warehouse worker

store manager

retail sales associate

cashier

assistant manager

Dollar Tree

When I applied to work for Dollar Tree, I had expected to only be what I applied for, however I found out that during a shift, only a single cashier and a manager are working in the entire store alone.I intended to only stay while finishing college but with this economy, it's been extremely difficult trying to find another job. The company is cheap, you will never be full time and higher management will be stuck working 50-80 hours a week. This particular store is extremely busy every day of the week and our store is smaller than the larger Dollar trees and right in the city, but it is one of the best stocked, we sell out of things within a few days. There is no sales floor at all, so you are required to do three jobs. During my typical day I am cashiering around 200+ people during my 4-5 hour shifts as well as being the to go person for the customers since there is nobody else in the building to talk to half the time. I am constantly running around the store trying to get as much done on my 'Appleseed' which is basically my to do list, which is nearly impossible to complete all your tasks within a few hours.My responsibilities include cleaning half the store, condense, assemble products, do damages, take balloon orders, answer calls, reshop, garbage, cashier and get products onto the floor and sometimes help with displays. Unfortunately, for returns/exchanges, voiding items and a few other things can only be done by the manager which is not allowed to be done by the cashier. Sometimes I'm trying to talk to three or more people at once such as being on the phone, talking to my current customer then having to answer someone's question from across the store or maybe even help someone who is physically disabled. The store is next door to a large apartment complex for elderly and physically and mentally disabled people so they do their primary shopping at our store so many have special needs or care that we must be aware of. These people are our primary customers and it can become a very stressful environment very quickly. You also get a lot of drunks and thieves. Sometimes I also do trucks in order to get more hours and usually you're stuck at work longer than anticipated because drivers are rarely ever on time and only two and if you're lucky, three people will be working a 1,200 piece truck. It gets very hot and cramped, and very difficult if you're short like me and can't lift some heavier things over your head without hurting yourself. After you finish unloading the truck, you are then timed by the hour on how fast you get products out onto the floor, which is also extremely difficult on truck days and that's when our store is extra busy. 

What I learned? I learned I should've never worked here, that's for sure. The turn over rate is extremely high, we only have around 9 people who work at our store and there's always a new face every week or two and I can't keep track. I've almost been there a year and I've so far been there the longest out of any cashier. I work hard but it burns you out quickly. I've really learned to just suck it up and have the patience of a saint to deal with the constant yelling and problems that come up. This job has made me bitter because you really see the worst in people, people are rude and treat you horribly and think you don't know what you're doing because you have a million things to be thinking about and doing and unfortunately our particular store, with the chaotic environment, customers will never get the customer service they want and it's unfortunate. Our store is a 'red flag' store which means there is high amount of theft, every day, and when you work by yourself, you can't do anything about it. When I first started working, I used to cry all the time because of mean customers, customers would take advantage of me because I was the 'nice girl' and being there for as long as I have, I think I've definitely toughened up and have become more numb to the things I and my coworkers deal with. These people are the reason why so many ex-employees have quit after a week.

Management...oh yes, management isn't much better. I feel sorry for my current managers, it's horrible and stressful and they have to ask you to share some responsibilities. They never get to take their breaks and lunches because they need to be called up every two minutes. Our store hasn't had air conditioning or heat in four years. My boss has called to get these things fixed and right now, our store is around 90 degrees and it's only going to get worse in this heat. After five minutes, you're sweating, customers are sweating and complaining to me to tell corporate to do something about this. We have a lot of elderly people and I think it is also a hazard to them to be in such a hot stuffy environment. And I brought up stealing earlier, we need a security guard, it would fix so many problems. People are casually just walking in and out of the store with baskets of things, stealing stuff right off the shelves. Apparently people have to bring their bags with them and can't leave them by the register so they stuff them down the isles. People come in and beg for money and people loiter in front of the store. This makes many women uneasy and as well as myself when we have drunk people and unstable people hanging around in our parking lots and groups of people just hanging outside to smoke. Multiple times, the women would wait in our store for a ride from a friend because they don't feel safe to leave. I've been cornered at work by a customer who had been drinking and has stolen as well has said inappropriate things to me multiple times and nobody ever did anything to keep him and other people out who are potentially dangerous. I am honestly scared of some of our customers who have been verbally aggressive to me, each other and physically endangering themselves and people around them and conflicts in the parking lot among angry customers. I don't feel save in the store I work in, there's too much stuff and very little room in the store so it makes mobility very difficult for myself and customers. Customers can block you in behind your register and you can't even get to the fire extinguisher in case of an emergency. The back rooms and break rooms don't exist, all they are is storage for junk. It's unsanitary and I don't think our bathrooms should be public to customers. People will go to our back rooms to steal, and take pregnancy tests and their drug tests in our bathrooms and leave it disgusting. People have come in bleeding on our floors, past cashiers have been handed money with blood on it. At the end of the week, we run out of change to give customers and have to get money from the store next door or my manager has to use her own money to make sure we have enough change to last the rest of the week. I have been given bottle returns that have been used as urine bottles, it's disgusting. The company doesn't care about us, despite how many times our store has tried to get help, and I honestly feel like our store should be shut down because nobody should have to go shopping or work in this kind of environment.

The only good thing about the store is some of the co-workers. I work with very interesting people who are usually going through a rough patch in their life and trying to get on their feet. They're pretty upbeat most of the time, but after a few weeks, everyone loses the will to want to come to work. A lot of my hours came from no call no shows, people just quit, or have break downs at work because of some quarrel between them and a customer. As much as I need more hours, I absolutely hate being treated like I'm on call half the time and then I get yelled at for not answering my phone, because when I do, I just feel guilty and feel like my availability is taken advantage of sometimes when I do and then I get told I need to come into work at that very moment and I have to drop everything I'm doing to take someone else's shift. I feel really bad for some of the people who quit, who felt pushed to do so because this place was making them miserable and they needed to get out. I get along with my coworkers and all of them have expressed that they would love to work somewhere else if they could and two out of the three managers are currently trying to find something else as well before quitting. For a while however, there were issues with people on the freight team stealing and one coworker in the past always came to work stoned. Dollar Tree needs people to take drug tests, because yeah sure, pot isn't gong to harm you, but it's keeping coworkers from getting things done quickly.

The hardest part of my job is trying to not to have a break down and start crying or freak out at certain kinds of customers. You're constantly having to be on your toes and not slack off, so as soon as you clear your line of customers, you can't waste a single second to get your other responsibilities accomplished because the store will fall apart if you aren't working hard in this busy environment.

There is literally nothing I enjoy about my job. This is why I'm on this site trying to find something else.

I started as a stocker/cashier before getting promoted into management a few years later. At the time of my interview I was in a situation where I needed a needed a job badly so I took this job making just ten cents above minimum wage even though I had six years of experience working in a grocery store and merchandising experience. Paying around minimum wage seems to be standard throughout the company because as a part time ASM at the last store I was in had a cashier transfer to the store from another state where minimum wage is higher therefore she made more. I guess you can't bump someone's pay down if they're staying in the same position so she was a cashier making a buck more than me who was a manager and already had over five years in with the company.  
 Regardless of how much you make an hour even though it's not hard it can still be physical since cashiers are expected to put certain things together and stock around the front end or more especially if they're in a store that's extremely low volume. On top of getting just up to a dollar more an hour there are places you can go and make more money with less physical labor.  

The job is for cashiers and stockers isn't hard and for cashiers the hours are flexible but stockers are expected to work certain shifts. However, you might be lucky enough to have a store manager that is willing to work around it. The amount of hours you get a week depends on how busy your store is because the busier your store the more payroll hours you get. For instance, the store I'm in the opening cashier usually works 25 hours a week and a closing cashier at least 20. I've been assigned to stores/heard of stores where that's unheard of for a cashier. There are no special hours allocated for training or unloading the truck it all comes out of the planned hours for the week. 

The pay is really only good for those who just want some extra money or for some reason can't make more than a certain amount of money a year. It's also good for someone who is looking for a job with flexible hours. At Christmas time as expected there's more hours but as soon as December 26th hits hours are slashed next to nothing but with a lot of work to do with your regular freight plus seasonal conversions. Hours get better at major holidays (Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, etc) then drop back down.

This could be a pro and a con: except for a frozen food order and store supplies you don't have to go through and order every item for your store but that means someone in corporate does and you get a lot of what you don't need more of and not enough of what you do need yet when cashier have their computer training they're taught the importance of scanning each item because it reorders it. That is not 100% true or you wouldn't have cases upon cases of merchandise you don't need. You can order some stuff from your store but limited to how much. 

The warehouses are notorious for putting the wrong carton label on an item and if you don't catch it so you can fix the balance (which is a process) then it thinks you have the item the label says. For instance I saw a case of batteries last year with a carton label for Takis. Rather you catch it or not the company acts like its the store's fault and their warehouses are perfect. Not only do you get mislabeled product but you might get another store's merchandise or store supplies that isn't even on the load with your store (labels have store number). I was in a store where I once saw a certain balloon come in for about five different stores and same store just a different truck day I saw a mop come in for five or six different stores. The ability to change the balance could be a lot easier instead it's a process. 

There is advancement opportunity available in stores as I've seen myself and others go from a clerk to an assistant manager. The ASM's are expected to do the same as store managers except they can't fire/hire and a few things on the computer only the store manager can access. Then there are certain programs only a DM or higher can access. 

It's not the worst place to work and I've heard that it's better to work for than some of the competition and the biggest challenge is finding reliable help for the little wage that the company is paid. Unlike some of the competition Dollar Tree does not allow an associate to be in a store alone (with an exception of the other person being outside the building on premises on a break or getting shopping carts) and one of those two people always has to be a manager. 

The company pinches pennies that it makes the stores look bad. Shopping carts may not be the cheapest item a store needs but new stores only get a certain number of carts and you have to do so much in sales a year to get more. The problem is when there's a busy day and all the carts are being used for customers you have other customers looking at you like they expect you to make one appear. Some of the processes they roll out are putting the cart before the horse. You might be in a store with special sections but the company can't keep everything for those sections in stock or at least keep your store replenished.

Like most people that are employed at a majority of Dollar Trees, I applied there because I needed money, and I needed it badly, not because I legitimately wanted to work there, or as corporate would put it, "come grow with them".

It was relatively easy to get a job there; I initially walked in and asked for an application, and the residing assistant manager simply told me to give them a call next morning. Before I knew it I was hired at America's favorite repository of cheap plastic Chinese products, questionable meat and my personal favorite, Toast 'Em Pop-Ups, our bastardized Pop Tarts knockoff.

All was well at my Dollar Tree, until very shortly after I was hired, the coronavirus came stateside. Practically (and almost literally) the reality of working at Dollar Tree was turned inside out overnight, as scores of newly unemployed Americans flooded into our store. On one of my first weekends I worked 7 1/2 hours in one day without a break, seeing people who had been destroyed by this intangible, invisible enemy few would've predicted to come to one of the most developed nations on Earth. That day I fully understood the true gravity of this virus, and I would soon find out that the response of my store to it was unprofessional and inappropriate for a respectable retail setting.

On the aforementioned day only me, one of the assistant managers and my head manager were in the store. My assistant manager literally broke down in the middle of my shift, bawling and afraid she was going to lose her job due to unreasonable expectations made for her. I had to calm her down in between ringing up a line that stretched halfway across the store. Most weekends (especially ones that preceded major holidays) were just as bad, with several occasions where I rang for the entirety of my shift without stopping once, even though I was responsible for othwr things in the store, such as filling the coolers, doing throwbacks, blowing up balloons, and getting rid of the garbage.

On top of this, I was constantly asked to fill in for the my coworkers, who seemingly ceased to exist when I wasn't there. I understand that being called in is part of any respectable job, but if it's a weekly or even daily occurrence, you should look into actually hiring more people instead of just getting by with less than 20 associates your entire payroll. But due to the nature of Dollar Tree it is difficult to hire more employees than absolutely necessary, since the low prices also mean a low payroll. I think a majority of the newer employees replaced former associates instead of actually being added to the schedule by themselves due to this reason. 

Additionally, much of the behind the scenes activity by management was extremely unprofessional. For instance, one of the assistant managers (not the one I mentioned) had a bit of a reputation among customers and associates alike for her antagonistic attitude to anyone who wouldn't bend to her will. She would lash out at both customers and her coworkers for no sound reason, which made me dread working with her (which was often because we both usually did closing shifts). She has gotten into several arguments with customers, and there are a couple of bad Google reviews for my store that go into further detail regarding this. She and the other assistant manager also had a very rocky relationship at times, constantly mud slinging each other behind their respective backs.

Furthermore, there was a time where I was on a requested unpaid vacation, and my best friend who quit a couple of weeks beforehand was scheduled by management to work in the store, even though he claimed he put his two weeks in and he was out of state. For some reason, the merchandise manager thought getting to him through me was a good idea. Although I was repulsed by her behavior, I did ask him about the matter, and he did say he had done everything properly. A couple of days later, when I asked for my schedule, the merch manager instead redirected the conversation towards my friend, even though I didn't wish to discuss or take part in this business between the two. Although she did eventually give me my schedule, I was very disappointed in how the matter was handled.

Also, many of the customers that came into our store knew the associates by name. Although I found this endearing initially, I discovered that I personally wasn't feeling comfortable with some random stranger knowing everything about me. Our customers came from all walks of life, and some made me downright uneasy. One of our customers would always talk to her cashier about how the coronavirus was engineered by the Communist Party of China to undermine all the progress the President supposedly made since 2017, and another always told ther person who'd rung her up (and other people in the always-too-long lines) how everyone she knew died of the virus like a broken, yet extremely discomfited record that needed a psychiatrist, not some Donald Duck orange juice. For some customers I used a fake name and background history so they didn't know anything about who I was.

Personally I would recommend to avoid Dollar Tree as a place of employment at all costs, and to only apply if it's the sole place that'll accept you. The pay is minimum wage which is alright if you're still relatively young/living with your parents, but outside of that, there is no real reason to work for this godforsaken company.



The first thing you need to know before considering employment at Dollar Tree is that your experience at first will vary greatly depending on your store manager, but will eventually degrade into a nightmare. This is because, one way or another, good managers who actually care about their employees are sooner or later shown the door. Either they are fired for arbitrary reasons, or harassed by the District Manager until they quit. Such is the case with #4498 which is currently on it's third store manager despite only having been open for a little over 2 years. The only store managers who have any staying power are the ones that are willing to beat down their employees and do anything, whether unethical or outright illegal under labor law, to make themselves look better in the eyes of the DM.

If you are planning to become an assistant manager, you had better get out of the part-time position as quickly as possible. The reason for this is simple. Despite having the exact responsibilities as the full-time assistant, simply because you work less hours than they do, you will not be eligible to receive a bonus. No bonus, less hours, and you make only about $1.40 more an hour than a cashier who was hired yesterday. This is only compounded when coupled with a store manager that refuses to promote you out of that position.

Prepare to write everything down... twice or more times. Dollar Tree has this word that they use. Appleseed. This word in lay terms translates to "crushing micromanagement". Dollar Tree is obsessed with having every single thing ever done in the store written down on paper at least twice and initialed. A manager cannot simply ask an employee to do something. It must be written down on the Daily Planner, then again on a card given to the worker and both have to be initialed upon completion. This this must be done for every task, even one as simple as asking a cashier to dust off their register.

Prepare to be written up for even the smallest offenses. Again this one will depend on your manager. When I first started at Dollar Tree the only time I was ever talked to about my performance was to praise it. After transferring to a different store I, an employee who has never received a write up from any company I have ever worked for, and hadn't received any in the store I was hired in, began getting written up with a frequency of about once every 3 weeks. The worst part is that you are more or less pressured into agreeing with every write up you get. You have to sign it or you lose your job, and are pressured to not write anything in the comments. I know of at least one employee who was fired specifically because she wrote in the comments that she was not being allowed to finish.

Prepare for shady dealings. If a manager wants you gone, eventually you will be gone even if you do nothing wrong. Cashiers and stockers are entirely expendable. All a manager has to do is push you into a minor disagreement and you will be gone for insubordination. When it's assistants, things get a little more elaborate. Employees being pressured to write complaint letters that they would not have written before. Sabotaging a closing manager's recovery efforts the next morning. Outright lying about a security breech incident even though there are several witnesses that say otherwise. Witnesses don't matter though, because your DM simply cannot be bothered to investigate.

Prepare to not receive unemployment when you are fired. When I was terminated I was told by my store manager that I shouldn't even bother filing for unemployment because Dollar Tree will literally make a court case out of it and fight me tooth and nail because they do it to everyone.

This is how Dollar Tree/Deal$ operates. This is what you will be in for should you decide to take a job with them. I know that times are hard, and a job is a job. I told myself that story for over 2 years. I took the abuse, the crushing bureaucracy and the unethical behavior because I had bills to pay. Meanwhile feeling a little more tired and hollow every day. Think on this when you are sitting in that interview, watching the store manager smile at you and tell you that you seem like a good fit. And by all means take the job because it's hard out there, but for your own sake, keep looking for something better. Don't be fooled by the promises of "Opportunities for Advancement". Those opportunities are real, but they only exists because managers get fed up and quit or are fired by the handful. You can advance, and you can do it quickly, but you can and likely will lose it all just as fast.

Do NOT work here! Especially not the Ridgefield location! My experience working there was the worst job experience I’ve ever had. I don’t see many reviews on the Ridgefield location, so I’m going to give anyone who is thinking of applying there a rundown of how things are. I was on 3rd shift a.k.a graveyard shift. Most people on 3rd choose it for the shift differential. So when you start, they pretty much butter you up during the initial training (videos and like one hour of forklift training) by explaining all these seemingly amazing benefits and offer you a catered lunch and act like you’re joining a happy, supportive work environment. They have to offer “good” benefits because of how horrible the work is and because their turnover rate is through the roof. The HR lady even said that she hopes they were able to keep people during my video training. Red flag much? During your first day of training in the actual warehouse, you get a buddy who shows you the ropes. But only for that day. After that, you’re basically on your own. You enter into something that is called a “ramp-up period,” where you basically have smaller goals to meet before they expect you to hit the 150 CPH (cartons per hour). Once you’re out of ramp-up, that’s when the pressure is really on. If you aren’t hitting that goal, you WILL be called into the office practically every day. You WILL start to drown in verbal warnings and write ups. Management can’t meet the goals themselves and will harass you for numbers. Now let’s discuss how realistic it is to expect a 150 CPH every day. It’s not. There are aisles (where the boxes are) that make it easier to reach that goal, but there are also aisles that have VERY heavy boxes, (specifically aisles 3 and 16, ESPECIALLY AISLE 3) that make it EXTREMELY difficult.  And God FORBID that you get injured picking these boxes. They do not care. I informed HR of my injury and I was offered a solution that would only make my injury worse. I also told HR that the mandatory overtime was draining and nothing was done. They truly do not care about the employees and it’s sad. Moving on, how the order picking works here is that your headset tells you where you need to go. You get to that spot, say the number associated with it and then you are told how many to pick. When I started there, I had a manager say that it should be 20 seconds per pick and he could pick any amount in that time. That is a ridiculous claim to make. Imagine having to pick and stack 25 cases of 6 gallons of water in 20 seconds. Imagine then IMMEDIATELY after picking those 25 cases, having to pick and stack 18 cases of six 2.5L bottles of soda in another 20 seconds. It’s exhausting and unrealistic. Many employees there share my same feelings on the matter, but no one will speak up. We are humans, NOT machines.  One more thing you have to look out for is how much they work you, ESPECIALLY if you work 3rd shift. You will enter into a period of 6 months with NO time off. Mandatory overtime is EXCESSIVE there. The pay is TRASH for the amount of work you have to do, and the best part is that based on “budgeting” they can take away the shift differential. Again, for the amount of work you have to do and how often you are worked, that is horrible. Because I worked 3rd shift and worked Sunday-Thursday, I would start at 10 pm and then work until 6:30 am. With mandatory overtime, I would have to come in Friday night at 10 and then work until 6:30 am on Saturday. And then start that again on Sunday. So no days off. I was so tired and miserable and sick from doing that, that I had to call out quite a few times just to stay sane and make sure I was taking care of myself. If you leave with anything from this review then let it be that. Please put your health and safety first. This location in particular pretends like your safety is number one priority, but it’s not. They consistently have to restart the counter for how many’s days have gone by without an injury or unsafe incident. The highest we got to when I was there was 16 days. There are definitely favorites here and the environment is just like high school, mean girls and all. There are employees who are allowed to get away with disrespecting you. Again, this was the worst job experience I’ve ever had, and even people outside of the company know how terrible it is to work here. When I was interviewing for my current position, the hiring manager said she knew a lot of people who came from the Ridgefield location and she knows that they work you into the ground. That says a lot. Ultimately the decision is up to you, but you’ve been warned. I would not take time out of my day to write something like this if I wasn’t seriously disgusted and concerned for the well being of current and future employees. Thank you for taking time to read this.

My time here at Dollar Tree was one of the most unprofessional, overbearing, Unfair & unreasonable places that i have ever had to work at.  I don't believe that I will ever work for another Dollar Tree ever again.

You can be the most reliable person & most available person to work for this company.  Yet it will get you nowhere depending of the management that you work for.  Hours available will not be available if you have management getting salary, yet putting themselves down for store hours, meaning that everyone else has to fight for hours.  
I worked another job while working this one & they knew this upon hiring me.  Also they knew the fact that my Girlfriend worked there as well.  They needed help so i decided to com aboard.  I looked @ it as easy money since it was stocking as I'm a vendor as well.  You can be the most professional & it still won't matter if they don't want it to

Organization & time management sucked for the store that I worked.  Tasks given & assistance to get tasks done was unfair @ best.  Everyone wanted to do what they wanted when they wanted.  There was no real teamwork & no good leadership roles to follow there.  It was just a bunch of people under the Dollar Tree umbrella forcing themselves to work together for a measly paycheck to make ends meet for their families.  & the ones getting stepped on, picked on, cut down, overworked & overstressed are the ones working the most, the longest & most reliable, yet getting paid the less while the managers get paid the most to do nothing.


Management was the most unprofessional & bias managers ever.  One manager can do whatever they liked.  Coming late, Attempting to put their task or more task upon you.  All while watching you attempt to maintain customer flow & either not helping or waiting till the very last moment to seem as if they were handling other duties to help.  I've watched & heard other cashiers page for help & watch management complain about being on the registers to assist customers.  Management is also very bias to the fact of one's availability. Management can be all on board & your friend when it comes to you being able to work for them.  But if you have another job, find another job or need time off to handle other arrangements one may have in their own lives, it becomes very difficult. as management will most times cut you of hours, or purposely conflict with other schedules to be very petty about the matter or to make you quit altogether instead of talking with you to come up with a better solution or to compromise to better suit both parties.  management will also attempt to stop you on trying to transfer to another store if you feel that things are not fitting right with you @ the current store that you are working

My work load consisted of stocking of the shelves & working the truck.  Which seemed easy enough.  But the thing that made it bad is the fact that the manager wanted to change the time of the stock hours from overnight to early morning.  With doing this meant that we had to compete with customers as they moved around the store. compared to when we stocked overnight with no customers.  The management also get picky about the boxes opened per hour.  I can get that they wanted a certain number of boxes up out per hour.  But the thing that got me was, if the management cant do the same thing that they expect of you. Then that's a problem.  & if they also cant understand the fact that in order to get most of the product out.  items must be arranged & rearranged on the shelves.  Meaning that most times the numbers will be lower that before.  But they think you lied if numbers don't add up, yet can't give you proper accolades for the fact that product somehow still got out.  

When working the truck, that also seemed easy.  One dumb factor is the fact that each piece comes off the truck one @ a time via conveyor belt & not all on a pallet.  Some items will have mixed up stickers, No stickers or just be damaged all together when coming off the truck.  I also noticed that one manager would love to come back with a u-boat everytime we start or are in the middle of unloading a truck & be all in the way.  If you needed these things stacked on a u-boat, why would you not do this the day before you leave.  One manager, moved themself off of the truck, yet loved to tell us to pull certain things & to bring it to the floor.  I was the only one most of the time unloading the back of the conveyor line.  So why would I bring them to the floor, when my main focus is to unload the truck.

The work was not hard at first, but after being there for 2 years, and seeing all the changes, I do not recommend working at the Dollar Tree Distribution Center (Marengo OH) 
Especially Receiving!
The quota is impossible for most people to meet. Asking to unload 4,000 boxes out of a container by hand no matter the weight, and expecting consistent results for random products is ridiculous and unfair to the employees who work their butts off to keep a job.

The process of unloading is more complicated than they admit.
It takes time to sort through the pallets you are given, because most of the time you get broken pallets.
Then drag that one good pallet into the container to start stacking boxes according to the pattern ICC gives you.
Then hand wrap that pallet with a roll of plastic wrap multiple times from bottom to top.
Then bring in a pallet jack to bring it out and place it out onto the floor.
You repeat that process over and over until the floor is full of pallets and you wait for the equipment drivers to take your pallets to make room for more pallets.

Also, you usually have neighbors who also take up space on the floor for their pallets, so everything usually ends up being a mess.

It's a high stress level job for the receiving employees, the checkers undergo a lot of pressure. They manage the pallets getting tagged accordingly for where they are supposed to go and they also manage the space and which doors the live loads can go to and much more.

The unloaders obviously get the worst of it, being as how we did everything by hand and the whole process of the warehouse started with us.

Also, the managers never refuse any live loads that arrive with tipped over pallets or damaged products. No matter what condition the trucks arrive in, the forklift drivers would always be responsible for unloading the pallets off of the live loads, and also still expected to hit quota.

I did my best every day and I was always one of the top 3 performers in Receiving for 2 years. But even if I had a bad week, and I only hit 89% of my quota, I got pointed.

They expect you to hit at least 90% of your quota (3,600 cases) to not get a point.

The managers are not bad, but the communication was awful.

For the longest time, nobody knew what the quota was for forklift drivers, not even the managers.
But forklift drivers were still getting pointed for not hitting quota... a quota which nobody knew what it was...?

Also, as employees got more comfortable working in the warehouse, they would start talking to other employees, not to waste time, but just to talk. 
Being in a container for 10 hours a day by yourself doing the same thing over and over and over again nonstop gets to you mentally, so we would occasionally exit our containers and help other co-workers for the closure it would bring.
However, some of the managers in the office watching the cameras caught on to that, and started cracking down on our "freedom".

So, it quickly became even more stressful at work when we would get in trouble just for talking to someone. 

The stress eventually became so overwhelming for me, that I decided one day to just put in my notice and be done with it all.

The money is good, really good. They let you work overtime whenever you want, so how much you want on your paycheck is always up to you.
I've been able to easily make close to 2,000 a paycheck, so it was no joke.

But the atmosphere and the overall work environment make the place feel like an insane asylum.

I started walking in every day to a job I hated, and each day only got worse.

If you care more about money over happiness, this is the job for you...

Unless of course, you apply for a different position, which they won't hire you in for.

For example, my dad applied to be an equipment driver for Dollar tree. He left his previous job of forklift driving for Ohashi after 25 years to come work at the Dollar tree distribution center. and instead of giving him the open position that he applied for, they hired him and forced him into another department.

They constantly bait people with these open positions that they don't actually give anybody, just to get you into their warehouse and do the jobs that nobody wants to do.

The only good experiences I had at Dollar Tree were the friends I met there, and the good times we had outside of work.

So really, there's nothing there for anybody.

As an Assistant Store Manager your stress level and happiness with the company purely depends on the location as I have learned over the years. Every location is different I have worked at the same store for years but I do go and help out at other stores from time to time if I have a choice and usually you do if you're not a Store Manager. Training cashiers in an older store is awful in newer stores its one step above awful. You put a new cashier on the register and let them figure it out if you are in a slow paced store. If you are in a fast paced store you literally have to baby-sit them for 5 hours.

The turnover rate for cashiers and stockers is insane but that's the company's fault for only paying minimum wage which in my state was 7.25 when I started and now it is 9.45. Raises for employees is literally pennies and if minimum wage goes up even if it 3 cents before you are due for a raise then guess what that's your raise. When I started out as a cashier my raise was nonexistent my first year because minimum wage went up 15 cents, and my second year I got a 3 cent raise and my third year I got a 5 cent raise.

I got lucky with the store manager I had he was very nice and a pushover but he was very helpful in developing and grooming me to become an assistant manager.

Remember I said your stress level will be determined by location. The lower income areas which is where Dollar Tree loves to set up their stores to prey on lower income families, the worse the experience. You have to be a manager, cashier, stocker, security, janitor, technician, and and an electrician. You will never see Dollar Tree maintain there buildings once they open it up. All of that is up to management. I literally was told by a help desk agent to start flipping switches on an electrical box to restore power instead of sending out an actual electrician.

Security well there is none except you. There answer is to call the police and if you are in an area where there is high crime, well good luck if anyone shows up. I was told by an officer not to call them for 1 dollar items because I don't want any of my guys getting hurt. No LIE! People literally roll carts out the store or they bring in trash bags, shopping bags, purses, or they will use boxes or hampers basically anything the store sells to use as a way to steal. Some stores have cameras and some don't. They constantly put there employees in danger by only having 2 people in the store and that's including the manager by themselves at night in rough areas. So yeah they don't care about you.

When they cut hours management will be left to pick up the slack of not having employees. If employees call off you have to call around to other stores to see if anyone else can come to the store and if not then you have to close the store but hopefully its not that often again depending on location. You are suppose to be able to get bonuses if you are a full-time manager but the company keeps opening up other stores close by literally on the same street there can be 2 or 3 stores so you can kiss your bonus good-bye. And if you do manage to get a bonus they seperate it from you bi-weekly check so you get a separate check that also gets taxed. So if you got 230 dollar bonus check don't forget taxes so now it more like 100 dollars. Not only that you don't get your bonus check right away either you have to wait 3 pay periods before you can get it so that 6 weeks.

Pay is a joke. I started as a part-time at 9.45 then it went up to 10.00 after 90 days. Then I worked my way up to full-time and that was 11.00 and now 5 years later I'm at a good ole 12.85 with the my raise coming in October which is when all managers get their raises I'm looking at 13.10. While cashiers have gotten their minimum wage raised to 9.45 and managers have not gotten an equity raise at all. But the company decided to lie to their employees and cut all cashier and stocker's hours the beginning of 2020 and said it was because the region overspent during the holiday season so that's why the hours were cut. BS the minimum wage went up January 1st so that's why cashiers' hours have been cut causing managers to be cashiers and stockers. Still no raises for managers.

So good luck if you want to become an employee but be aware and also I don't EVEN want to get into the customers you have to deal with.

Dollar Tree Was my very first job, and also a favorite place of mine to shop at. Initially when I get the job the interview process was pretty easy and I found the job to be fun. I worked for Dollar Tree for about a year and a month as a Cashier with a pay of 7.35 an hour. The average day consists of tending to customers, manning the register, front facing everything in the store, wiping the windows, picking up everything around the store, doing go backs(returning items to the proper place in the store), light stocking, blowing up balloons, organizing the register areas, organizing the  balloon station, helping the manager, helping customers find things in the store, sweeping, vacuuming, recovery(fixing broken items, straightening aisle), help customers carry things to their cars, cleaning up spills and various messes around the store, doing exchanges and returns, make a drink list, filling drink coolers taking out the trash, and answering questions asked by customers. At first as a cashier everything seemed okay, but as the job progressed I was being required to do more. On top of that the management was inconsistent and constantly conflicting in managing styles. The Store Manager said I was doing very well, although it turns out later on that he actually neglected to teach me like a majority of how to do my job, this poor teaching led to another manager, the merch manager to train me in all the areas the store manager failed to show me. Because the Managers all managed in different ways I found myself tiptoeing around those who went by the book and doing otherwise around the managers who didn't. The Store Manager's way of doing things was strictly by the book, and his methods almost never got the job done, We were "Over -Staffed" yet things would almost never fully get done, or they got done but only because we had to stay over time to get these things done. There would always be long lines and although some of us would be listed as working on recovery on certain days we'd end up on the register anyways. What was frustrating the most was that go backs would pile up and everything including cleaning the store would be left onto the Night Shift, which is incredibly hard considering they'd only have a manager and only one cashier work during that closing night shift. With both having various duties to complete, despite getting swamped the last two hours of that shift. They only way everything would get done is if it were a slow night. For all the frustration of dealing with lines, customers, and various other tasks we had to get done but couldn't because the Dollar Tree's standard is that the Customer always comes first, and then getting fussed at when nothing gets done because we're stuck behind the register, and because they want only two people on the last shift of the night, is just entirely too much to expect when we are only getting like 7.35 an hour. The environment in terms of interacting with customers, fellow employees, and managers was pleasant. Everyone was nice and very helpful. But getting everything done felt impossible at times, and the breaks were only 10 minutes long. Working the Register and being expected to do everything in the store and work the register was just really difficult. The management seemed to be POORLY Organized, Which over all decreased efficiency across the board in everything. The pay is so bad that almost all the employees even the full times ones that I met had to have second jobs to cover there own bills. This job is great for a first time job, good if you want to make pocket change, But I would not consider this a good career or as an only job. I'd even recommend it as JUST a Summer job. I ran into so many customers who were shocked when they found out I was still working there after a year, because Dollar Tree is known for it's high turn over rate. I even met customers who had worked at the very location I was working at, most of them quit within less than 3 or 4 months. It was very easy to talk to the store manager about scheduling concerns and almost always I was able to get the days I requested off, or easily switch shifts with another employee if I needed it.

A typical day at work at dollar tree is you come and you have to come in five minutes 5 to 10 minutes before your shift starts so they can count your register or your drawer in front of you if you are a cashier the only difference is if you’re manager You come in clock in then you do your register once the other manager who has the register on register two is ready to take their drawer out.  Then you’re if you’re cashier, you’re stocking for the rest of the day unless a customer comes up and rings your bell or squeezes your little squeaky toy for you to come up to the register because you’re not allowed to watch the register if you were caught standing at the register it is a warning or immediate termination, depending on how your manager is feeling, but we’ll get to managers in a minute

I learned quite a bit because the management and the i-learns that you have to take before you get hired and start working at dollar tree don’t really help you and once you do the I-learns you kind of learn that you’re kind of stuck on your own, but I learned most retail experience. I was there for two years. I started working when I was 16 and I left when I was 18 and when I became 18 I became an assistant store manager I’ve learned, cash handling, stocking, unloading and loading truck, Cashier experience, how to work a touchscreen register, deposit tracking ,inventory tracking ,fraud management I’ve learned pretty much the get-go of all retail experience.

Management depending on the store you’re gonna be working at most management only care about themselves because of how strict corporate is and that’s why Dollar tree has such a high turnover right and becoming a manager,  you will learn that the company does not care about their high turnover or their employees because that is a question on the i-learns on what they most care about and those two are not on the multiple choice questions but management really only cares about themselves and most dollar trees you go to are kind of messy and lousy because they leave all the work onto the cashiers the store I worked at when I was manager was put all onto me because my higher-ups my store manager and my merch manager, who are in a higher rank than me, didn’t want to do anything so it was just piled on top of me every night because I worked every night shift while they worked the dayshift and I would also help the cashiers do their work because the two most powering managers that I worked with only gave written ups and got onto everyone because they weren’t doing their job correctly, but wouldn’t teach us how to do our job correctly .

The hardest part of the job I would say would be a little bit of everything because everything is kind of piled on top of you depending what store you work at management or cashiers it’s both piled up on you because each store has their own different rules as I’ve noticed and each store is good and bad in their own ways and in my store they pulled it all onto me and made me work every night shift every week except for Sunday and Saturday because corporate made them give me days off if they didn’t I would be working every week while They worked dayshift and those were the two other managers so they had way more days off than I have and would pile all their work on me. And I know the other dollar trees around me and family dollars were not any better because we had a giant dollar tree group chat and Reddit page which we’re not allowed to but we still did people were constantly quitting and getting fired or switching to a new job because of how badly dollar tree and dollar tree management treated us.

The good part I would say is they hire minors for minors to get retail experience in more opportunities opened up to him before they graduate like I did but it’s pretty toxic to work at.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Warehouse worker 50 salaries reported	$20.06 per hour
Store manager 15 salaries reported	$50,837 per year
Retail sales associate 14 salaries reported	$19.92 per hour
Cashier 4 salaries reported	$18.40 per hour
Assistant manager 8 salaries reported	$15.17 per hour

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