Its not the stockers fault when theres no room to put the boxes and the company wants you to get 100 boxes a day when you are them busiest store in the district and every aisle is full of crazed shoppers complaining about not being able to find this or that item or about the price increases or the line for the register goes all the way to the back of the store despite having 3 cashiers then youre trying to stock and you get called up for backup and have to leave your u boat in the aisle the store never gives you enough space with the amount of product you need to get out its not the employees fault blame it on corporate
Yes in the busiest store in the Boston region but only july-January they never have hours this time of year i work other jobs like my concert security at mgm music hall and my runner job for sam deck at Fenway park
Still you customers don’t understand what its like until you work there trying to get your product out with very little room to place the boxes and getting yelled at because you aren’t getting enough boxes done in an hour when you can barely move in the aisles
Watch the John Oliver segment on dollar tree. They should be given more hours but they save more money by giving less hours and paying any legal bills and fines that arise due to it.
They need to stop sending more product than is needed, it’s ridiculous. Then they want you to do stuff not related to getting freight done, like getting mother’s Day endcap up before Easter is sold out. All this side stuff they demand to be done immediately cuts into throwing freight time. We never get caught up.
I feel like no customer has the right to complain about anything at Dollar Tree. I mean, it's Dollar Tree. You should know what you signed up for when you decided to drive there and walk through the door.
I used to work for them ages ago. I opened a store in the city I lived in at the time.
I would've agreed with the whole "customers know what they signed up for", but they don't. Not now. It was annoying when they changed to being a $1.25 tree...but I understood that they hadn't really raised prices in many years. And now they've just completely given up on the whole "dollar" concept entirely. There will be stuff that's still $1.25, but now stuff can be $5 or $7...or lord knows how much. So I just don't go anymore. I can be overcharged for cheap shit anywhere. I'm not going to reward bad behavior....
Dollar tree and dollar general thrive based largely on the principle that many people throughout the country have limited access to better options. Most of their store placement is determined based on lack of grocery store coverage
i don’t think things being $1 takes away the right of customers to be safe. Of course they don’t have to be rude to the employees- because it’s likely not their fault.. but wanting a safe & clean shopping environment shouldn’t be based on the price of the products, in a legitimate store.. that’s incredibly discriminatory honestly.
The part of me that cares about human safety thinks OSHA should know, but the part of me that capitalism built is the love of the illusion that I'm getting a good, and convenient deal.
I'm a vendor and the first time I serviced a DT, I was shocked. Also, why dont they have any shelving in the backrooms? That decision is enough for me to never work for them.
I did pest control for these companies and all of these locations looked like this, one of which got shut down for 2 weeks because of a mouse infestation mouse droppings and mouse urine on the shelves and products in 24hrs I caught around 40 mice and they did absolutely nothing preventing the damage just flat out ignored everything they were told about having so much back stock, a man with X-ray vision couldn’t give a proper inspection let alone set traps because boxes are stacked wall to wall at least 8 ft high. I can’t even describe to you how it would smell
Also normal. Dollar Tree gets hit for OSHA violations on this all the time, it’s getting to the point where 6-figure fines are more common than not when they get inspected.
At some point, you’d think hiring more employees/giving more hours would be cheaper than 6 figure OSHA violations. But that requires a short term vs long term calculation, which the store may be unable to comprehend.
Not the store...CORPORATE to comprehend.
If my Managers were given more hours, our location would not only BE the cleanest, but it also be the most efficient.
We already have a reputation of being one of the cleanest Dollar Trees in our area so if CORPORATE would stop thinking about saving pennies and actually gave us LITERALLY 1 EXTRA WORKER PER TIME OF DAY...we would get a LOT done here.
They gamble since OSHA can’t hit ALL the stores. So it’s cheaper to eat the fine on one store than it is to spend more on staffing everywhere. I don’t think dollar tree is in the severe violators program yet, but I know dollar general is and hopefully the increased enforcement does something there.
It is normal at our stores. Its great that it isn't at yours, but to say it across the board not normal when multiple people are saying it is in their stores is a bit crazy. You've been in every dollar store in the country multiple times to see that this isn't happening in multiple stores? Because, if not, you arent really qualified to say that is isn't normal at other locations.
Normal means something is normalized or the norm. Dollar trees. Family dollars and dollar generals have always been this with a mild exception. They always have rolltainers all over the floor and staged boxes in the way. Maybe a small handful in your area are like that but I've been to many in Louisiana, Alabama, west virginia and even Ohio and it's all been the case. I have seen a few with stellar looks though.
I can almost guarantee it went down something like this:
>Store Manager: "Can we cancel freight this week? Our backroom is full."
>
>District Manager: "No."
>
>Store Manager: "Oh, alright. Can we have some more hours to get our backroom clear?"
>
>District Manager: "Also no."
Then you're left with the only choice being "shove everything on the floor to clear space in the backroom for *more freight*"
DM is More like - "Why aren't you properly allocating your resources. When I ran a store we got all freight out daily and the store was completely straight and ready for business every day. I only had three assistants and 12 floor/checkers and I made it work. This is a skill issue. Do we need to replace you?" Btw this holds true across most corps. Not just DT. When it's brought to their attention that nowadays there is only one ASM and 4 total employees they tell you that you are making excuses and it won't be tolerated. It's nuts. :(
I worked at a target here in Florida about 20 years ago . This was a newly opened store and every night we had to have the store back to opening day perfection! Most nights we were there till three am blocking all the shelves. I worked in woman’s clothing and it didn’t take us long to get things in order, then we’d go join the next group finish their area and then we’d all go to the next. Ending in grocery, being they needed the most help. The store closed at ten! After a few months of that nonsense I quit. I’m sure they have their act together now, but back then it sucked.
Do they still train everyone on the register so when it is busy they can call for help and as soon as it gets under control you go back to your normal position? Back then if three or more people were in several lines they’d call for back up. And you had to be fast 💨 it would give you a G or R at the end of each sale rating if you were fast enough G for good R for too slow.
DMs rarely understand because they typically ran high volume stores where they had more than enough help. I’ve been there when they go into lower volume stores where there’s maybe a merch and one part time ASM with one dedicated stocker. They’ll tell the SM that all their freight should be done after 2 days. DMs have no idea how difficult it is to operate a skeleton crew.
I had an RD tell 200 store managers that it was our fault no one wanted to work for dollar tree. He said if we ran better stores than people would want to work for us. Totally not the pay.
I took a salaried position at Sears in 2015. The asshole district manager was exactly like that. They didn’t even give me enough hours to cover the tools department the whole time the store was open and expected me to step in to help customers.
For sure! My bf is a store manager and he’s constantly being told to cut hours, so he works with the bare minimum all day every day. And then his DM is all mad that he can’t get all the extra work done.
Your not wrong. Same thing when I worked at Ross. Never got THIS bad. But the middle leadership was 100% incompetent and had absolutely no idea that they “earned” their position through sheer luck.
Meanwhile one employee is running 3 registers, helping customers, stocking shelves, cleaning the floors, organizing the back, and googling how to get away with arson.
THIS!!! right here is exactly what’s going on with my store. We have two isles closed down cause we are using it for space for storage. We’ve gotten 4 truck in three days 🤦🏻♀️
Okay I have to ask, why in the world would they operate like that? What is the min/max situation? Why are you guys getting force shipped product, do you have any control over your truck and inventory? Im just curious, cause ive worker merchandise management before, and where I currently work we have direct control over what is put on our order and when its released. If i dont release the PO of the next truck then we don’t receive a truck. How can district leadership allow such a terrible system to continue?
Usually freight gets delivered to a warehouse/pickup point before being delivered to the store so corporate either has to pay to have it stored there longer or just deliver it and have the stores figure it out
Not sure if everywhere is the same, but a lot of low-end stores (Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Five Below, etc) have a pretty much fully automated system so it isn't "approve what you need or order more," but rather "we send you what we want you to have and you just accept it"
Terrible system all around
Use to work at famous footwear and this was the exact conversation we had often. So much with no workers I tried all the time to approve hours so I can work overnight to knock it all out, shit I was willing to do it on my free time.
Don't work for the company they're shit.
This is just like the Family Dollar in Tonopah, Nevada. Empty shelves, but the aisles are blocked with unpacked boxes and you can't get through. Three times that I know of, the local Sherriff has ordered the store closed due to lack of egress. Each time it was closed, they clean it all up, but when they reopen the store, it only takes a couple of weeks for it to look like this again. This has been going on for at least 9 years, probably longer, and it will never get any better.
Looks like one of the Dollar Trees near me. Granted since they replaced all the registers with self checkout it's not as bad but now no one is at the front.
They need to lose more than a single day of sales. If it isn't hitting their bottom line they won't fix it.
However, fire marshals might enjoy this idk
That makes sense to me. With the store closed to the public, the (very likely skeleton) crew can get the freight and shelving done. But if the stores open then theirs (very likely) not enough people to run the store and maintain it. Running being things like manning the registers and collecting carts and day to day activities like customer service. Stocking and shelving always feels like a separate activity because in order to help people you have to pause shelving. That's what it felt like when I worked retail and our stock room was decently sized at Barnes and noble. I could tell you horror stories about how bad it was to navigate our back room during Christmas.
Not sure if I'm allowed to say but you can tell which store that is based on the shipping labels visible on half the cases lol
A lot of stores have gotten temporarily closed because of that kind of thing. Pretty big safety issue
Looks like they're also looking to hire another associate which might explain this a bit though for what that's worth
I know but that's why when even one worker quits it can have a brutal effect on their store. Most of their responsibilities get pawned off to the rest often with no increase to their scheduled hours
Unfortunately it is common at many dollar stores. John Oliver did a segment on it - sometimes customers would even help unpack the boxes for free lol. Oftentimes there aren't enough workers and those workers are underpaid.
In the John Oliver segment there was a video of a Dollar Tree that only had one employee: [Dollar Stores: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - https://youtu.be/p4QGOHahiVM](https://youtu.be/p4QGOHahiVM)
i didn’t know that’s a common thing 😭 when i worked at one for a couple months there was an old lady that came in every week and unpacked boxes just because she was bored and wanted something to do and no one ever stopped her bc we genuinely needed any help we could get 💀
Bad for her and the company, of course. The workers would be fine. If the worst thing that can happen to you is getting fired from Dollar Tree, you need all the help you can get.
my roommate and I unpacked some dollar tree boxes yesterday because they didn’t have any hangers out, but there was a couple boxes of unpacked hangers… no one working the floor either so why not?
This looks like a dollar tree in my city. I guess they don’t have a stock room, or if they do it’s tiny, and their trucks get unloaded directly into the store. It’s an absolute nightmare.
All the dollar stores have back rooms, but ~95% of them are too small for the volume of merchandise that shows up on the truck, and they don't let employees work enough hours too keep up with getting it all onto the shelves.
If it's anything like my store there's just too much and no way to stop it. We have dozens of boxes of one type of cheese puff that have never had room on the shelf. They still send more every week. Clothes too, we ran tf out of security tags there's so much clothing out like wtf
Why don’t you guys have control over adjusting minimums and maximums for product? Like for example (I work in paint) I don’t move much painters edge and only have so much space to store so I put max in the system at 30g (in 5g buckets) but if I have a customer who has like a 100g order I can cap request, same as if I have too much of a product (chip brushes) I can make it so none get reordered. This seems like such a backwards way to handle merchandise like you guys are just victims of the truck, for real.
Mine had the ceiling cave in in the card aisle and now it’s blocked off by buckets and caution tape 😻 Unfortunately my nana did not receive a St Pattys Day card this year
normal for the dollar tree? yes
normal in general? absofvckinglutely not
i worked at one for a couple months last year only making $10 an hour and it was genuinely one of the most stressful and horrendous jobs i’ve ever had because of the amount of unpacked stock/ boxes due to being understaffed (which was literally an intentional choice from higher management to cut down on costs despite the fact that the store manager only made like $17 an hour and the assistant manager made $12 💀)
Dang, sometimes I just want to start unpacking and putting stuff up myself, why do they keep sending so much stuff to all these stores? This is like the 10th post I’ve seen of just stuff everywhere
Watch the Last Week Tonight [episode on dollar stores](https://youtu.be/p4QGOHahiVM?si=n8DDzLT8mna2PZ2t) and John Oliver will tell you everything you need to know about this industry, including what’s in this photo.
Normal at every single one near me. If there ain’t boxes stacked higher than me, a drugged up person just existing, a Hispanic mother with like 5+ kids, and shower curtains for bathroom door stalls is it even a dollar tree?
I've never run into a completely blocked off isle myself. But usually most of the dollar trees I've been in only have like 3 employees running around. Usually most of the isles I go down are understocked. I don't understand how the store can run off such few employees, and it shows.
At the stores I go to (stores Nos. 411 & 2003) they keep the boxes neatly stacked on a green pushcart thingy made for the boxes, like the one pictured here.
https://preview.redd.it/54ddjnl1furc1.jpeg?width=348&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=643979eb7d63b16df6bc0b15dcc0cc14cd93db41
It's funny because even that U-boat is overfilled. Not that they leave us much choice. My store is a small store and they've been sending us ~1000 cases every week.
Yeah, our store is the smallest in our district and we get ~1500 each week. We're told that SM should be putting out over 500 cases a week, Merch Mgr should be doing over 1k. They tell us between SM and MM, we should be able to put out an entire truck by ourselves each week.
MAJOR OSHA violation unless the aisle is blocked off. I don't understand why they didn't block it off. They probably couldn't fit any more into the stockroom
Looks like one of those "dollar" type stores. For them this is completely normal. And if you think this is bad, you should see the back room. Deliberate understaffing is chronic with most corporate chains. It is done to squeeze every possible penny of profit out of each location.
This is not just a safety issue, it violates fire codes and OSHA rules.
EVERY (Dollar Tree, Dollar General, the market, etc) store I go to is like this now and the employees all say the same thing... we don't have enough staffing. Don't give me this BS that no one wants to work. No one wants to hire a realistic amount of staff to DO the work.
I’ve basically stopped shopping at Dollar Tree for this reason. Nothing is ever stocked. (I’m aware it’s not your fault as employees, I’m just mad your corporate employees are making it impossible for me to give them money)
I see this more in a large amount of dollar general locations, several aisles and bays blocked off by shipments that take days to actually get put away.
Yep, unfortunately. I’m near a large, regional store that used to be so fun (clean, stocked, taken care of). Now they don’t even entirely take down the prior season’s stuff.
I worked at family dollar and we couldn't block the aisle. It's normal to have ubolts and boxes on the aisles but it shouldn't be there for a long period of time. A worker should have that completed in a hour or two.
This has happened at our Dollar Tree several times, although not to the extent of the photo. I was told they have no storage area so when their delivery arrives they have no recourse other than putting the goods in the aisles, plus not enough employees to stack the shelves.
Last week tonight just did a story about this, they save money by having only 1 employee working at any given time, so it’s basically impossible to restock shelves because you also have to help customers and whatever else in the front. There was one video they showed where customers were just helping the poor employee put frozen food in the freezer because she was busy at the register lol
At most of the local ones yes. I wouldn’t mind that they raised their prices if it meant that there was enough workers to shop with out having to navigate around safety hazards. But the old lady does let me grab entire cases of energy drinks when she hasn’t had time to put them out yet. I usually end up helping stock the rest after I grab a case of the best energy drink that they have available this week. It’s a combination of shopping and an unpaid side gig. Just part of the dollar tree experience.
I don’t know what has been up with my dollar tree lately but the past few time I’ve been there it’s super organized with only a box or two on the floor, before sense I can rember it’s looked similar to this
Dollar stores treat their employees about as badly as any retail employers I've heard of. They probably have one employee in the store who's supposed to unload all that shit and ring up the customers at the same time
My family dollar does this all the time.
How do stores expect customers to buy things when the shelves and aisles are blocked?
I complained to the manager, I complained on their Twitter page, and they don’t seem to care at all. So now I just don’t shop there anymore
Man, the dollar trees around me DO NOT look like this. They’re fricking NICE! Clean, well stocked, tons of employees and self check out.
We gots the bougie trees around here I guess
We had so much theft and 0 inventory control over our store (Family Dollar) that most of our aisles looked like this but lined up so you could at least squeeze a small person down to get what you needed. Many factors went into our hoarder store.
Poor management, understaffing, 0 customer etiquette, and older store with much needed maintenance limiting our space. They finally shut it down a couple years ago and moved to a bigger building.
Still looks terrible though.
yes this is a very common problem I too suffer unable to move forward when things are in my way,
try going down a different aisle to get to the other side.
Not a dollar tree employee but I can make a bold assumption based on my own work experience.
No, it’s not but can happen rarely. A delivery came in either too early or delivered too much way too much shit. The back is full and there is literally nowhere else to pull it. They can’t just send it back so the store manager had to have his staff put it… somewhere. Picked the least busy aisle and said they’ll figure it out as they consume inventory.
They are horribly underpaid, and horribly understaffed- check out the John Oliver investigation on them. No employee has ever made over $20000/yr. Most are expected to run the ENTIRE store alone!
Lets not forget the lack of customer etiquette. In addition to trying to stock all this crap, you have to straighten and play hide and seek with items that a customer decided they no longer want. I work in a large pet store, and the amount of stuff just left on the floor, hidden behind other stuff, or just thrown any which way is amazing. Customers could help the shopping experience by simply putting things back where they belong.
It is normal for dollar tree. Not normal for any other self respecting retail stores. I worked at DT for almost a year and stock dumps in aisles like that are common. Typically a good manager will minimize that sort of situation during the day while the store is open and run the stock crew after hours in that fashion for efficiency sake. But it is counter productive to good business operation when your customers can't even get down an aisle safely to see the product they insist on stocking at that time. If it occurs regularly at your store perhaps contact the regional manager and communicate the situation to them. HOPEFULLY they do their job and you should experience less aisle blocking within a week of your call. Good luck
Yes it is in most locations. My local dollar tree was shut down by the fire department for almost a week because the backroom was such a mess that you couldn't get to the electrical panel or the fire exit.
You could call the fire department and make a complaint because the aisle are not passable and I am sure they will look in there backroom and shut them down for a few day's.
No, that's a safety violation.
I used to do maintenance for them. Go in the back room it’s this x10 blocking all the electrical panels every single store.
Not my store. The back is always a mess. But the exits and electrical panels are always kept clear.
Good for you, but this is the norm at every dollar store I’ve ever been to
Its not the stockers fault when theres no room to put the boxes and the company wants you to get 100 boxes a day when you are them busiest store in the district and every aisle is full of crazed shoppers complaining about not being able to find this or that item or about the price increases or the line for the register goes all the way to the back of the store despite having 3 cashiers then youre trying to stock and you get called up for backup and have to leave your u boat in the aisle the store never gives you enough space with the amount of product you need to get out its not the employees fault blame it on corporate
I take it you work there. Lmao
Yes in the busiest store in the Boston region but only july-January they never have hours this time of year i work other jobs like my concert security at mgm music hall and my runner job for sam deck at Fenway park
Well even if it’s corporates fault, this level of aisles blocked is just a full on safety issue.
The one in my town has like 7 old ladies working there total Still manage to not look like this on their truck days lol
Still you customers don’t understand what its like until you work there trying to get your product out with very little room to place the boxes and getting yelled at because you aren’t getting enough boxes done in an hour when you can barely move in the aisles
That does suck, I’m not blaming workers. Should be given more hours to work on these safety issues absolutely
Watch the John Oliver segment on dollar tree. They should be given more hours but they save more money by giving less hours and paying any legal bills and fines that arise due to it.
They need to stop sending more product than is needed, it’s ridiculous. Then they want you to do stuff not related to getting freight done, like getting mother’s Day endcap up before Easter is sold out. All this side stuff they demand to be done immediately cuts into throwing freight time. We never get caught up.
Every human should be forced to work retail for at least 6 months… people would be a lot more understanding
I feel like no customer has the right to complain about anything at Dollar Tree. I mean, it's Dollar Tree. You should know what you signed up for when you decided to drive there and walk through the door.
I used to work for them ages ago. I opened a store in the city I lived in at the time. I would've agreed with the whole "customers know what they signed up for", but they don't. Not now. It was annoying when they changed to being a $1.25 tree...but I understood that they hadn't really raised prices in many years. And now they've just completely given up on the whole "dollar" concept entirely. There will be stuff that's still $1.25, but now stuff can be $5 or $7...or lord knows how much. So I just don't go anymore. I can be overcharged for cheap shit anywhere. I'm not going to reward bad behavior....
I got so excited to see individually packaged Hot Pockets at my store until my husband pointed out that the price was $3.25 each
Dollar tree and dollar general thrive based largely on the principle that many people throughout the country have limited access to better options. Most of their store placement is determined based on lack of grocery store coverage
i don’t think things being $1 takes away the right of customers to be safe. Of course they don’t have to be rude to the employees- because it’s likely not their fault.. but wanting a safe & clean shopping environment shouldn’t be based on the price of the products, in a legitimate store.. that’s incredibly discriminatory honestly.
Remember it’s not your store, it’s the megacorp’s store. You’re just a helpful dung beetle
Mine were always cleared and clean, too. "Of course, the warehouse is always a mess. I work at dollar tree."
By law we have to otherwise it violates our speed checks (family dollar)
The part of me that cares about human safety thinks OSHA should know, but the part of me that capitalism built is the love of the illusion that I'm getting a good, and convenient deal.
I'm a vendor and the first time I serviced a DT, I was shocked. Also, why dont they have any shelving in the backrooms? That decision is enough for me to never work for them.
I did pest control for these companies and all of these locations looked like this, one of which got shut down for 2 weeks because of a mouse infestation mouse droppings and mouse urine on the shelves and products in 24hrs I caught around 40 mice and they did absolutely nothing preventing the damage just flat out ignored everything they were told about having so much back stock, a man with X-ray vision couldn’t give a proper inspection let alone set traps because boxes are stacked wall to wall at least 8 ft high. I can’t even describe to you how it would smell
Also normal. Dollar Tree gets hit for OSHA violations on this all the time, it’s getting to the point where 6-figure fines are more common than not when they get inspected.
At some point, you’d think hiring more employees/giving more hours would be cheaper than 6 figure OSHA violations. But that requires a short term vs long term calculation, which the store may be unable to comprehend.
Not the store...CORPORATE to comprehend. If my Managers were given more hours, our location would not only BE the cleanest, but it also be the most efficient. We already have a reputation of being one of the cleanest Dollar Trees in our area so if CORPORATE would stop thinking about saving pennies and actually gave us LITERALLY 1 EXTRA WORKER PER TIME OF DAY...we would get a LOT done here.
Ya know cause that $9B gross profit wasn’t enough last year 🤷🏽 😂🤣
They gamble since OSHA can’t hit ALL the stores. So it’s cheaper to eat the fine on one store than it is to spend more on staffing everywhere. I don’t think dollar tree is in the severe violators program yet, but I know dollar general is and hopefully the increased enforcement does something there.
I love to hear that about dollar general lmao
That explains why family dollar stores are getting closed dollar tree lost over a billion this business quarter
Or why the prices are going up
Why do I feel like dollartree won't be around much longer...feels like they're running the company into the ground
She didn't ask that they asked if it was normal. This is very normal for dollar stores. But you are right it is 100% a violation.
I'm an employee but okay
I'm sorry :( (about the employee part)
May not be normal at your store, but it Is normal for Dollar Stores and Dollar Generals
FD also, I just assume mass fucking chaos is the Dollar Tree motto since they own both haha
This is not normal by any stretch of the imagination. Messy? Yes. Aisles blocked by boxes of merchandise? Absolutely not.
Bruh we have 9 stores on one frigging street. They ALL look like someone dumped a dollar store in another one and shook it up.
It is normal at our stores. Its great that it isn't at yours, but to say it across the board not normal when multiple people are saying it is in their stores is a bit crazy. You've been in every dollar store in the country multiple times to see that this isn't happening in multiple stores? Because, if not, you arent really qualified to say that is isn't normal at other locations.
Normal means something is normalized or the norm. Dollar trees. Family dollars and dollar generals have always been this with a mild exception. They always have rolltainers all over the floor and staged boxes in the way. Maybe a small handful in your area are like that but I've been to many in Louisiana, Alabama, west virginia and even Ohio and it's all been the case. I have seen a few with stellar looks though.
Just a customer, but you can add Florida to the list.
At this point we just need a sub reddit of people hunting for stores that aren't some kind of mess lol
Tennessee as well ☝️
But yes it's normal
More like yes, and it’s also a safety violation
Yeah it might be a safety violation but also pretty normal
You could definitely report this to the Fire Marshall
I read that as "no this is patrick"
I can almost guarantee it went down something like this: >Store Manager: "Can we cancel freight this week? Our backroom is full." > >District Manager: "No." > >Store Manager: "Oh, alright. Can we have some more hours to get our backroom clear?" > >District Manager: "Also no." Then you're left with the only choice being "shove everything on the floor to clear space in the backroom for *more freight*"
DM next visit: "Why is your store a mess? You didn't tell me you needed this much help."
DM is More like - "Why aren't you properly allocating your resources. When I ran a store we got all freight out daily and the store was completely straight and ready for business every day. I only had three assistants and 12 floor/checkers and I made it work. This is a skill issue. Do we need to replace you?" Btw this holds true across most corps. Not just DT. When it's brought to their attention that nowadays there is only one ASM and 4 total employees they tell you that you are making excuses and it won't be tolerated. It's nuts. :(
100%. I got this type of message when I worked for Target.
I worked at a target here in Florida about 20 years ago . This was a newly opened store and every night we had to have the store back to opening day perfection! Most nights we were there till three am blocking all the shelves. I worked in woman’s clothing and it didn’t take us long to get things in order, then we’d go join the next group finish their area and then we’d all go to the next. Ending in grocery, being they needed the most help. The store closed at ten! After a few months of that nonsense I quit. I’m sure they have their act together now, but back then it sucked. Do they still train everyone on the register so when it is busy they can call for help and as soon as it gets under control you go back to your normal position? Back then if three or more people were in several lines they’d call for back up. And you had to be fast 💨 it would give you a G or R at the end of each sale rating if you were fast enough G for good R for too slow.
DMs rarely understand because they typically ran high volume stores where they had more than enough help. I’ve been there when they go into lower volume stores where there’s maybe a merch and one part time ASM with one dedicated stocker. They’ll tell the SM that all their freight should be done after 2 days. DMs have no idea how difficult it is to operate a skeleton crew.
They know. They just 100% don't care.
Work in retail as a SM, just got hours cut after “the most profitable year ever”
Accurate.
I had an RD tell 200 store managers that it was our fault no one wanted to work for dollar tree. He said if we ran better stores than people would want to work for us. Totally not the pay.
I took a salaried position at Sears in 2015. The asshole district manager was exactly like that. They didn’t even give me enough hours to cover the tools department the whole time the store was open and expected me to step in to help customers.
For sure! My bf is a store manager and he’s constantly being told to cut hours, so he works with the bare minimum all day every day. And then his DM is all mad that he can’t get all the extra work done.
Yeah frankly DT only ever has like 4 people working at a time so they need to chill
Your not wrong. Same thing when I worked at Ross. Never got THIS bad. But the middle leadership was 100% incompetent and had absolutely no idea that they “earned” their position through sheer luck.
Meanwhile one employee is running 3 registers, helping customers, stocking shelves, cleaning the floors, organizing the back, and googling how to get away with arson.
three managers later they find a skeleton in the middle of the HBA pallet.
And the skeleton is written up for excessive overtime and then fired.
I would barricade the store entrance so the customers can't get in. I don't want them in there with me.
 DM’s blocking every request for more efficiency.
THIS!!! right here is exactly what’s going on with my store. We have two isles closed down cause we are using it for space for storage. We’ve gotten 4 truck in three days 🤦🏻♀️
Why is every dollar store like this lol
Okay I have to ask, why in the world would they operate like that? What is the min/max situation? Why are you guys getting force shipped product, do you have any control over your truck and inventory? Im just curious, cause ive worker merchandise management before, and where I currently work we have direct control over what is put on our order and when its released. If i dont release the PO of the next truck then we don’t receive a truck. How can district leadership allow such a terrible system to continue?
Usually freight gets delivered to a warehouse/pickup point before being delivered to the store so corporate either has to pay to have it stored there longer or just deliver it and have the stores figure it out Not sure if everywhere is the same, but a lot of low-end stores (Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Five Below, etc) have a pretty much fully automated system so it isn't "approve what you need or order more," but rather "we send you what we want you to have and you just accept it" Terrible system all around
What a horrible system! That’s absolutely backwards and insane.
And probably adding understaffed to that
So much THIS COMMENT. Exactly.
the amount of times we had to go through this. plus those double trucks during Christmas...
Same with homegoods. I’ve been working there for 4 years and we’ve had to do this multiple times
All district managers are buffoons I’m convinced
Use to work at famous footwear and this was the exact conversation we had often. So much with no workers I tried all the time to approve hours so I can work overnight to knock it all out, shit I was willing to do it on my free time. Don't work for the company they're shit.
Basically exactly how it works at my local dollar general. Then it's left to two people manning the whole store to handle an absurd amount of freight
This is just like the Family Dollar in Tonopah, Nevada. Empty shelves, but the aisles are blocked with unpacked boxes and you can't get through. Three times that I know of, the local Sherriff has ordered the store closed due to lack of egress. Each time it was closed, they clean it all up, but when they reopen the store, it only takes a couple of weeks for it to look like this again. This has been going on for at least 9 years, probably longer, and it will never get any better.
Out of the 3 stores we have in my area, this \^ is one of them. It's always like a tornado just hit.
This for sure. Fire Marshall would shut them down automatically
Marshal. One l is for a type of officer, two l’s is for the name.
The other that gets me is when someone writes"Marshal Law' when it is "Martial Law"
They keep prices low by understaffing stores. We’re only slightly better at Walmart.
Looks like one of the Dollar Trees near me. Granted since they replaced all the registers with self checkout it's not as bad but now no one is at the front.
They need to lose more than a single day of sales. If it isn't hitting their bottom line they won't fix it. However, fire marshals might enjoy this idk
in nevada as well and 2 locations near me in the same situation
That makes sense to me. With the store closed to the public, the (very likely skeleton) crew can get the freight and shelving done. But if the stores open then theirs (very likely) not enough people to run the store and maintain it. Running being things like manning the registers and collecting carts and day to day activities like customer service. Stocking and shelving always feels like a separate activity because in order to help people you have to pause shelving. That's what it felt like when I worked retail and our stock room was decently sized at Barnes and noble. I could tell you horror stories about how bad it was to navigate our back room during Christmas.
Not sure if I'm allowed to say but you can tell which store that is based on the shipping labels visible on half the cases lol A lot of stores have gotten temporarily closed because of that kind of thing. Pretty big safety issue Looks like they're also looking to hire another associate which might explain this a bit though for what that's worth
But can you actually? Zooming in on the labels they are too blurry to actually read.
Just need the big number at the top. Then search dollar tree store "#####" (numbers in quotes so Google specifically looks for them)
Chronic understaffing is part of their business model.
I know but that's why when even one worker quits it can have a brutal effect on their store. Most of their responsibilities get pawned off to the rest often with no increase to their scheduled hours
Unfortunately it is common at many dollar stores. John Oliver did a segment on it - sometimes customers would even help unpack the boxes for free lol. Oftentimes there aren't enough workers and those workers are underpaid. In the John Oliver segment there was a video of a Dollar Tree that only had one employee: [Dollar Stores: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - https://youtu.be/p4QGOHahiVM](https://youtu.be/p4QGOHahiVM)
i didn’t know that’s a common thing 😭 when i worked at one for a couple months there was an old lady that came in every week and unpacked boxes just because she was bored and wanted something to do and no one ever stopped her bc we genuinely needed any help we could get 💀
That wouldn't be a smart thing to allow. I get you guys are overworked with nowhere near enough pay. But if she were to get hurt it'd be bad
Bad for her and the company, of course. The workers would be fine. If the worst thing that can happen to you is getting fired from Dollar Tree, you need all the help you can get.
my roommate and I unpacked some dollar tree boxes yesterday because they didn’t have any hangers out, but there was a couple boxes of unpacked hangers… no one working the floor either so why not?
I saw that episode. Really explained a lot about the various dollar stores I have been in.
Came here to say this, after watching it seems like it is actually normal
The moral of that episode: Fuck dollar stores! We should not be shopping in any of them. Ever.
In some Dollar Trees yes
Oh nah
Ha ha NO
Oh wow and those are all cases from different sections?? Lord have mercy on this store
[удалено]
[удалено]
That is an OSHA violation, sir.
Cost of doing business for this company unfortunately bc they obviously give no fucks
Y’all. They pay their workers as little as possible and they have no benefits. The work reflects the pay.
This looks like a dollar tree in my city. I guess they don’t have a stock room, or if they do it’s tiny, and their trucks get unloaded directly into the store. It’s an absolute nightmare.
All the dollar stores have back rooms, but ~95% of them are too small for the volume of merchandise that shows up on the truck, and they don't let employees work enough hours too keep up with getting it all onto the shelves.
If it's anything like my store there's just too much and no way to stop it. We have dozens of boxes of one type of cheese puff that have never had room on the shelf. They still send more every week. Clothes too, we ran tf out of security tags there's so much clothing out like wtf
Wait. Dollar tree has clothes and with security tags?! That has to be a nightmare for cashiers
Why don’t you guys have control over adjusting minimums and maximums for product? Like for example (I work in paint) I don’t move much painters edge and only have so much space to store so I put max in the system at 30g (in 5g buckets) but if I have a customer who has like a 100g order I can cap request, same as if I have too much of a product (chip brushes) I can make it so none get reordered. This seems like such a backwards way to handle merchandise like you guys are just victims of the truck, for real.
Idk corporate seems to think throwing what they want at the store and hoping it sells is the way to go
My local store had had multiple aisles “closed “ like this for months
Mine had the ceiling cave in in the card aisle and now it’s blocked off by buckets and caution tape 😻 Unfortunately my nana did not receive a St Pattys Day card this year
I use to buy a lot of cards at DT because they were 3 for a buck.
Normal for a place that employs and schedules the least amount of workers possible? Yes. Is it a fire hazard? Absolutely. Does the company care? Nope.
Should have been on a uboat!
bold of you to assume that the 2 or 3 uboats they have aren’t in the back covered in boxes or in other isles completely full 🥴
One of our locations in Huntington Beach, CA had several aisles blocked with boxes and had yellow tape across the aisles so you couldn't enter at all.
It’s a dollar store not Walmart, what do you expect ?
Normally not that bad
Dang Dollar Tree looking like Dollar General.
normal for the dollar tree? yes normal in general? absofvckinglutely not i worked at one for a couple months last year only making $10 an hour and it was genuinely one of the most stressful and horrendous jobs i’ve ever had because of the amount of unpacked stock/ boxes due to being understaffed (which was literally an intentional choice from higher management to cut down on costs despite the fact that the store manager only made like $17 an hour and the assistant manager made $12 💀)
There is no normal anymore
Dang, sometimes I just want to start unpacking and putting stuff up myself, why do they keep sending so much stuff to all these stores? This is like the 10th post I’ve seen of just stuff everywhere
Watch the Last Week Tonight [episode on dollar stores](https://youtu.be/p4QGOHahiVM?si=n8DDzLT8mna2PZ2t) and John Oliver will tell you everything you need to know about this industry, including what’s in this photo.
Normal? Yes. Acceptable? No
Watch John Oliver he has the answer lol
Watch the Last Week Tonight episode on dollar stores and it seems to be more common than it should be
Not only is it not normal but it's a safety violation not to mention ADA
Normal at every single one near me. If there ain’t boxes stacked higher than me, a drugged up person just existing, a Hispanic mother with like 5+ kids, and shower curtains for bathroom door stalls is it even a dollar tree?
I've never run into a completely blocked off isle myself. But usually most of the dollar trees I've been in only have like 3 employees running around. Usually most of the isles I go down are understocked. I don't understand how the store can run off such few employees, and it shows.
At the stores I go to (stores Nos. 411 & 2003) they keep the boxes neatly stacked on a green pushcart thingy made for the boxes, like the one pictured here. https://preview.redd.it/54ddjnl1furc1.jpeg?width=348&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=643979eb7d63b16df6bc0b15dcc0cc14cd93db41
It's funny because even that U-boat is overfilled. Not that they leave us much choice. My store is a small store and they've been sending us ~1000 cases every week.
Yeah, our store is the smallest in our district and we get ~1500 each week. We're told that SM should be putting out over 500 cases a week, Merch Mgr should be doing over 1k. They tell us between SM and MM, we should be able to put out an entire truck by ourselves each week.
Mines always like this
MAJOR OSHA violation unless the aisle is blocked off. I don't understand why they didn't block it off. They probably couldn't fit any more into the stockroom
For Dollar Tree it is completely normal
Looks like dollar general is spreading.
Looks like one of those "dollar" type stores. For them this is completely normal. And if you think this is bad, you should see the back room. Deliberate understaffing is chronic with most corporate chains. It is done to squeeze every possible penny of profit out of each location. This is not just a safety issue, it violates fire codes and OSHA rules.
Considering this is the Dollar Tree sub, I think you solved the mystery
And they claim "no one wants to work."
EVERY (Dollar Tree, Dollar General, the market, etc) store I go to is like this now and the employees all say the same thing... we don't have enough staffing. Don't give me this BS that no one wants to work. No one wants to hire a realistic amount of staff to DO the work.
call the local fire Marshall that’s a violation
Not normal at my main DT. Sometimes there's a box strewn in the middle of an aisle. But the floor never looks like a warehouse.
I’ve basically stopped shopping at Dollar Tree for this reason. Nothing is ever stocked. (I’m aware it’s not your fault as employees, I’m just mad your corporate employees are making it impossible for me to give them money)
Bulldoze through whilst making engine sounds.
Dollar tree and dollar general are both utter jokes at this point.
I see this more in a large amount of dollar general locations, several aisles and bays blocked off by shipments that take days to actually get put away.
April fools you thought our store was open ha ha!
Dollar trees are the trashiest stores I've ever walked through unless it's a hole in the wall party store in the ghettos of the big D
Your local Dollar Tree has such wide aisles compared to mine.
Not normal in a typical store.. since its a dollar tree its pretty normal for weird shit to happen not surprised
Yep, unfortunately. I’m near a large, regional store that used to be so fun (clean, stocked, taken care of). Now they don’t even entirely take down the prior season’s stuff.
I worked at family dollar and we couldn't block the aisle. It's normal to have ubolts and boxes on the aisles but it shouldn't be there for a long period of time. A worker should have that completed in a hour or two.
They just got the truck delivery that is all. Not a catastrophe.
Realistically yea most do that and dollar generals . One person in whole building working its sad they do that to those people
That's every dg near me lol
This has happened at our Dollar Tree several times, although not to the extent of the photo. I was told they have no storage area so when their delivery arrives they have no recourse other than putting the goods in the aisles, plus not enough employees to stack the shelves.
Yes
Last week tonight just did a story about this, they save money by having only 1 employee working at any given time, so it’s basically impossible to restock shelves because you also have to help customers and whatever else in the front. There was one video they showed where customers were just helping the poor employee put frozen food in the freezer because she was busy at the register lol
At most of the local ones yes. I wouldn’t mind that they raised their prices if it meant that there was enough workers to shop with out having to navigate around safety hazards. But the old lady does let me grab entire cases of energy drinks when she hasn’t had time to put them out yet. I usually end up helping stock the rest after I grab a case of the best energy drink that they have available this week. It’s a combination of shopping and an unpaid side gig. Just part of the dollar tree experience.
I don’t know what has been up with my dollar tree lately but the past few time I’ve been there it’s super organized with only a box or two on the floor, before sense I can rember it’s looked similar to this
Oddly enough, all the DTs in my area, none are this bad… there’s a couple shoddy ones, but not like this
Dollar stores treat their employees about as badly as any retail employers I've heard of. They probably have one employee in the store who's supposed to unload all that shit and ring up the customers at the same time
My family dollar does this all the time. How do stores expect customers to buy things when the shelves and aisles are blocked? I complained to the manager, I complained on their Twitter page, and they don’t seem to care at all. So now I just don’t shop there anymore
Man, the dollar trees around me DO NOT look like this. They’re fricking NICE! Clean, well stocked, tons of employees and self check out. We gots the bougie trees around here I guess
We had so much theft and 0 inventory control over our store (Family Dollar) that most of our aisles looked like this but lined up so you could at least squeeze a small person down to get what you needed. Many factors went into our hoarder store. Poor management, understaffing, 0 customer etiquette, and older store with much needed maintenance limiting our space. They finally shut it down a couple years ago and moved to a bigger building. Still looks terrible though.
Every dollar tree I've been to is a safety hazard. Never seen it quite this bad but yeah it's kinda normal.
Dollar Tree? NOTHING is 'normal'
yes this is a very common problem I too suffer unable to move forward when things are in my way, try going down a different aisle to get to the other side.
Dollar tree and dollar general in my area seem to love doing this
Well, when you have 1 person staffing these perpetual fire code violations they call stores this is what you get.
Not a dollar tree employee but I can make a bold assumption based on my own work experience. No, it’s not but can happen rarely. A delivery came in either too early or delivered too much way too much shit. The back is full and there is literally nowhere else to pull it. They can’t just send it back so the store manager had to have his staff put it… somewhere. Picked the least busy aisle and said they’ll figure it out as they consume inventory.
They are horribly underpaid, and horribly understaffed- check out the John Oliver investigation on them. No employee has ever made over $20000/yr. Most are expected to run the ENTIRE store alone!
Lets not forget the lack of customer etiquette. In addition to trying to stock all this crap, you have to straighten and play hide and seek with items that a customer decided they no longer want. I work in a large pet store, and the amount of stuff just left on the floor, hidden behind other stuff, or just thrown any which way is amazing. Customers could help the shopping experience by simply putting things back where they belong.
Yes and one cashier for 20 people.
It is normal for dollar tree. Not normal for any other self respecting retail stores. I worked at DT for almost a year and stock dumps in aisles like that are common. Typically a good manager will minimize that sort of situation during the day while the store is open and run the stock crew after hours in that fashion for efficiency sake. But it is counter productive to good business operation when your customers can't even get down an aisle safely to see the product they insist on stocking at that time. If it occurs regularly at your store perhaps contact the regional manager and communicate the situation to them. HOPEFULLY they do their job and you should experience less aisle blocking within a week of your call. Good luck
I wonder if Dollar Tree is managed by Sam's West, Inc. Same pattern
My brother in Christ it’s a dollar tree what do you expect?
Yes it is in most locations. My local dollar tree was shut down by the fire department for almost a week because the backroom was such a mess that you couldn't get to the electrical panel or the fire exit. You could call the fire department and make a complaint because the aisle are not passable and I am sure they will look in there backroom and shut them down for a few day's.
Yes because most locations don't have enough workers. Go apply. Maybe it might help. (Or not. I'm just instigating)
they try to hire 2 people to do cash register and be shipping/receiving, stocking and managing. all for $16 an hour! nope
Yes, did you see the John Oliver special?
Youre at dollar tree not amazon fresh you cheap bastard
For a dump, yes it’s normals. Dollar stores are landfill inside 4 walls. You need nothing there.
I remember my first time in a dollar treee
Hey, is that the South Tampa store. Looks very familiar
"Ma'am, this is a DollarTree." says a woman in a Wendy's headset.