#retail hell

death to boomers

death to boomers

death to boomers

death to boomers

death to boomers

death to boomers

death to boomers

death to boomers

I've decided to voice my wage concerns to Storename Sporting Goods now, so if I leave they're not blindsided - and I can say, well I gave you a chance to make me a competitive offer. I'd take a slightly worse offer than outside to stay, cause I do get very consistent hours where I'm at, and I can't be sure I will elsewhere. But a significant difference would tip the scales.

Wage context: I used to make 70¢ above minimum wage in my state CA, but in 2025-2026 min wage went up but my pay didn't so I now make exactly minimum wage. After 4 years of working here that's a little insulting 🙃 even worse, Elliott makes the same as me (rock bottom) after 6 years 🙃🙃 but since I'm considering leaving while he isn't, I'm doing my negotiating first and then he'll get all the data from my efforts.

I talked to Scott yesterday who was in a way better mood than usual because he had coffee lmao. He was understanding of my request, still his slightly cranky self but not actively rude.

Today I had the opportunity to talk to Scott's boss's boss which is genuinely good. It was mostly about an unrelated hr concern with another manager, but he did say that my eval request was approved and Scott will get back to me about that. Though I won't fool myself into thinking the boss boss guy has my best interests at heart, he was at least more pleasant than Scott.

Also getting Elliott AND our salesguy homie Tyler fired up about negotiating for raises themselves. Tyler has been there about 4.5 years, after Elliott and I told him about this stuff today he was like "I kinda want in on that" he's rarely that serious but it's good to see him not shrug it off because he does deserve to be paid well too.

I'm most likely to seek other jobs amongst the three of us, which is why I'm negotiating my situation first. After I see what my current store, and the other places I'm applying, offer me in the end, I will let the guys know every detail so they can be well equipped to have the same conversation :3

Unfortunately, there is no info what the characters look like in full body, so below are only headcanons.

And my OC Arachna.

I'm trying to quit Storename Sporting Goods!

I'm not completely sure I will but the idea is very appealing. I've applied to a nearby jewelry store and I'm really optimistic about my chances of success. Please wish me luck 🙏

In the end, it wasn't the customers or a falling out with my beloved coworkers...it was increasing difficulty working under mgr Scott (store boss) partly because he's much more demanding of the women he hires than the men. And the pay, oh yeah. Definitely the pay too.

I mentioned a bit ago that my email signups were struggling unusually, I was trying to ask Scott for advice on pushing emails with the recent promos that exclude email offers and his immediate response was "well I can show you the stats that more than half the staff has 30% conversion rate [context: better than me]" I said Scott. That is not what I asked. He walked away all huffy, came back 5 minutes later to give the most nothingburger advice, mansplain, and call it "interesting" that I was still struggling even though I'm doing the same stuff that gets me better rates normally. He also denied me when I asked to take this convo to the office because I was getting uncomfortable trying to defend myself in front of my coworkers at the register area.

When Jane and I were telling Elliott about this later, he was all "then how come nobody has asked me to get better rates?" [He's not an official cashier per se but he is authorized and trained to ring up customers on the registers] and Jane said "Scott doesn't want non cashiers ringing people up at all because they don't get emails like at all" and Elliott was like "first of all, I'm not doing it for fun, I'm doing it when we're BUSY or Beth is on break or overwhelmed. Second, again how is that info not being told directly to me but Beth gets pestered about her rates three shifts in a row?"

Elliott I love you. I really hope that my excursions to Storename Sporting Goods someday soon will be purely as your girlfriend and not as an employee.

But yeah it's been an unpleasant work environment to say the least :) Jane has been getting a lot of pointless flack too, like when she was like "Scott I'm proud that I got the large amount of sale ad signs put up in one shift 😊" he said "you mean the task you were supposed to do?" and then nitpicked how she did it. A couple days later he fished for praise from her because he put up all the signs for the July 4 promo and bless her soul she did not give it to him 🤭 poor Jane doesn't think she'd be hirable elsewhere tho, she's all "with my young kids I'm not sure a different store could accommodate my schedule 🥲" please Jane try and run away to the jewelry store across the street with me

Oh yeah, and this jewelry stores minimum starting hourly offer for the position I applied for is +20 cents compared to what I make after four YEARS at Storename Sporting Goods. It's a position I need 2 years of retail experience to be qualified for, so I couldn't have gotten it 4 years ago, but most of my "raises" at my current location have been adjustments to keep up with city min wage law changes. If you don't factor in the legally required segments of my raises, for every YEAR that I've worked there, I've seen ten cents added to my hourly wage. So, after 4 years my "performance based raises" total 40 cents.