Complaint Review: Dillard's - Cary North Carolina

Dave, forget about Peter. He is either dense or just so partial or closed minded that he just is not going to get it. I'll use small words for him.....if you cut the pay of your best employees it is not right or fair. By the way some good eployees also perish under this system. It is very true that the parttimers have the advantage with the hours they work. It is not a bad part time job.

Once again, I repeat ... HOW EXACTLY DID DILLARDS RIP YOU OFF??? (And if there was no rip off, why are you complaining on this forum?)

Peter, I was not "boo-hooing" or even whining about Dillards. If you actually read through my report you will see that I was actually defending the managers. Most of the ASMs are just glorified salespeople, with stricter demands on them than we had. I am not trying to start a cry session or anything like that about Dillards. Have you ever worked there? Retail just plain sucks. And by the way, I did fine at Dillards. My goals were always met, which you could find out by READING my report. I left because it was not a stable job for me. Also, yes I thought it would be easier than other things, but I knew it would still be a challenge. A challenge which I faced and overcame. Everyone who knows anything about Dillards knows that you only get graded on sales, which really is only 50% of the work that you are responsible for. When it comes review time, you are told "You have been selling X-Amount per hour" You don't hear "You sold under your sales goal. But, you did exceed your shirt folding goal this month, so don't worry, no pay cut." Go walk around the mall and see if the traffic in Dillards is the same as it was even 3 years ago. It may sound like an excuse, but if there arent enough people to sell to, you can't sell to them. It is not like a "lead-program" sales job. You also can not make people who are simply walking through Dillards to get to the mall stop and force them to buy a pair of Ralph Lauren slacks. Of course, the weak will always be weeded out, and the strong will survive, but the way things are right now for retail, particularly Dillards, even the strong will perish. Here's my point, which someone apparently missed from my first post.. Dillards sucks. And their system is nearly impossible to win. Don't believe me? Here's two suggestions.. Read the other posts about Dillards which for the most part are true and contain information that you will otherwise have to find out the hard way, and the second suggestion to anyone like Peter is this.. Go apply there and work full time for one month. Then come back and tell us what you think. Part time there is fine. You will be scheduled for the only busy hours of the day, nights and weekends. Full time sucks. You get the day times mostly when you get trucks full of merchandise, mark downs, and other projects, and most importantly FEW CUSTOMERS! Daytime people for the most part are making returns from the weekend! Dillards is a rip off. Don't even think about saying otherwise until you go there and experience it first hand, because I have read precious few, and never actually met, anyone who has any love for Dillards.

Peter, I could not agree with you more. I worked for the company 20 plus years. I was a very good employee. I just worked my last day. You are right about the ASMs. They have no control over the rules and have to enforce them. To Dave who responded to your report. If he was ever a Dillards employee it could not have been for long, because he obviously doesn't get it. The customer service is awful. If there is not a sale in it...forget it. I have been told by customers that they are surprised by the customer service they got from me because they have been to other depts. and the help there was not vey good. I would have to say that goes back to the policies and morale. The reviews do not account for customer service, stock work, mark downs, dept. upkeep, appearance, reliability, initiative, attendance, or anything else that should be part of a job performance. All that you are reviewed on is what you sell, I should rephrase that, it is what you ring up. You can help someone for quite a while and they might just walk it out of your dept. over to their friend to ring up because they know how we are reviewed. They give thier friend the sale. You cannot make them stay in your dept. Fair? No. I have had my pay cut even though I sold more per hour than anyone else in my whole dept. You really can't be expected to do better than better than everyone else. I obviously did more for each customer than anyone else and it still was not enough.When a company is cutting the pay of one of thier highest producers and hardest workers....well, there is something wrong. This company is losing their very good, loyal, long term employees. I worked very hard right through my last day. Other employees have asked me why I continued to work so hard through all of this...my answer is that I was still recieving a check and I have good work ethic. The sad truth is that if I hsd not been such a hard worker Iprobably would not have gotten these pay cuts. Maybe my mistake was caring enough to make sure everything else that needed to be done was done. Even with doing that I still had the highest sales in the area. All managment knew I did an excellent job, unfortunately, thier hands were tied. I was very sad leaving the company. It is VERY demoralizing to do your job and more and still get a paycut.

So what exactly is the "rip off"?? It was a cut-throat competitive working environment .... yeah, well sales is like that ... The managers were snotty and rude .... well boo h*o ... You found it difficult to reach your sales goals ... well reaching goals is a part of being able to keep a sales job, isn't it? You admit that you took the job thinking it would be "easier" than your past jobs; however you can probably see now that working at Dillards is no easy job. It requires quite a bit of hard work and skills. Also as you state, it is not for everyone. Dillards of course is going to weed out the non-performers and keep only those who allow the store to remain profitable. This is how retail works everywhere. I honestly do not see any rip off here, so if you could please point out how you were ripped off that would be most appreciative.