sales associate

brand ambassador

stocking associate

operations manager

assistant manager

Forever 21

We were pretty much understaffed almost all the time. The store at this location is pretty big, and when I started working here they typically had both registers on each side of the store open. I guess they lost a lot of money due to all the shoplifting that we got, so they only keep one register open now and only one fitting room open. The store gets really busy, and due to our hours being cut so much, there would be only 4 employees total during the morning into the afternoon.  Lately, they've been scheduling less than 10 employees for closing shifts, it would generally be 6-8 people because there would always be one or two call outs. They'll hire all these people just to have their hours cut, it makes no sense. They sure do like to waste the payroll for management. One of the managers there will take all the overtime for herself.

As you could imagine, customers constantly complained about waiting in line for the fitting room and for the registers, and I don't blame them. The way they run this store is ridiculous, I don't know how they've stayed in business for this long. We are not allowed to open another fitting room unless there were more than 5 customers in line. Our main fitting room did not have enough rooms available most of the time, so for my entire shift, I would have to open the other fitting room 4 or 5 times. And they would not let us keep it open, once it slowed down, they'd make us close the second fitting room. It just isn't efficient. They waste time that way, customers leave out of frustration for lack of rooms, and overall they lose money. And they blame us for not getting enough credit cards. There's no time to promote their credit card when we're too busy helping customers and cleaning our section to be able to leave on time. BTW we never left on time!

Management is a joke! They never tell you how great you're doing, they only ever point out the bad. They always reminded us to push for credit cards, and at the end of the day if we didn't make our goal they would always try to make one of us apply for one. 

Being loyal is where I effed up, if you are a good worker, they will use you. They will make you work until you are exhausted. Closing shifts are the worst, I'd much rather work overnight shifts because at least I'd know what time I would get out. The schedule will say I will be working from 5pm-11pm but in reality, we'd leave at around 12:30-1:30 am. I had times where we'd stay till 2 am or 3 am. 

It is so easy to shoplift at this store, there's never enough workers on the sales floor and the managers are always in the back. Every day there was always someone trying to steal. We would obviously tell a manager if we noticed something, but sometimes they wouldn't take us seriously, and once they leave the store with hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise, they blame us for not doing anything.

I worked here for almost two years, and I left mainly because I was tired of doing the same thing over and over and seeing no improvement within the company or management. I believed that eventually, I was going to get promoted, but never once was I asked. Even someone who I worked with, (she had quit) came to shop at the store one day when I was working the register and asked me if I was a manager yet and I told her no. It is really difficult to move up in this company. The managers are only worried about making themselves look good and suck up to corporate whenever they visit. 

There is always some type of drama/rumors going on within the employees as well. Workers not liking other workers or talking bad about other workers, etc. The people that get hired and end up not doing their jobs are the worst because we end up picking up their slack and we don't benefit from it. They end up quitting within a month anyway, so we're always being taken advantage of just because we get our work done.

There is a lot of things wrong at this store, one of the managers is always doing things that are extremely illegal but she never gets reported or fired. If you do report her, she would cut your hours, and make you do the worst task there is. It was my first job, and I did learn a lot about customer service and working retail. But they do not care about their customers here. The manager that does all the illegal stuff couldn't care less about the customers. She never lets us answer the phone, she will not call for backup on the registers when the line got long, and she would never go above and beyond for a customer when looking for an item.

The job on the surface was very fun, cool clothes, nice people for the most part but the upper management styles are in need of a major overhall. I was an ASM a Hudson Valley location for almost seven months. I excelled at LP and trained the staff on various performance issues. The biggest downfall was the checks and balances of the store manager employed. She had admitted to the whole store that her and the DM had lived together, were 'besties', in each others weddings, went on vacation with each other and she presented it to the staff in a way of, 'If you guys try to complain about me, my best friend will tell me who it was so if you want to keep your job, you need to learn to kiss my butt to my satisfaction.' She was obsessed with calling herself the 'Store Manager'. She would tell employees that have worked there for years, You need to listen to me because I'm the STORE MANAGER. The SM started to become irritated with my work ethic of keeping the business needs ahead of personal gain, the opposite of how she worked. I reached out to HR after a letter she wrote to the whole store as if she was Mrs. Forever 21, stating that she thinks people were snooping in her files and explaining that if anyone was dissatisfied about their schedule to remember their place and that the STORE MANAGER will not tolerate any discussion on the matter. (The SM schedule was made by SMs and approved by DMs, see the fairness in this particular situation?) She put on the bottom of the document (that was not company approved) that if any discussion of this document after it was signed, it would result in documentation. She did end up getting scolded for the document and that meant taking it out on me since I was the one that didn't sign the document. She began to personally seek me out, giving me a documentation for a screw up she made. I had a Drs note for a back issue and could not work a floorset overnight. She told me to ask a co-worker if they could take my overnight and I would take that co-workers 12-8 shift on the following Monday. I wrote this time down specifically because I wrote it on my notebook outside the Drs office. Monday morning comes and I get a call of, 'This is .... your STORE MANAGER, you were supposed to be in a 11 today, where are you?" I told her she had told me 12 and that I had proof of that. She wrote me up and gave me a written warning for her screw up. 
She also had her favorites and listened to an employee that desperately wanted my job. He lied about talking with a co-worker about work related matters for a short ten minutes and he presented that to the SM as time fraud. I was given an automatic final written warning. Then the SM coached the employee by saying to call HR if he thought I was treating him differently, retaliating. Of course anything for this pathetic person to get my job. He called and that put a mark on my record by an HR woman whom the SM lied to about various matters. Making up eye-rolling and placing something on a desk in a certain way. She loaded up my file with HR and I never knew of them until just before the end. She then went in my locker and snooped without searching everyone elses and with no reason. I told the DM about these occurances and was assured that I could trust her and that they aren't friends like that. I got fired after an honest mistake (still not sure if I actually made the mistake because I didn't get a chance for someone to check cameras on it). This company allows personal relations on corporate level and it makes for a cut-throat business, with absolutely poor work ethics. Do not recommend

Typical day at work included recovery of sales floor, counting deposits and petty cash, ringing up customer purchases, possible projects from accessories manager and/or visual team.  Also, I did training and job shadowing regarding shipment, fitting room and register procedures.

Overall, I learned a lot about how a retail business works and was given opportunity to display leadership through the training of employees.  I worked here while juggling a full-time school schedule as a college student and research lab assistant at my university and the company was very flexible regarding my changing availability.  I started off as a sales associate making more than minimum wage and was promoted to a head cashier position where I consistently worked 30+ hours/week, which was good money for someone working in retail part-time.

At the same time, I also saw the negative effects of bad employee morale, bad management and do-nothing people in corporate.  

I was told that I was not good enough to be a manager.  Despite the fact that the majority of management in this location regularly showed up late, left the training of employees to cashiers and sales associates (like myself), hired their friends, displayed poor communication to employees and showed rampant favoritism.

Management in this location is (mostly) unprofessional.  The best managers I had in this location are either routinely given the worst working conditions or leave due to problems with the current store manager and/or the past district manager who did absolutely nothing to improve the condition of this district (especially this location).

This is a company that will exploit you. I never received a promotional raise when promoted from sales associate to head cashier position, my performance evaluations (which were necessary for me to receive raises) were always filed late and management failed to communicate to me when the company opted to change twice/year raises to once/year until months after my performance evaluation was supposed to be submitted.

Employee discounts were only 10% which covered barely more than sales tax in the state of Michigan and this location frequently violated labor laws regarding mandatory breaks for employees.

 The last year that I worked for this company I worked under a store manager who displayed blatant racism that forced an assistant manager to be fired and human resources did nothing about a report I filed regarding the lack of professionalism and discrimination I witnessed in the workplace.  

The current store manager does everything she can to avoid doing any real work when she is there, has been caught by an employee doing time clock fraud (changing hours of sales associates to pay them less money), violates OSHA laws (poor cleanliness and safety precautions--employees and customers have been injured on poorly placed shelving and fixtures), violates company policies and expects employees to cater to her wants and needs.  In any other workplace, she would've been fired.  But, corporate at this company has done nothing to investigate.  

This became one of the most unprofessional companies that I have ever worked for. I wouldn't be surprised if this location closes within the next year or two.

When i started it was crazy cause we just opened that year, it was crazy busy but fun cause everyone worked as a team even though people came and went. the manager knew what they were doing at the time. Now a days its not fun, everything is drama drama drama espeically when someone started working about last year i think, she is a two face one day is likes you the other she hates you, you pretty much have to do what she saids or she will hate you and not speak to you even thought your doing a good job if you dont go out with her i mean out side of work she doesnt like you and shes always on her phone either on twitter, facebook, or calling her man, she doesnt care for the company polices,shes rude to customers like talks back at them, there is more. my visual boss was amazing until she changed and pretty much didnt do anything, she doesnt stand up for her team knowing that we wouldnt do like just stand around or do nothing. she acused me of filling wrong thats when i had enough cause knowing how she is i know she likes everything perfect and i do my best fill right i know focal fixtures has to be at stander but if the room is full i do put more clothes on to the non focal fixtures but never the focal, store is huge plus most of the time we cant fill cause the room is too packed and customer complain that the store is to full its hard to shop i dont disagree with them its true, thats why i put in my two weeks in i had enough but then when i came back to work they fired me for thinking i hated all of the managers i dont just two but before that the DM knew i was not like it anymore it help talking to her even though she said that our conversation was privite it wasnt thats what tick me off to. i did my job and those two week i was push my self to help them make the week. I was gonna put my two weeks when the other two visual did but i didnt wanna be mean to my boss cause i knew her pretty much when i started and i know that wouldnt be fair to her so i waited until she had a new crew but she did me wrong after what i did for her. their are good mangagers there like the co. she works way too hard more then the other shes amazing thats why i respect her. the other are awesome they work but need to boost that up more. stock manager is awesome she works just as hard always running around trying to do everything out on the floor or in the back helping her team out. i talked to some of the employees some think that they arn't being treat fair i understand i wish i could help but all i can say you desever better find another job that will treat you right or go to HR not like they are gonna do anything. what i did was visual work trying to make the store look presentable which was fun but not as well if the visual manager didnt like it she will fix it her self to me it made me feel like i suck or im not good enough not like visual distric manager she will explain no i feel it doesnt go with the color story or the girl try again she will help us by explaining the girl more or different textures to the clothes and she wont pick out the peice she will she what we pick out and tell us thats better instead of her picking it out. i really liked her she was cool, but thats how forever 21 is now a days maybe one day it will be better but now that i dont work there im stress free and feel happy again.

Working at Forever21 was interesting. It’s a job where if you get pushed around easily and you don’t mind it, it’d be great for you. But if you are a normal person then I do not recommend it in the slightest. 

Pros: 
•The pay in my area for what I was doing seemed fair. Granted the hours I was working were not. 
•If you are in visual like I was, you usually get off early. 
•Because you work with putting new clothes away you get first dibs on new items. 

Cons:
•You are just another worker to them, they don’t care about you. 
•High expectations, but NO TRAINING. They expect you to know how to do everything after being shown once, but if you don’t do it right they “punish” you by cutting hours. 
•Management was a joke. It was a catty, drama filled, Starbucks guzzling joke. 
•As visual you work your butt off for the whole shift, but normal sales associates and management get to be paid for playing on their phones, chatting, and making Starbucks runs MULTIPLE times a day. 
•Labor intense work. Constantly lifting boxes and mannequins which are heavy especially when it’s repeated movements. 
•When I was visual we had to get to work obnoxiously early. I’m talking 5-6 AM. The earliest I ever had to go in was 4 IN THE MORNING. 
•Upper management (DistrictM, RegionalM) was ridiculous. They would tell you to switch up sections in the store by swapping them completely within near impossible time schedules. Like before opening they expected you to completely switch the biggest sections in the store and take photos to prove you did it. 
•Conflicting instructions. The manager would tell you to do one thing, but the DM would tell you to do it a different way. DM would also visit a lot and tell you how to do things when you’re still working on it. For example say you’re resetting a table and not finished, DM will come up “you need to make all the stacks the same height. And choose one shade of red throughout” but you’re not finished. Not only that but you only have so much product, you can’t possibly only have certain shades of colors on a table. 
•They expect you to look the part. But they give you a generous 10% off of clothes. For how much this company makes, 10% off is a low blow. 
•F21 Forever cards (soul sucking CREDIT CARDS) are something they expect you to push at every transaction. Normally that makes sense, but they won’t let you take no as an answer. My store had bad reviews because the employees were so aggressive about it. They gave incentives for the cards like if you got x amount of cards you could make your schedule however you wanted. 
•The store was always messy. You could be fixing anything with no one around and as soon as a section is fixed everyone in the whole store is shopping that one fixed section. 
•The customers are ridiculous. They expect so much of you. You will get a lot of “hi I’m looking for this shirt. It’s white and it has sleeves” like you’re expected to know exactly what and where it is. Or they come up with a screenshot of something they found online and want you to tell them where it is. But because it’s a screenshot you can’t see anything other than a picture of the item.

On a daily basis as a production coordinator at Forever21 consists of many duties. I am in contact with 5 vendors that are located across seas who we place a certain amount of orders per season. We are keeping track of approximately 3-4 seasons at a time. As a production coordinator, I am responsible to keep track of each order/style from the colors and fabric qualities coming in correctly, which I review with our team designer to making sure that the garments are fitting as we had envisioned when we first create the style. If any issues with meeting the set in-house date or other situations such as shipment coming in incorrectly, I would report to my upper-manager to discuss the best solution. 

I have learned many valuable qualities working at Forever21 Corporate. First off, as a production coordinator, I have learned to prioritize my tasks throughout the day because there are several vendors I need to keep track with their work flow and making sure I am relaying any information in a timely manner. I have learned how to handle different fabric qualities as far as knowing a standard of what is considered acceptable and what is poor quality. I have also learned time management is crucial in this job because everything is considered urgent. Because there is always a sense of urgency, I have learned to not be overwhelmed and to stay organized to get all the tasks I need to finish in a 9 hour day. 

Management is one of the most difficult parts about this job. I have learned that working in this company there is a generation, but also culture gap. The managers I report to have different ways of approaching certain situations which makes it difficult to agree to, because I was not raised in a similar culture. 

Majority of the employees that I am surrounded by are females approximately my age. It's been encouraging being able to meet other females who are driven to work in the fashion industry which makes team work become second nature and not forceful. Although everyone has different personalities, our goals and mindset of why we come into work are similar, which makes our workload not burdensome. 

A difficult aspect of this job is that it becomes overwhelming at times, because it can be such a roller coaster when it comes to working with vendors across seas. Issues may arise at various times and sometimes it can happen all at once. It becomes difficult to focus on other day-to-day tasks when you have to resolve problems right away as well. I constantly have to remind myself to not feel stressed and to solve these problems one at a time and not feel so consumed by them. 

The most enjoyable part of my job is the team I work with. I am lucky to have team of other coordinators, designers, and buyers that I get along with and have positive work flow. We all seem to have the same passion and energy of the styles we work on.

I took this job in the fall of 2010, and I truly hope it has changed.
A typical day begins with showing up and clocking in. Then you go meet with whoever is deemed in charge for the day. Normally they have a clipboard telling them where you will be thrown. But you won't be allowed to enter the sales floor until you are inspected; which entails someone to judge whether or not your attire is fashionable and determines whether you have any electronics on you. There is no excuse for having a cell phone on you, its a write up and an early day if its even on you, doesn't matter if its silenced or off; indeed, doesn't matter if your brother/sister/mother/father/husband/wife/etc is hospitalized and you have to have your phone on you to receive word. After that whole practice, you go out to the sales floor or to your cashier station. On the way there, you get told to do 10 different things by 5 different people. You do your job right or you do your job wrong, it doesnt matter because the merchandising associates, the people who are only a step above the lowest of the low (floor associates) will harass you. Harrassment is not only commonly practiced by the upper echelons; it goes unpunished and is occasionally encouraged.You go about your day until your ten minute break comes along. You go to the employee lounge and endure things like racist jokes, religionist jokes, just conversation that is both not workplace friendly and borderline illegal in my state. And a Forever 21 employee takes 2 ten minute breaks and a half hour lunch. About that half hour lunch, it has to be exactly a half hour. Not one minute more or less or its a write up. Just about anything is a write up except harassment or the behavior in the employee lounge. Many of the supervisors are still in high school and thus not mature enough to do more than perform transactions or maintain the sales floor. Managers take favorites and will not hesitate to promote them. Many of the people that are hired are really young and really immature. There are some good people there, but your coworkers will not hesitate to turn you in for so much as taking a potty break for too long. The hardest part of the job was just dealing with the people you work with. The most enjoyable part was actually doing the job. Don't work here if you're different from the social norm, experience any sort of health problem, dislike your race, religion, etc being ridiculed, or dislike being told what to do by people who could be your kid siblings, forever 21 is not for you. I would be satisfied if it was just shut down but that is my own personal opinion. I experienced harassment, threats, and nearly got into a fist fight. No disciplinary action was taken against the instigators. I wasn't the only one. If you enjoy being your own person, don't work here.

The things I witnessed and heard about in my short time with this location are enough that that location should be shut down. Firstly, the store was a major safety hazard. There was no equipment for the stock team to safely perform their job. There were shipment boxes piled high in the fitting room, stock room, and the sales floor. Customers frequently asked if the store was closing because of the hundreds of boxes on the sales floor. The schedule was horrible and was always posted at the last minute, and then regularly had to be altered after that. Employees, including management, would call out or no call no show, or come in late, or leave early whenever they felt like it with no repercussions. There was blatant favoritism. Employees were never given handbooks (I specifically requested one when I started and had to receive it from a different location than the one I worked at) and therefore did not know their rights. Associates were disrespected and talked down to on a daily basis. The break room was a disaster. In the break room, they also kept all the trash (piled high and taking up half the space), as well as visual supplies (mannequins, fixture equipment etc), and the room was just dusty and dirty and grimey. The employee bathrooms hardly ever have toilet paper, or paper towels. There were times there weren’t even gloves to take the trash out. Employees were constantly threatened with the words “big brother is watching” (meaning corporate is watching the cameras). If big brother is watching, why did they sit and watch and do nothing as their employees are being belittled, disrespected, overworked, and forced to work in filth? My hard work and effort went completely unappreciated even though I had never called out, been late, or left before my shift ended. The day I quit, I was targeted by a “higher up” who was very disrespectful, sarcastic, and acted as if they had done me a favor or bestowed a great gift on me by allowing me to work for them for a less hourly rate than my peers at a retail store with a rightfully earned horrible reputation. The pay sucks, you will be yelled at or have people talk behind your back, your time will come where you will feel the wrath, you will be short staffed, you will be stressed. If you are feeling ill during your shift you will not be allowed to leave, you will be called a liar, you will be made to stand in one spot doing the same monotonous task for your entire shift. You will be made to work longer hours than you expected to. You will be referred to as nothing more than a “warm body”. This company is a BAD investment. Do yourself a favor and keep browsing indeed.

I worked for this company back in 2012 for only 6 months while I was still going to college. I would drive about 30 minutes from my home to work since the store I worked at was in a different city that wasn’t too far from where I lived. I worked about 3 times a week on days I didn’t have school. Pretty much all of my shifts were 4 hours long with occasional 6 hours shifts scheduled here and there. On a very rare occasion would I get scheduled an 8 hour shift. I only worked the sales floor greeting customers and offering shopping bags for an easier shopping experience. I would grab my go backs from the fitting rooms and proceed to work them out in my assigned area or the store. I would constantly zone my areas throughout my shift so that nothing was on the floor and the fixtures were easy to look through and shop for customers. Occasionally I would get asked by customers to help find specific articles of clothing that they had seen on our website prior to coming in to the physical store. I never worked the fitting room or was a cashier and never got offered to train in those areas. I did work receiving one day and that was only because we came in for an overnight shift to do markdowns and there wasn’t enough working scanners available to use.  For the most part I would work opening shifts and at least once a week I would have a closing shift. My closing shifts would be scheduled for 5 hours but we would actually stay two to three hours longer some nights depending on how bad the store needed recovery and zoning to make it look acceptable in the morning for customers. During closing shifts we would get called to the registers at midnight to clock out then clock back in so we would be considered working “a new day” and not actually get overtime pay like we should’ve been getting in the first place. Like I said I worked there back in 2012 and we are in 2018 almost 2019 now so I’m sure the company has changed a lot and improved their processes over the years or maybe they haven’t. I haven’t kept in touch with my old coworkers from there so I wouldn’t know what has changed and what hasn’t. This was my first real job and it allowed me to learn how a retail company works and I started to gain work experience and learned how to engage with customers and really allowed me to learn customer service.

The company is okay. I had an awful experience working here just because of the people I worked with but I'll try to keep that out of the actual job review. This company is great for anyone looking to pursue visual merchandising. Not only is there plenty of job openings for it because of how big Forever 21 stores are, but they give you so much freedom and really let you be creative with merchandising outfits, mannequins, walls, etc. They are very open with dress code as well. You can wear whatever you want except if it has large brand names on it and even then they don't care too much. However, the actual company is very cheap. Everyone including management gets 10% employee discount.. Which by the way is the exact same discount for customers if they have a damaged item or a complaint or anything really. A lot of people make the argument, "well all the stuff is really cheap" which is true but most people work retail for the discounts. Don't waste your time or money. They don't provide any incentive to make you want to stay so the turn over rate for this company is ridiculous especially for associates.  Don't even get me started on the return policy and how many times I've had to deal with an upset customer and try to figure out a way to bring them back into the store and continue business with us. They are very flexible with your schedule and availability because they have so many people that can work so that's a plus. I really did like that I didn't have to work weekends if I didn't want to which is rare for retail. Also if you work two jobs they will work with you so that's a plus as well. This is a great company to start in if you don't have any work experience or retail experience. There's not much room to grow in this company though. Management spots are limited and if you join a store like the one I'm from the same people have been in the same position for 3+ years so if you're looking to grow this isn't the company for you. They pay minimum wage and after a year you get a pay increase based on an evaluation. The most you can get is a  $0.20 raise YEARLY. That's all I really have to say about the company with out getting into too much detail about the people I had to work for. I wouldn't recommend this job to anyone and I surely will never work here again.

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