Complaint Review: Target Corporation - Chicago Illinois

I have been working for Target in Chicago for about two years now. I have been working in retail and customer service for nine years and I have never experienced anything like Target before.

First, let me explain to you, I am apart of management, I was brought in as management. I was trained as management and told things that they only tell management.

I have been told by an ETL, (executive team leader), that the only way to get the team to do what I asked them to do is by making them fear me. I also witnessed this same person tell a team member to pick chiken bones up off the breakroom floor with her bare hands and when she asked for gloves to do it, the ETL asked her why did she think she needed them, if she wanted them that she would have to buy them because she wasn't about to waste company money on gloves and proceeded to ask her if she thought she was too good to do what she was told.

Then she turned to me, who had witnessed this along with ten others, and put her finger in my face and said, I better get control of MY people.

I should mention at this point that I am african american and so was the team member and the ETL is not.

Three days later the girl was fired for not picking up the chicken bones.

I reported her to the 1 800 number and was refered to my regional HR-ETL who was supposed to attend to the matter. Instead, she told the ETL, which she was not supposed to do, and I have been subject to her antics ever since.

Let me also mention, that I am an excellent TL. My first, ETL loved me but the STL, store manager transfered me to another department.

My current ETL has told me off Target time that he doesn't like writing me up because he knows I don't deserve it. He has told me that, the STL and two other ETLs don't like me because I "side with the help too often" to put it in their exact words.

I do not side with the help, I am a respectful christian person that beleives that how you treat others is a direct reflection of your inner self.

There have been team lead staff meetings were the ETLs would tell us to stick together no matter what. That even if one of us is wrong, still to support the other.

I do not beleive in this.

I'd rather do the right thing than support the wrong thing, and unfortunatly I said this in the meeting and the ETL staff basically told me that I was being too disagreeable.

Might I add, that comment was the only thing I said for the entire two hours. And I usually don't speak during these meetings at all and what prompted me to say anything was that a day before that an ETL told me that me being quite works against me and that I should voice my opinion more often.

Now.You may be asking why my direct ETL would tell me these things and how I know I can trust him. This is very twisted but my ETL has tried to make advances towards me more than once, he has become very fond of me as person and has told me I am too good for this store.

Black ETLs have left the store and other miority tls have left the store do to the things they have heard and have seen done by the STL and other ETLs.

I trust him because he is planning to leave very soon because the STL has done things to him as well.(He is black too). He also told me that since last year he has kept a running document on everything that goes on in the store. He has advised me to do the same and I am.

I am to the point that I keep a tape recorder with me.

Recently, my ETL wrote me up because he said I am accountable for what others do on my days off. I posed the question, that if a team member steals something you are trying to tell me I will be accountable for it? He didn't say anything. Later on that day when leaving, he apologized to me and told me that the STL told him that if he didn't hold me accountable, he, the STL would hold him, the ETL accountable. So the STL made it an issue of either me or him.

When our store first opened we were fully staffed. However, many TLs in the department around me quit. I became responsible for their departments and my own. I was often yelled at by the chicken bone ETL, that I was doing a poor job?!

Yet, now that I am in a different department, they have seven people in the area in which I once worked by myself, three of them being managers.

Once I transfered, I told them the team was very understaffed. I tolf them 10 people for four shifts, seven days a week and three minors(meaning they leave early), was not enough. They told me to do something about it. As a team lead I can hire new people but then once I did so, they told me I was banned from doing so.

After months of enduring this, I had to finally threated HR department with going to the department of labor on them for ignoring the staffing needs and by doing so creating an environment where many team members had to work over 14 days in a row with out a day off. Yes, they had to because the company told them if they didn't come they would be fired.

The STL of the store is at the point were he stands in a particular area and stares at me. I mean stares!

It is getting to the point were it creeps me out.

The Target I work for is also guilty of hiring a guy without running a background check on him. It turns out that he was a convicted rapist and the woman he had actually raped worked as a vendor in our store!!! When she saw him, she went screaming from the store, called the police and the news.

Turns out she had an order of protection against him ever since he was released and if they simply would have crossed referenced these facts it would have been caught that she and other has restraining orders aginst him.

After this happened, a few women who have been raped before came forward and asked what the company was really doing to ensure their safety. The company never responded and I know one of the women was so shaken up that she quit.

Three other women came forward and said that he had made advances towards them, by showing interest in them.

The HR director told them he was gone now so basically what was the point of them coming forward.

Lords knows I could go on and on. To any one reading this understand a couple of things.

One, this is not a rant or rave, these are valid things that has effected many people, not just myself. I am in the process of finding a new job. However, I am conflicted because the team I will leave behind ask me every day not to go, that they would not be able to take it there if I left. That they will quit if I leave, and five team members quit because I left my original departmentbecause I was unable to work with them any more. They tell me that I am the only one that respects them, I am the only one who talks to them like intelligent human beings and not bark orders at them like dogs. I do not belittle them, I help and support them and they work hard for me because I work with them, train them, increase mnorale and most of all I respect them. Which is all the really have a problem with, as well as myself.

Two, I understand not every Target is like mine. I know there are good STLs out there and ETLs. To anyone who is thinking, Target is nothing like that, doesn't work at mine. Understand that these are individuals that work only at this store. So if you work in a different state at Target and you say I am full of it, Target is nothing like that. You are right Target Corporation is not and doesn't promote this type of environment or attitude but theysure don't help sto it if you report it. If you think for a second that racisim doesn't exist, then you are living with their eyes and ears closed.

I would love to transfer but my ETL already told me he wouldn't be able to do that because the STL has already told him he wouldn't approve it.

To customers who come in Targets and complain about how horrible the employeesare, maybe, think about what we may have to go through. No it is not an excuse for treating you or any one else badly but if you don't always get the smile and the ..."can I help you find something...." be a little understanding. In fact, my best days at Target have been from nice guest who have been understanding and nice to us in return.

They say we make all the difference but you can make a difference in our lives too. So often guest come in with the attitude that we have to do any and everything they want us to do because we are getting paid to do it regardless of some of the horrible attitudes the guest may have. Understand that most team members get paid $7hr. People's dignity is worth more than $7hr. The workers are more than willing to help anyone but understand that we are people just like you before we worked there and eventhough we are getting paid we are still people who deserve your respect as well.

Gem

Chicago, Illinois
U.S.A.

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