A very toxic workplace environment due to inept and frankly awful management. Management here is absolutely rigid in its concerns about being in perfect lockstep with the precepts of Head Office, including music choice. I hope you like club music, because you'll be listening to it all day, every day, at maximum volume, even to the detriment of being unable to hear all but the most leather-lunged customers. This nearly fascist adherence to corporate policy is useful to set the tone for the primary criticism of my time working there: the manager.
He is scum, and cares for the customer far more than (and often at the expense of) his own employees. I myself was fired without notice after taking brief time off for a death in the family, on the first shift back. He knew about it, and in my estimation fired me at that time with malice aforethought. Thus, like a thief in the night, he scheduled a meeting the morning of my return and summoned a representative from "People and Culture" (HR) because he was too much of a coward to fire me himself. I imagine if he could have snapped his fingers like Thanos and made me disintegrate, that would have been greatly to his liking.
I did not know this firing was coming. Neither did the assistant manager, or anyone else in the building (which lends credence to my theory of a personal vendetta). But my firing (and many that happened during my time and after) was endemic of this manager's wretched modus operandi. The turnover once he assumed the helm was astronomic, and he was fond of micromanaging employees into dust, breaking their will. Over the course of a year, at least eight employees had left, including an optician and a very capable receptionist, either directly because of confrontations with this odious jerk or they simply slipped away into the night, because confronting him was too much of a hassle. This manager was incredibly insecure and petty, aiming to fire anyone older or more experienced than he, as it represented a threat to his vile authority.
I can think of no one who enjoyed working with him; indeed, I knew of employees who would work their availability around his schedule as best as possible, so as to minimize contact with this contemptible human. His slavish obsession with sales targets made a headache of every day. While in retail, sales should be the primary focus, we were browbeaten constantly, despite pulling overall numbers well higher than the previous years' average. If one person fell short of the target, they would be the subject of passive-aggressive shots and bullied. "Profit above all else": this corporate man-shadow may as well have this had tattooed on his forehead for his craven and single-minded devotion to capitalism and his own pathetic semblance of power within its unfeeling cogs.
In summary, this man is a blight upon the company, and quite frankly the world, causing its employees to flee like rats deserting a sinking ship. To Head Office, I implore you, look at the turnover rate since this person became manager as well as this review and, for the heath of your company and sanity of your workers, fire this man immediately and send him back to whatever sulfur pit he crawled out of. To my workers and friends who remain, fight on. He has claimed your body for roughly minimum wage but he shall not have your soul. Do not give him this ultimate satisfaction, for it is souls that are his sustenance. Let him starve. Have courage, and godspeed!
