sales specialist

truck driver

department supervisor

customer service representative

retail sales associate

Lowes Home Improvement

I could write a small book on this position alone, detailing all the pro's and con's but I'm going to try to keep it short. However if anyone ever wants to apply for this position you will know everything you need to know by my review.

So just like other retail stores, the job satisfactory and if you like it will depend on the job itself and the particular store your at and management. I will speak only from my experience working for lowe's for the past 8 months doing order fulfillment.  I'm focusing just on the job itself, I don't have anything to much about the management, because management at my store isn't too bad, it's just the job itself and what it entails, that's not something they can really change. 

Learning order fulfillment is pretty simplistic, it may take a few days but, I believe a middle schooler could learn the job, it's simple. I had a good trainer who showed me the ropes and how to correctly locate,  pick, and stage products.  Lowe's does give you training videos for the job which are helpful. It is alot of information to digest at once so It would be good to split it up. But I learned the fastest by just doing the job itself without the training videos. 

Now, order fulfillment is probably the least favorite job any lowe's employee in the store wants to do. I asked a few employee's would they want to do it and they all gasped in horror, NOBODY wants to do it.  Few reasons why, 1), the orders can get really big and really heavy, you might have a customer place an order who has 14 items, and 10 of them are lumber pieces and could be 80 or more pieces of lumber, and also if ordered concrete etc it can get really exhausting and heavy to lift.

2). Finding Carts- this isnt a major issue, but if you have an order that your trying to find and pick quickly, sometimes you can't find a cart because there scattered all over the store and parking lot, or there all being used by eitiher customers or other orders. Because certain items you pick especially lumber and building materials need the right cart to be placed on, and you can't just use any cart for certain orders, others management might say something to you.

  3). Curbside/Order fulfillment is constantly being called all over the store, either as a CODE 50 (which is to help a customer load items into their truck/or carry an item to their car) or your being called to go retrieve an order somewhere in the store. This can get really frustrating because you also have to pick your orders and also pick them within a certain time limit but it's hard to that when you get called every few minutes to do something else other than PICK your order! And then when your being called to do something else or if a customer stops you, that cuts into your picking time, and then you also have more orders coming in by customers so you start falling behind, and if your the only fulfillment associate scheduled for the day, your going to be scrambling all over the place trying to find, pick and stage the items, while also being called for CODE 50's and also help other customers. And also sometimes managers will call you to do certain tasks too. As stated curbside/fulfilment is called more than ANY other positon in the store, even more called upon than MOD's (managers on duty).

The worse is when customer service calls you and your in the back of the store, and you walk up to the front of the store, and they tell you to get an order, and you got to walk right back to the back of the store again to bring the order back to the front. But it happens all the time.  

Depending on the store your at you might have either 1 or 2 people doing curbside/order fulfillment everyday.  Mornings when the store opens from 6:00 am - 10:30 am doing fulfillment isn't that bad, nobody is really in the store and nobody is really placing orders that early, you will get a few to pick, but not to much. 2 hours might go by without you receiving an order in the phone. Around 11 am thats when things picks up, orders come through and customers start to fill up the store. 


If there is 3 people doing order fulfillment at the same time, the job will be a piece of cake. Because one can pick orders, the others can just do the curbside, or vise versa. 

Not only do you have to pick the open orders, but also as a fulfillment associate you have to pick the Delivery orders. I know some stores the fulfillment associate doesn't pick delivery orders, but my store does. These orders at times can SUCK, because alot of them are PRO customer orders/ businesses so they are ordering a bunch of lumber, concrete and other construction/home building materials that gets super heavy.  POSITIVE thing is though, some customers will TIP you for helping them carry an item or load a washer, or load soil/mulch into their vehicles, which is nice. 

Sometimes when your doing fulfillment especially when your by yourself you don't get a 15 minute break, and some days you don't have time to take a lunch break! But sometimes when you do get your 1 hour lunch break, they usually will have a cashier cover for you during your lunch break and pick the orders that come in while your on break. A lot of times the cashier's are lazy as heck, and decide to only pick the really small items like 1 or 2 , and sometimes they don't pick anything, so you get back from your lunch break and you got all these orders piled up and your like "what the heck?" Like I said fulfilllment is the least attractive and probably hardest job at lowe's in the store, nobody wants to do it. 

It's a lot of work for such little pay honestly. There's only so much you can learn doing it for so long, other departments you can really learn and expand your knowledge, with fulfillment, once you know the job, there's nothing else to really learn about it, so it can get very boring and unmotivating. However you will get a lot of steps in, I usually get about 20,000 plus per work shift. 

Some days fulfillment is slow, you might not get that many orders, so you can use the down time to walk around the store to help other customers, or help your fellow employee's or learn other departments.

At first I like this job, but I notice when I started in the fall, and now since it's warm especially in Texas the job gets increasingly harder, and the orders get bigger and bigger.  I went from liking it to now almost despising it. I would advise if you have the option don't apply for the position. If you need the job and want experience go ahead, but there's many other positions at Lowe's that's beneficial and can grow your skillset than fulfillment. 



Where do I start? The training seems long and repetitive, you have to do an online portion and it takes hours each day. With mine they "accidentally" gave me training for both a loader and a retail employee. Lowe's opens at 6  (except Sundays) and that's a burden, people were always standing outside the door waiting. Not long after I got there they made a new rule that you had to be 15 minutes early, why? To just stand there. Some person was 15 minutes late because they had to "get ready" in the back room and couldn't open up the garden section because of it (yeah only one person works out there at a time for this store) so they made this rule for everyone because of one person. Luckily the next part was before I got there but they originally wouldn't let you have anything but water (when they sell Gatorade, Pepsi and such RIGHT THERE) and it had to be in a clear bottle. You stand all day and takes some getting used to, I had to go and buy new shoes that didn't hurt my feet.

They didn't think that I was offering enough promotions so they gave me a script...a script...just replace me with a robot why don't ya? I worked on the front end and if I worked nights, I was alone and I hated that. They encourage you to call (on the register phone) for help if it gets busy but half the time nobody answers, the head cashier is usually at customer service or just standing there watching you. Like I said half the time nobody answers but for anything, whether you need a loader, a part number or etc. It gets tedious. It also gets repetitive real quickly, speaking of repetitive did I mention that the music is on a loop? All the same songs just on shuffle. I had a pretty good chance of guessing what song it was when I walked it, always threw off my vibe and no matter how much I complained about it they didn't make it better. I heard that music when I would lay down at night, I would hear the head cashiers phone ring when I would lay down at night. I had nightmares of working a shift then waking up and actually having to do it. The system is old af and is complicated but has a lot in it. I learned so many shortcuts for it that I found myself jumping up to press "Shift+F1" every-time someone said the word "military" because that's how you apply a military discount (all the time btw even outside of work). Loaders are supposed to refill the Primo water jugs but they had me do it a lot of the time, they didn't make it easy to get to either, it was on the other end of the store and the place was blocked at the time so I told the manager and he didn't do anything, I went around the building and got them. I was sweating after walking all that way with flat-carts full of the stuff and as I'm restocking and that same manager comes out and asks me how school's going (what's with it with old people asking about school) no context, just stood there and watched me reload these things, not bothering to help or do anything but ask me personal questions. That's not uncommon for supervisors to do that I'm sure but it still ticks me off and almost made me quit right there.

I worked full time but switched to part-time for college and this manager was horrible at scheduling because it seemed like every shift had me coming in while I had a class, I kept informing her that I couldn't come in on time but it just kept happening. With that they left me no time in between school and work so it was a cycle, I don't eat during my classes so I starved half the time because if you don't work 6+ hours then you don't get a break, not even a 15 minute one unless you have a killer head cashier that's cool (with me, rarely). Lunch was always up to them when you work 8 hours so you could have a super early lunch or a super late lunch. In my experience they gave you everything at once, you had an hour lunch, unpaid (instead of a half hour lunch and then 2 paid 15 minute breaks) and that broke everything, I suffered and would have to sneak snacks all the time, I now have appetite issues (I'm a skinny boy) and I'm thinking it might be because of that.

I have so many stories that I could tell but in the end it caused me trauma, I couldn't go to any store without shaking and having anxiety, was it Lowe's or retail in general? I'm not sure but I will say that I'm glad with what happened. As I mentioned, I switched to part-time and during that time they started hiring new members, new managers, I even helped train the one dude and he's asking me general questions and he says "do you like it here?" and I said "Not really." but hey I got paid and I just tried to put up with it, I wasn't going to lie. This new guy went and complained to one of the managers and said that I had "a bad attitude" and that "I'm never happy." I'm sorry but this is Lowe's not Disney World, I cry in the bathroom sometimes. And just stuff like that, they combined that with the excuse that I didn't make enough "credit card applications" that they so push for (as I mentioned the promotions and script earlier) so if I wasn't going to make those goals and act happy then I could just leave. So I did. They didn't want me there, they didn't recognize me for how much money I made over everyone else (one of the top performers in that btw but they don't acknowledge it, and I know that because there's a screen in the system for it. "3.7" if I remember correctly) and when I asked to be somewhere else then they told me there really wasn't any other positions. I thought merchandiser was mainly stocking in the first place and had to ask when they were interviewing me because they were asking some irrelevant questions for that. I wouldn't be surprised though because my friend applied for head cashier and they made him a loader. I could see they showed some favoritism.

I have worked for Lowe's for 10 years. In that time I have been through so much tumult that led to so little improvement that I can't understate it. 

They removed commisions and Spiffs from employees in 2011 to 'make paychecks more reliable' and in their place they gave employees an "allowance" that we were all told would be there until we either moved to a salaried position or we exited the company. This year the new CEO has withdrawn that and said that they are just taking that away after January 31st. No problem that he is taking money from front line associates. I am rather sure his bonus and options are unchanged...

We lost Department Managers when they chose to restructure in 2015. This forced the actual leaders of the store, the ones who were the backbones of every department to scramble from 14ish positions down to 5. Then they utilized the people who had been Dept Managers as back up managers anyway, even though they left their positions (and more importantly pay behind). And some of our best Department Managers left the company. Lowe's said they had to to 'add more red vests to the sales floor'. Funny thing is we never got more employees. In fact we have basically the same number TODAY as we had then. If not possibly less because in this strong labor market we get few applicants and many departments just run short everyday. Just like the Spiffs and Commisions it was a cash grab. Fewer people doing massively more to pad bonuses for executives and hide the incompetence of the Corporate Leaders lack of vision with false savings for financial reporting. The new "Service and Support Managers" did all of the work of an ASM, and in many cases did all of their ASM's work for a whopping 5% increase from what they had made before. Now managing vast sections of the stores, and being given opening and closing duties (so the ASM's could continue leaving early and spending the bulk of their day socializing with each other). 

Then they took away the ability for employees to cash out their holiday pay. This was for some the only "bonus" they really got since the company constantly moves the carrot so far down the stick that stores that make extremely solid profits for the company will never see a bonus for their employees. This is because their sales plan is so rigged against some stores that it never happens. My store went so long without SSEI (the quarterly bonus) that many of the employees who were nearing a year with the company had no idea what it was. Meanwhile our store was the highest selling store in the district time and time again, easily comping the previous years sales. 

Recently they eliminated the Facilities and Assembly associates. They didn't give them any severance, despite many of them being 10-20 year employees, and at least the Assembly Person at my store was so proud of their work and cared so much about the product going out to customers they would check every grill and lawnmower as it was being staged to be loaded on a delivery truck. Wiping them down so they looked perfect for the customers. And this move too was said "To give our associates more time with customers." This is also a blatant lie. What it really does it take another associate off the floor to clean things that te Facilities associate would have. And it also takes associates off the floor to assemble things when a customer service situation comes up. Because now the 3rd party assembly company only comes once a week. And sometimes just fails to show up. 

 All of this sounds horrific. But the worst part of working at Lowe's is that the systems, and the policies in place are like stone walls that seperate you from being able to do what your job is. Antiquated and unconnected computer systems that give you incorrect data, block you from the necessary data entry, run slower than molasses in winter, and fail on such a regular basis that you spend much of your time simply finding work arounds because they don't work as intended. Even the primary sales system a text based UNIX interface which has been deployed for at least 20 years has simplistic flaws that it is impossible to believe someone could not have patched into something workable within that time. The other systems that are supposed to work in unison with one another fail to do so on a regular basis. And it is the customer who pays the price. And of course the associate who is scrambling every minute of their day to try to make this horrific amalgamation of incompatible tech function and then being screamed at by the customers who it fails. 

But the CEO gets paid a lot. He is now simply mirroring everything Home Depot does. We have gained a bit. But no one in the stores think those gains are sustainable. Because #2 can't become #1 by simply mirroring everything #1 does. And in the Ivory Tower in North Carolina where decisions are made by people who have likely been in a store only a handful of times (as if a college degree somehow makes someone a wonk in retail), the decisions seem great I am sure. 

I actually really loved working here a long time ago. Before we decided that change with no aim was somehow a path to success. Before we took everything away from everyone to placate the stock holders and pay for low productivity executives. Before we made every process an impossible situation. Before all the lies.

A typical day at work would be to help any customer in need that approaches you or comes into the store, give them a kind, valued approach and find out all of there needs while they are with us in the store. Second comes to beginning and completing your tasks throughout your day, whether it be down-stocking product from our steel racking, to doing tasks around the store your manager assigned to you, to helping out other departments with there tasks, usually your days consist of a work list of some sort.

I have learned many things with being with Lowe's. I managed to learn how to operate powered equipment, more product knowledge in home improvement that I anticipated. I have learned that I love working around people, and helping customers in need, and I as well have learned Shipping & Receiving which I was the Lead Receiver for 2 years.

Management is not something I could give highly reviews on, feeling scared to be around a manager is something I wish to not be a part of again. I always heard if you keep busy, do what you're suppose to be doing, as well as try to improve yourself and make things better and more efficient for the good of the company most managers will stay off of you and stick behind you. I wish for a manager to talk to me like a human being and treated like one. Not somebody of slave labor or a person who is small or below them based upon there hourly wage or there position in the company. Most companies I feel stress to there managers to not be this way to there employees, but in some ways with Lowe's I feel it never got through to corporate how much somebody doesn't deserve to be in a leadership roll no matter how many complaints they get, and no matter how much paper work can be on somebody the trail would never come to an end. I feel management needs a huge with Lowe's and the way they approach finding there managers. I will always gladly do as a manager asks, or any task a manager gives, to the point I try to show I want to make room for improvement myself so maybe I could get a little further with my company as well and take on further responsibility because for me there is only room to grow. Management can always try to work on improving but whether some people say it or not, some do not wish to change, and it shouldn't take years and years to take further action on somebody with multiple  upon multiple complaints.

My co-workers are the greatest part about going to work. They are the essence of what keeps my store and my employment with the store in line and feeling alive. People that have real personalities and can feel like you can be yourself around no matter how you are as a person is what keeps people wanting to stay anywhere for any employment. The greatest part is how thankful so many of my co-workers could be. I could have conversations for hours with my employees and have fun and still be able to manage to get all my tasks done and have time spare to start other projects or tasks. If somebody is kind to you and you get along with them and work directly with them I am a firm believer in the fact that somebody will work harder because of such positive smiles and laughs around you as long as you keep your mind on what needs to be done and follow through at the same time.

The hardest part of the job is at times is being tasked with things that personally should not fall on to you being they are not part of your job. It's one thing to help somebody with there job, but with my store I am asked at times to do even 3 different jobs that are usually held by certain people to get those jobs done. At times I think it could be because of my work ethic, but it is not fair to the people that already have tasks to get done throughout there day and it sets them really far behind and at times you will have a whole work list to get done throughout a 9 hour day and because you're pulled to do different tasks all around the store by different managers that somebody else should be taking care of that leaves you sometimes with 2 or maybe 3 hours to get either half or the full list of tasks that you were suppose to get done. And then your direct manager will lecture you or have a talk about why you can't complete your tasks and when you explain all the other tasks you were asked to do by different managers through the store your direct manager still will seem they don't understand when sometimes somebody else's task apart from your own work list can take an hour or maybe even an hour in a half to 2 hours to complete. And your pulled by multiple managers throughout your day and yet somehow your direct manager won't understand even though they know it's what goes on they take further action on it acting like it does exist.

The most enjoyable part of my day is when I can directly work with customers and they seem very pleased to get any help at all and they can leave feeling they have really been helped and taken care of and say they would love to come back all the time due such an excellent experience they had working side by side with me. One customer one time told me if all my co-workers were like me they would have no problem coming into the store at any time. It makes you feel like your job really can be worth fighting for at the end of the day, as if you're really making a difference to people.

Management honestly sucks at the Front end of the store, and the back end. The store i work at has a total of ten Managers, only three of them are decent enough to work with. The others are honestly bad when it comes to treating associates like people. Out of the 5 head cashiers, three of them are great. 

No matter where you work, everyone has a favorite or favorites. If you're actual manager material, you wouldn't make it so blatantly obvious and make the others feel like trash. For example: every time 'X' works with 'Y' and 'X' doesn't feel well, 'Y' lets them go home early. If i work with 'Y' and i'm vomiting for half an hour in the bathroom and request to go home, it's a problem. One of my favorite moments with the new front end manager was when i had a family emergency, i went up to 'E' and told her i had to leave due to a family emergency and she stated that my 'attendance hasn't been that great and they'd prefer it if i stayed there.' Yet, this is a company that is all about family and helping people love where they live.

A typical day at my job really depends on who you work with. Some people make it easier, others make you feel like you're a slave or the red headed step child and put you as fr away from them as possible and pretend you don't exist your entire shift.

I'm a full-timer, so i work five days that are 9 hour days with one short shift (8 hours.) Our policy is to have a break every two hours essentially. Say i have work 1-10: 15 minute break at 3, hour lunch at 5, last 15 minute break at 8. We're lucky to get at least one of those breaks aside from our lunch during our shift. We're either short staffed, they forget about us, or we aren't a favorite of whoever is working as a head cashier that day. And forget about this magical thing called a break when you work at the customer service desk, it's nearly impossible. It gets so swamped and half the time there's only one person up there.

If you're looking for a full-time job with set hours, do NOT apply here. They say they're flexible, but you can't have set times to work. You're put on rotation where you have off two days a week, and schedule you 7 days in a row starting the 2 days of the end of the pay week and five days into the new pay week. I almost never work a morning shift or mid shift which really sucks due to the fact i can only see my kid two days a week. That's due to the fact they keep hiring part-timers who can work only mornings and depending on the full-timer, they're a favorite so they get mornings or mids to work since they're on their good side.

Scheduling sucks, but the pay is quite higher then the minimum wage in my state my last job before this i was making $9.25/hr. They started me at $11.79/hr and after i was cross trained in customer service they bumped me up to $12.41/hr.

I love the fact i can learn all types of new things here in all the departments. I didn't know much about flowers, paint, tools, lumber, flooring, or any of that stuff. I still don't know a lot, but I've learned quite a bit by working here. And our regulars are just amazing and delightful. I made some amazing friends with staff members and customers. Not only do i learn things from the departments but i also learn things from customers. And i love when a customer says "i'm almost done with ____" or that they've learned something new.

The hardest part of the job on my end is having a life outside of the job and having time for my family. I usually end up working every holiday (aside from Thanksgiving and Christmas since we are closed on those days.) And it doesn't matter when or how far in advance i put in a "request off" , it is usually declined due to the fact i'm not a favorite of my scheduling manager.

If you work customer service, the hardest part is being under-staffed and dealing with angry customers while trying to answer the phone, take care of an internet order, do a return, and find out a delivery time while checking out a customer. As well as be on your feet for 3-5 hours straight depending on scheduling or call-outs.

If you're a cashier, one of the hardest parts is dealing with the customers complaining about things you can't help and them taking it out on you. "i'm going to home depot next time because you guys don't have coke products"; "no i didn't find everything alright because i had no idea where to look. You do not have a directory and the person i asked near the lawn mowers had no idea what i was talking about when i asked about pet care products. I couldn't find the dog food anywhere and no one could tell me where it was" "You need to do something about your bag issue. You guys need bigger bags." "What o you mean it's ringing up $9.87? The price tag said it was $9.86!! I need to speak to your manager." "I spend thousands and thousands of dollars here at your store and you're telling me that you can't order me this blind that was discontinued in 2001?" 

I love my job, i love the people i get to meet everyday and the stories i get to hear and things i get to learn. But with the new management, and the scheduling.. i need to look elsewhere. A job where managers treat everyone equally, and where i can have a set schedule so i can spend time with my son, that's not just two days a week when i'll have errands and stuff to do.

Current Trends:
Lowering pay, increasing hours, 80% overall negative engagement by IT employees, hypocrisy rampant from management, serious effort by management to outsource core IT development and have employee SME's "manage" the out-sourced teams.

Typical Day:
Well, for employees in IT, your typical day will consist of about 3-4 hours of meetings-- if not more. Yet you will still be expected to get your actual work done. Talking is very important at Lowe's... you must "collaborate" and socialize with others often. Your job DOES depend on it! Consultants actually do all the work I guess, since they are paid a premium. It does pay well to be a consultant there, literally.

There is normally some kind of weekly (if not daily) "Lowe's Cheer" where everyone is supposed to cram into the cafe and do the cheer like you are in high school. It's a big deal for them. That's normally around 8, and expect to stay until 5:30 or 6!

Seriously, when I think of a typical day... I can't think of anything other than all the dang meetings... so yes, you meet and meet and meet and discuss, ad nauseam.

What I learned:
I did learn some impressive standards for coding, but that was only the style of the Project Manager at the time. It is not a standard of Lowe's in particular. Speaking of which, expect a TON of shuffling around. They re-organize about every 6 months it seems...

Management:
Middle management is COMPLETELY incompetent and only interested in their numbers. They micro-manage. They are UNDER qualified... most of them have degrees from community colleges or online degrees. What does that tell you? Yes, they might have technical experience from some other company, but Lowe's wants middle management to only look good on paper. They say they want to get away from command-and-control, but my manager was totally that. He even scheduled meetings with me to go over my grammar and syntax in my emails/blog-posts, and I was a double-major in English at a real college! Man what gaul and shows the mentality of most management there.

Middle-management are all akin to high-school guidance counselors... now that I really think about it. I'm sorry but that's an epic fail.

Management is completely close-minded and the command-and-control style is STILL around there. Prepare yourself to be micro-managed if you work there, which some people apparently need. The culture is NOT open... they only want "yes men" and if you don't continually espouse how awesome Lowe's is... it really does go against you. You cannot critique anything-- be warned. Not to your manager (he/she won't follow up), nor within the company blog-of-chaos, nor anywhere else. And diversity??? You must be of a certain nationality as that is the ONLY diversity they promote and celebrate--- PERIOD. If you are anything else... you don't count as "diversity" except on paper and for HR propaganda purposes.

Co-workers:
Some are really awesome but you have to do trial-and-error to find them. Most co-workers are foreign-born and have huge problems speaking English like you are used to. It really is an issue-- communication... so a great skill to have would be to pick up and study Hindi before you work there.

Important FACT: The most recent confidential employee survey... fully 75% of regular employees are ACTIVELY LOOKING FOR WORK ELSEWHERE!!! What does that tell you?!! And this is not a fluke, it's a growing trend and that number has been steadily increasing for the last 5 years. Management is desperate to hire you, yet their attitude is that there are 100 more applicants for your position.

So unless you are a "zombified yes-man" then you will not work for Lowe's for long.

Oh yeah... documentation for all their systems? LOL.... don't count on it. They don't document anything, and when they do it is a complete disaster and total chaos-- basically worthless. It's not important to management. Never has been.

Hardest part of job:
Dealing with low (no pun intended) standards for documentation and deliverables. Impossible to be agile, though they tell everyone they are... changes take FOREVER to occur and are late if ever when they do happen (except for changes in upper management which is frequent in IT).
Dealing with management and their refusal to listen to really valid, really poignant employee suggestions.

Most enjoyable aspect:
I was shifted to a different group during the last re-org. They (Lowe's and my micro-encephalic manager) REFUSED to train me for the new position. I complained... and got punished for it! So I learned to sit there and wait for my time to go home, which is the best part of my day. That, and the open campus so I can go for a drive if I really need to get away from all of the above (especially that really bad, but good-on-paper manager).

I worked for Lowe's Home Improvement for almost eight years. I worked at two different stores. I worked at a Lowe's near South Bend, Indiana for three years. Then I worked at a Lowe's in Indianapolis for 4 and a half years. At first working for Lowe's was pretty good. I managed to move up within a year of starting to department manager. I did this for about a year until I decided to go back to school and finish my degree. My first store was pretty good about me continuing my education. I stepped down to focus on school and everything was pretty good.

 After three years I moved to the Indianapolis area and transferred to another store there. I transferred in with the promise from management that they would allow me to work full-time and they would work with my school schedule. Well unfortunately the Assistant Store Manager that worked on my transfer left the company by the time I got there. And the replacement manager also left the company shortly after. I should have known something was up when it seemed this store had trouble keeping management around.

My first year at my new start was a little hectic. They decided not to work with my school schedule while being full-time. After trying to get a balance I decided to step down to part-time so they would work with my school schedule. This seemed to work for a little while due to my current department manager being the only one able to work with me and my schedule. 

At the start of the 2015 year the store had a big management shakeup. We ended up with a couple new Assistant Store Managers, a new Store Manager, and some of the department managers were shuffled around. This is when things got worse for me with scheduling. All of a sudden it was really hard for Lowe's to work with my school schedule and I was constantly having to remind them of scheduling me incorrectly or too much. For some reason they would not put me in their Kronos system to work only certain days and hours like I had it prior to the management change. It was rather odd, some weeks they would work with my schedule and then others they would throw it out the door. 

What ended up with me leaving the company was the fall of 2015.I decided to take on more college classes to get finished quicker. Let management know about this they said that was fine and they would work with me. Unfortunately they did not. After a couple months of continued wacky scheduling I went to the Human Resource Manager and my Assistant Store Manager and asked them to please fulfill their end of the agreement and work with my schedule. After saying they were going to work on it, nothing changed.

To make all of this worse my current vehicle started having problems and was starting to become unreliable and I didn't really have the money to fix it at the time. Again I went to management and asked them if they could work with my class schedule especially now that with my vehicle issues I had to try to juggle one vehicle with my wife and her job. 

Again management said that they could help me and that they were going to work with my schedule. After a month of nothing changing I went back to management expressing I really needed something to happen and asked if they were actually going to help or were they just saying that they would. 

After this I actually got a different response. The Human Resource Manager sent me a generic email stating that I could try to apply for a different position that may be more conducive to my situation. And that was the last I heard from HR. My Assistant Store Manager pretty much said that he wasn't sure what he could do to help me after all this time saying that he could.

I ended up quitting after all of this because I felt betrayed for the many times I was lied to and led on how they could help me. And I couldn't get to work on a regular basis.

 I guess I was too trusting. Being a place I worked at for several years I was really trying to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe them. I would have preferred them to be mature and just say no that they couldn't work with or even fire me. At least then when the schedule problem arose I could've looked for another job that would have worked with me and wouldn't have had to have all the stress of juggling transportation, wacky work schedule, and school work.

I would suggest to anyone looking for employment at Lowe's to be wary about the management at the location you are applying at. It seems some stores or location are perfectly fine. It all seems dependent on the culture of that specific district or store.

I was a part time associate and my work hours used to be scheduled by a person but a computer system came in which scheduled automatically.  It sucked.
Often I found I was scheduled to close, finishing at 10pm, and open the next day at 7am. These shifts required you to work hardest.  It took me more than one hour to drive between the store and my home, so I was often left with less than six hours sleep between shifts.  Even tho I asked about rescheduling nothing happened.  I was late a couple times but never got wrote up.
In the dept I worked there were six people total. Of which half were full time and half were part time.

Other associates I worked with were mostly great but there were some slackers who took every chance they could to avoid working as hard.  Even the Pro Associate in one dept was a slacker and took his time doing anything.  One hour for lunch and he often took 90 mins, he had 15 min breaks which he took 30 mins.  As soon as another associate came in to work the dept, he hands over the two phones (wireless as well as an iphone). Nobody ever wrote him up or discipline him even though from what I heard most every body knew about it, they just let him do what he wanted.

In my dept six people gradually went to three because two left and were not replaced, and another was moved to another department. That meant me (part time) and two full time associates.  Even though we were busy with customers and had to stock shelves and tidy our zones, some things could not be done in time.  Guess what of course customers came first because they pay our wages.  So stock was not put on shelves in time or things were not tidy.  The boxes of things that cost upwards of $80 were dusty on the shelfs because of the lack of cleanliness in the store which was old. 
The night stocking crew did not help by putting too much on the shelfs or putting top stock in the wrong place.  It was so much hard work that could have been not necessery..   Then the schedule system schedules the first person in the dept to come in at 8 or even 9am, so that was two hours with nobody there and still lots of inventory to put on shelfs before 11am as well as attend to customer.

 But the store manager never made allowance for that and wrote some bad memos to the dept manager about tidy zones and such.  She was not in touch with what was happening and none of the duty managers seemed to be interested.

There were two department managers who were really on top of things and knew how to get things done, even though it seemed the store manager was trying hard to make it a tough job.
The regional sales guy would fly in, kick up a storm, and then fly out and leave ordinary associates to make the best of what changes he suggest.

The best thing about the job was the customers who mostly were great and respectful and grateful for the help that associates who knew about products gave them.   But there were more who did not know than those who did know about how to use or instal things, so they did not always get the help they needed.

When displays and shelfs were reset to new layouts, they often did not work because there was not enough space for items to be put on shelfs or hooks, and new products had no space available and had to be sqeeze in some place and made the whole display highly unattractive.  All that kind of thing was suppose to be ' ' organised ' ' by Head Office but the people doing the organising didn't have a clu what the actual stores were like.


Lowes have a policy to accept all kinds of stuff in returns even though it is obvious fraud, like people return $400 lawn mowers in fall after using them since early summer, but still get complete refunds.  It's easy to do that but hard to take the attitude when you know the customer is cheating.

I worked in retail for many years and think Lowe's has gotten too big that it can not do the job properly.  It could be different if the company paid attention to its associates but it does not.

I left after three years and was tired of the whole thing, even though customers thanks and appreceation were often given to me, it seems that the management were doing their level best to make it worst.

Management is reactive vs. proactive. This company makes so many changes so often without training and clarification.  A computer module is your training. Take notes! Employees do not like to help each other because everyone has a million things to do on top of taking care of customers.  It's less than bare bone scheduling most of the time.  Be sure to negotiate your salary because you are expected to work every department and cover many peoples lunches at the same time. They will always offer you the least they can, so make sure to ask for more because they can offer more.  They just don't want to.  Good luck getting management to help you in a timely manner.  You'll also want to make sure you ask for a higher wage for dealing with all the narcissistic customers.  Customers know how to work the system and management plays right into their manipulation because management fears customers calling into corporate CCIC.  The company also holds those customer complaints against your quarterly bonus.  Every quarter the numbers go up and most stores numbers are impossible to make.  If the store you work at isn't in the top two or three in the region, in sales, you likely will only bonus one quarter a year.  The last store I worked at was a Store of the Year.  Our gift was the chance to pay $5 for a store of the year T-Shirt.  No money. The managers bonus nicely though. Every time the store does well or wins a contest the store manager receives $100 plus all their other large bonuses.  What do the employees get that actually worked for that accomplishment..."What sales are you going to get me tomorrow?" They should have better management tactics, but unfortunately they don't.   After asking for a pay raise including pay research, my resume and accomplishments I was told by a store manager that I should get married if I wanted a pay raise.  Later on, in a different region I moved to, I found out a lady at another store was told the same thing.  Coincidence?  As a kitchen designer Lowe's really doesn't let the designers do their jobs efficiently.  Management is more worried about what they can see and touch right now.  They let a $100 stock cabinet get in the way of a $25,000 special order cabinet install order.  We were punished for sitting at our desk, working on designs when the customer was not physically in front of us.  The company and management do not understand how we should function to better serve our customer.  It really sucks when your forced to work outside the hours of your vendors and installers.  The closing shift really makes you jump through hoops to get stuff done between hours of 12pm-5pm.  All while taking care of customers from surrounding departments, your department, phone calls, emails, appointments, etc.   I worked there way too long for low pay, disrespect for my profession, professional knowledge and being taken advantage of.   There is a large pay gap between the PSI/PSE positions compared to the Sales Specialist.  When I started we didn't have the PSI program and I pretty much did the same thing the PSI does now, except the PSI I worked with made about 3 times the amount I did.  I found out by accident how much that person made at the store I worked for and it wasn't long after that I left the company.  The Sales Specialist pretty much have the job sold and all the hard work done then it goes to the PSI who closes the sale (takes the money) and gets paid big commission.  They took away the Sales Specialist commission in 2012.  I provided a chart to the store manager when I gave my two weeks notice showing how my income was pretty much stagnate and decreasing.  They wanted me to stay but they didn't want to pay me what I deserved.   After 9 years I made $16.00/hr.  in 2017 I grossed just over $37,000.  I started at $12.65/hr. as a Sales Specialist in 2010. Before that I was a CSA and cashier.  If I were to apply for the same position again, I wouldn't accept anything less than $23/hr. as a Kitchen Sales Specialist. The company does give a yearly blanket raise of 3% in March.  The least I have gotten was 1% and same year my co-worker got 0%, but he did make $5 more an hour than I did. It's at store managers discretion.

Lowe's has a growing number of Corporate Offices or "Customer Support Centers". As of 2015 Lowe's has 5. 

Unfortunately, Lowe's typically has a 65/35 contractor/employee ratio. Almost all "entry level" positions are contract positions. These are open contracts which set no expectations. I worked for their IT Service Desk supporting both Store and Corporate users. My hourly pay rate was $16 (the contract agency makes $23.50) the latter is on par with what the employees (formerly known solely as Support Technicians) make to do the same exact job.

Lowe's IT Service Desk is undergoing some restructuring, the "Open Contracts" are being replaced by 6 Months Contract to Hire. If a recently implemented Associate Technician position is available, that contractor will be converted. The hourly pay rate for an Associate Support Technician is about $18. If you've read the above paragraph, Lowe's is actually saving money having less contractors but clearly it is more beneficial to Lowe's. However, HR and upper-management has not approved the creation of 100+positions in 12 months. (The contractor positions have not be re-purposed or eliminated). As of January 2015, about 5 months in. Lowe's has converted only 11 contractors to employees and hired about 3 times the contractors in that same period. In addition to hiring about 30 more contractors, as of this month Lowe's is hiring 40 more before the season ends. By that time, we would have about 120 contractors. Oh yeah, only 25 positions were promised to begin with and only 14 remain. To sum it up, things have gone terribly wrong.

When I started in 2013 the pay for all positions were highly competitive but the workload has increased since Lowe's is moving towards a One Service Desk Model. Groups previously known as Hardware, Store PC, Software, Corporate and Merchandising are being combined. Unfortunately, Lowe's is not compensating any of it's workers anything more for roughly 2-3 times the work load.

A contractor and an Associate Support Technician have the same exact responsibility but an Associate Support Technician can receive training, attend meeting and company functions. This is also true for Support Technicians but they also make outbound calls and handling escalations. Yes, that is right. Contractors do not typically receive any training! *I'll get to that in a moment* 

Lowe's was sued because they had contractors getting paid $13/hr and employees getting paid $10 more an hour to do the same exact job. Not much has changed only small differences between positions.
Where the difference comes in is in training, meetings and overall treatment. I've seen the company make a 180 in a full year. I have spent the majority of my career as a contractor and never have I seen such a divide in the work place.

I'm not usually the one to pull the race card but I do not believe this is a good work place if you are African American or if you belong to other ethnic groups. There's no diversity, Caucasians make up 90 percent of the workforce.

Also, its worth noting Lowe's has no problems throwing money to hire additional workers. What's sad is it takes 3 mediocre workers to replace 1 good one. This is noticeable. 

If management does not like you, you will be fired but just not for that reason. I've also seen people converted who did not know how to do their (any aspect of their job) Lowe's is fearful of another lawsuit and will not be honest about these practices.

Many people are fearful to not come across as a pest or problem.. With NC campuses being located in Wilkesboro and Mooresville (little to no great jobs), Lowe's has managed to embed into the minds of workers that they need the company.

I will say that Lowe's is very flexible to your needs and will give you a schedule that works for you. They are open to ideas pitched as far as that goes.

When I started, Lowe's had the most positive workforce but I'm not to certain that the restructuring will attract the same workforce. Most of the Analyst have fled to other internal positions.

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