Pros
Macy's Money: These are bonuses you earn every time you convince a customer to apply for a Macy's card of subscribe someone in the Thanks for Sharing program. Those bonuses are used as regular money and they count as half the price of what you are buying.
Cons
Macy's is a very stressful place to work at. There are so many things that are wrong with Macy's that it is hard to choose where to begin. From the outside Macy's looks like a great place to work but other than for a seasonal job I don't recommend that place. I worked there for a year and that was enough for me to know that I will never ever go back there! I'll do any kind of job but not working for Macy's! First, as a Sales Associate you are evaluated by a scorecard every week where you receive points in a few parameters such as Sales Goal, Loyalty (credit cards applications), IPT (item per transaction) and Sales Volume. In order to be in good standard you should be able to get 80 points minimum (maximum is 100) every week....to get those points you have to make 110% minimum of your weekly goal...that's it...100% is not enough you have to sell more and every day you will get a sales goal of $2000 dollars or more....on weekends it will be 3000 and during holidays and One Day Sales it could be almost 4000. You obviously don't work alone, in your department are more people with similar goals and in this economy the store is almost empty every day so you and your co-workers will kill each other to grab the few customers and make that goal. If you miss it one day of the week it is almost impossible to recover that money and your weekly goal is doomed....you'll get no points if you do less than 100%. Then are the credit cards applications. Managers kill for those. You will have a manager coming to your counter every hour asking if you have done "anything" for them. You need 3 applications every week but you won't get full points for 3....you need to do 4 or more to get the 15 points in the scorecard. The harassment for those applications is beyond anything you might expect. and it is so hard to convince the customers to apply! Many of them already have a Macy's cards. Other don't want to hear about it because it has a 24% APR and in this economy people don't want to know about credit cards period! Every week your manager will call you to the office to review the previous week scorecard and to ask why you didn't do this or that. They won't reason with you or understand when you tell them the were no customers, the goal was to high. They won't understand that if there are 4 people working in one register it is nearly impossible that all of them will sell 3000+ dollars every day. In addition to all that you are also responsible for providing outstanding customer service, doing all the go backs (that is stuff customer left at the register because they don't want it or things they return) you also have to recover the sales floor, put everything where it belongs and pick up stuff from the floor. You also has to make sure the fitting rooms are clean, do damages tags for things the customers break or return broken.You also have to assist placing new merchandise and do credit cards payments, etc....for all those things you won't get any points at all but those things you have to do while you have to be hunting customers to make you goal. In my experience, you can't do them all like they want and obviously that will be a problem. Macy's don't want to hire people to do those things you don't get points for. They want everyone to sell sell and sell because hey! only money matters and for them you are just a number, a piece of statistic and if you don't make it like they want... you are just worthless and out. If you don't believe me go to a Macy's store and you will see associates killing each other asking you if you already have a Macy's card and offering to open one for you every five minutes, everyone will ask! In addition they pay minimum salary for all that and to get hours you will have to fight. Every week associates pick their schedules and you would think that's a good thing...well it isn't...the thing is first come first serve and if you are one of the last to pick you will get the worst shifts! The managers won't fix that, they will tell you you are responsible for getting hours and if you don't too bad for you. Last but not least....many old employees....those who have been working for the company more than 10 years or so....they see you as a threat...because you will do the same as them with less benefits because you are new....so you might be good and they eventually will be fired...replaced! They will make your life miserable in order to prove that Macy's needs them and that new people don'r know a thing. You work every week not knowing if you'll have a job the next week and every day will be a battle between you, the sales goal and your co-workers. Macy's is a place with very slight opportunities to grow. The training you receive is very poor and the employee discount they give you is a 20% that you can only get when you pay with the Macy's card....and for me that didn't work. Do not work there....like I said...you'll be miserable. As soon as I found another job I left and didn't look back!
