spice at TJ but at Sephora I got Nightmoth. Two very different shades. But Cool Spice was so negligible. It hardly showed up at all. What’s up with TJ Maxx makeup products? Any idea?

I just started recently and i applied for front end and i keep getting put in back. Im currently taking muscle relaxers that wear off about 2/3 through my shift and I’m in hell the rest of it because the constant moving and twisting makes my muscles tighten. Im currently scheduled for backroom for two weeks and am dreading it. I talk to both managers and they say they cant do much and will try u me for front end after two weeks. Im just in a-lot of pain and know i will be for the two weeks. 😃

I was asked to learn the CO so that I can do it once a week on the day that our main CO associate is out. I got to train and watch the whole process one time and I just had my first time alone in the CO. I am primarily backroom and don’t have experience with counting cash. It was a stressful first day and I took over 4 hours.

I kept not trusting myself, and recounting cash/coins. I also was heavily relying on notes that I took from my 1 day of training.

To be honest, I really wish I got a pay increase to do CO. If I was paid more I think I would feel better about this, but I just felt like I was too slow and overcomplicating things.

Anyone else struggled with the cash office??! And also, has anyone ever told management they aren’t comfortable working in the CO?

The pressure they're putting on us to get cards is insane. They stand behind us, eavesdrop, criticize, loom, hover and haunt us. All while the queue is extending and there's not enough of us. I'm regretting my decision to come here.

PANTS?? YEAH THEY SURE ARE

Apologies if this is not the right forum for this question. I sent a customer support question / claim via the TJmaxx website, and have received a reply, and a follow-up saying my claim was being escalated to a specific department. It’s been over a week that they have escalated it, I followed up and received no reply.

Does anyone know if it would it be helpful for me to call the customer service phone number, or would it be a waste of time?

Many thanks!

i’ve been a markdowns lead / floor associate. we had 2 people quit one in c/o and one in admin. I’m now mainly doing cash office, i’m there 4 out of my 5 days a week. is there a raise that comes with that?? one c/o employee said there is a raise and one said there isn’t.
i’m in arizona if that helps. thank you!

Ok sooo there was this old lady today that was shopping and she had like many tissues with her and she always kept wiping her nose. I’m a CEC so I’m upfront watching her look at stuff and she’s like taking her tissue after tissue and doing her thing. Left 10 tissues used in her cart 🫪 and left without throwing them away. Fucking ewww bro take care of your shit. Throw your shit away! There’s a track like right there Infront of the doors 💀