After 4 years, 4 months, and 14 days with Sam's Club, I am happy to part ways with the company.
Today is my last day.
I contemplated calling out, but I decided against it. I haven't called out in 3 years. And in all the time I've been with the company, I only called out twice. After all, today is my last day as the Team Leader of the Electronics Department.
I was only TL for a brief period of 7 months, but I worked like one since I started in the department 2 years ago. And my advice to all those who want to be Team Leaders and move up within the company is simple: take the position.
But only temporary.
Work hard, maintain a good attitude, accrue as much experience as you can, and leave with your head held high. The moment you feel burnt out is the moment you need to leave because this company will eat you alive.
As a TL on the sales floor, you have to be extremely flexible with your schedule. If a TL or a forklift driver on Overnight goes on vacation or calls out, be prepared to come in on short notice. And you are obligated to say "yes." After all, it's written in the job description: "work overnight WHEN needed." A manager once called me at 2 PM on my day off and asked me to come in at 9:30 PM that night to cover a shift. In the event that you say no, be prepared for retaliation. And I'll speak on that part later.
You also need to communicate with your manager to change your schedule in accordance to your monthly audits. And be prepared to do a lot of audits. The audit team was eliminated, so the burden of the task will fall on your shoulders. For certain categories like 3 (Office Supplies), you will have to come in at midnight to conduct. If you work in a high traffic Club, you will have a very hard time with your count; you have to count every single packages of pencils, pens, erasers, paper, etc. And you have to count them all correctly. Dishonestly adjusting the audit for the sake of lowering shrink is a coachable offense.
But in the event that the shrink result is high and you've exhausted all of your options, be prepared to have an answer for everything when you submit your audit. The last thing your Club Manager wants to hear is "I don't know" when they ask you why the shrink is so high. That means you'll have to spend a lot of time behind a computer screen and conduct your research through WPIQ to look for discrepancies.
Every month, Home Office sends out a series of audits that are due by the 15th of that month, and it is nonnegotiable. Failure to complete those required audits on time will result in accountability. In addition to the required audits are the additional audits from your Club Manager that are due at the end of the month. Those are also not optional; they range from simple item audits to complete category audits, which you have to plan accordingly.
Fresh Team Leaders also have to conduct their own audits on a weekly basis. They often have to count Fresh merchandise that isn't part of their department, which requires them to drop and pull pallets out of the freezers.
As a TL of Electronics, it was an incredibly difficult task to plan out my schedule at the beginning of every month. I couldn't come in when I needed to because the Club always have to have an opening TL and a closing TL on the sales floor. Furthermore, we have a shortage of forklift drivers in our building. If I'm the only TL in the evening and Members needed items dropped from steel, I'd have to forgo my current priorities and assist our Members.
If you're forklift certified and want to become Team Lead on the sales floor, you will be pulled left and right. And about 70% of all those extra tasks will have nothing to do with your own department.
I spent more time in Hardlines, Seasonal, and Receiving than I did in my area. My manager once confronted me about the condition of my department and told me that I needed to delegate all of the Electronics tasks to my "team," which at the time consisted of two part timers who were new to the department. Since Wireless/Connections was eliminated and outsourced, I was severely understaffed. In addition to assisting Members on the floor and conducting my monthly audits, I had to squeeze out whatever little extra time I had to train my associates, which meant I had to forgo both of my breaks.
If you want to be Team Lead and take your job seriously and complete your tasks on time, be prepared to work through your breaks. Managers do not want to hear why you couldn't finish your assignments, but they also do not want to hear that you are not taking your breaks. I know a couple of TL in my building who, in addition to not taking their breaks, would punch out for lunch and go back to work.
As a Team Lead, you will often hear your managers tell you to "get it done, no matter what it takes." After reading through copious amount of posts on this website, I am confirmed that this sort of managerial mentality is pervasive throughout the company. The harder you work, the more they expect out of you.
With the current "unused PTO" system--where you can essentially accrue over 1000 "unused" PTO hours and not receive a dime out of that bucket unless you quit or are terminated--associates are calling out more frequently than ever. Overnight and Cafe at my club, for example, are notorious for frequent call-outs as they both average 2 a day. So as a Lead, be prepared to work the job of 3 people because your associates don't want to come to work. I have an associate in Photos, which is also part of my department, who'd call out because she had a little cough. And when Photos calls out, the entire Electronics department suffers because my associates and I would have to throw all of our plans out the window to take care of the Members.
The toxic work culture at Sam's Club therefore punishes people who are hard workers yet rewards those who are, for a lack of a better word, imbeciles. Team Leaders are essentially yes-men juniors. We do whatever that is required of us, and we can't say no. Doing so would mean having our days-off requests rejected or future promotions disregarded.
Retaliation from managers is surreptitious and more prevalent than you'd imagine. The CBL on workplace retaliation that we all had to take is there to protect the company not the associates. Anyone who decides to speak up about the errors within the work environment is destined to be overlooked when the opportunity for promotion arises. Ironically, however, management encourages associates to "speak up." But do so at your own discretion.
I can't speak for all the clubs out there, but I can assure you that high-traffic clubs like mine all share similar attributes: toxic work environment, low staff morale due to management, and high stress-inducive. As a Team Lead, your stress level will quadruple. You might start to experience health issues that you've never had before. And if you already have some sort of ailments, your condition will definitely worsen.