material handler

manager

store manager

retail store manager

software engineer

Michaels

In my experience, as a seasonal part time cashier morning shift, be prepared to not be prepared. This is a long review, but worth reading before going through with a job at Michaels. I wish someone had spelled it out for me in a review before accepting employment. 
The training at Michaels is so poor to say the least. You watch a lot of videos, shadow a cashier for a day (who isn’t even qualified to train) and you’re thrown into it.  It would be fine if all you were doing was scanning and bagging. You are constantly multi-tasking between phone, customers at the register, and the employee headset you’re given. Personally, I think is completely rude to the customers at the register and in line. You are pulled every which way and not giving them your best service cause you’re too busy answering phones and dealing with those inquiries over the mic to the employees on the floor. You are expected to pick the phone up right away, and deal with it right away. If you leave the phone on hold for more than a few minutes, you have someone (usually w manager) hounding you over the mic set about it. Customers ringing the phone line are looking for product inquiry mainly. I was never trained on the floor to learn about product so I was constantly asking questions over the mic that brought more questions from the employee on the floor that I had to relay back to the customer on the phone all while trying to help the customer at the register. You are constantly reminded that if you have more than 3 people in line(which you will) to call for back up over the headset. They take note of it and make you aware.  In my time there, I was upfront by myself as the main cashier. Once the line went down, that help went back to their work on the floor, but almost always had to stop what they were doing again and again to come help up at the registers. It leaves that fellow employee backed up in their work so it feels way too chaotic.  You feel bad when you just have to go to the bathroom at times because you feel like you’re constantly bothering the floor associates. There should always be two cashiers AT LEAST. 
Michaels does buy on line pick up in store, usually they have a few people dedicated to this but be expected to handle this as a cashier as well as ups drop off/pick up. There is a tablet/small hand held for this purpose which again you aren’t trained for. You have to sign in/sign out each device everyday (headset radio/tablet/RFID scanner) I never was given an RFID login. All employees at the register should be given a login to this device to help with what is in stock at the store and be cross trained on the floor. This would better help serve the customers especially those over the phone. There were seasonal cashiers hired after me that got a RFID login and were cross trained on the floor to better learn the store so it just seemed unfair and inconsistent amongst employees.  Be sure to keep up on asking customers if they have rewards with Michaels. The company keeps record on how many customers you sign up, how many you rang up that have rewards already, and how many you didn’t. I did pretty well with this but it was still an awkward part of the job to pitch their rewards system. If you don’t do well with this as cashier, you will hear from some sort of management. The computer system they have for cashiers isn’t the smoothest of operations. Ringing up is easy unless your unfortunate enough to get a Canadian bar code(you have to carry your phone on you to look up the item number on Michaels website ) or an item with no barcode which again you are encouraged to look it up over the phone to get the item number. You deal with returns of all kinds: with receipt is the easiest/without receipt is the worse because it leads to more prompts in the computer system and online returns are a nightmare because most of the time they don’t show up at all which leads to a manager having to come up and help with over rides. If it is a huge monetary return call for a manager cause it will be noted and talked about amongst management. They should have a separate returns counter because this part really backs up the line and frustrates customers as well as the employees who need to come up and help cashier due to the growing line. Michaels rewards program/voucher should be built right into the system. Customers need to present a bar code which requires internet access to use these vouchers and a lot of the times they can’t access their rewards because it won’t load on their phones.Most of them get frustrated, rightfully so because they do expire. Some customers need prompting to find these online coupons/vouchers which is very time consuming when there is a line. Customers really didn’t bother me though, I’m customer service driven that way. I almost always felt empathy towards them with the long lines and annoying rewards system. 
 Most managers (there are quite a few) are nasty-nice. I couldn’t take it at times, especially when asking a question and being treated like a child about it, especially in front of customers at the register. It’s as if you’re wasting their time over something they should have addressed in training but it’s made out that you are the issue. Most questions you asked over the mic was met with managers with condescending tones and impatience making you feel belittled and incompetent. Every employee hears all the convos over the mic too which makes it feel worse. There was literally one young manager on my shift that was encouraging of my work, mainly my Michaels sign ups. However that manager had bitten off a fellow new hire over a curb side pick up over the mic so I think the treatment you receive from management  really depends on your performance(good luck cause of the poor training) That leads to favoritism which is a breeding grounds for a bad working environment. The stock manager in the morning will remind you to stock candy and don’t just stand there. Regular employees on the floor will remind you too. When doing so, make sure you have eyes in the back of your head when one customer comes up to the register and  if you’re not there cause you’re in a room to grab candy, you’ll be reminded over the headset. Upon hiring, I was told by the GM that it’s a great working environment amongst the employees, everyone helping everyone out. It’s really not. Everyone seems so jumbled, overworked, and understaffed. The GM doesn’t do well with difficult circumstances within the store or with the employees and never makes eye contact with you. You can tell this person doesn’t know anything about crafts and has admitted it to me. The assistant manager is really moody, talks about other employees generically and under their breath but you over hear and you know who is being talked about. I’ve overheard all the morning management talking about someone at my time there.  
**I want to say, I worked one night shift, and wish I had evening availability. The young manager in the evening is so nice and accommodating. Also the night shift employees seem kinder and more willing to help. 
Communication is imperative and should be encouraging when you are in a leadership position. All in all, it wasn’t worth the headache it brought. The unrealistic expectations combined with poor training and management should really be a concern for Michaels corporation as a whole and should be addressed to reduce high employee turnover. 

The Good:

Flexible Hours- Management is fairly good with days off/working within schedules. 21 days notice required at time of writing.
Interesting Subjects- Lots of neat objects and art brought in (historical, personal, or otherwise) from concert posters to dead pet memorabilia to old family photos and travel souvenirs.
Friendly Coworkers- Most coworkers are friendly towards you. Very female-dominated, which may be a good, neutral, or bad thing depending on who you ask.
Snacks in Breakroom- Managers provide snacks to the basic associates, from Cup Noodle to Capri Sun and granola bars.
Animals Allowed- Dogs are good, when they're on leashes and friendly. Not so good otherwise.
Associate Discount- 30% off everything except clearance and things already more than 30% off is pretty good.

The Bad:

Bad Management- Lots of turnover as of early 2021, unable to keep managers and train them quick enough to make the frame shop work. Some managers can't keep inventory, others don't listen to framers, and at one point the framing manager is/had been completely untrained in framing and was still the manager.

Duties Not Disclosed Upfront- It's not all framing tasks, but also general store help and janitorial requirements, so you're working as both a framer and a standard sales associate. In fact, the final 2 hours of the day (7pm-9pm on a normal day) are supposed to be dedicated entirely to non-framing closing tasks. Cleaning equipment often out, partially broken, or insufficient, even before COVID-19.

Poor Training- On-the-Job training is extremely limited to "What We Have Now", and there's no good reference for subjects you might be confused about. Both the video training and book training is lacking and unclear, and if your trainer doesn't know something and your manager doesn't schedule you for time to learn with someone who does, you might be right out of luck.

Sales Without Commission- As a minimum-wage sales-heavy job, you might think you get commission based on frames sold. You would, in fact, be wrong. It's just minimum wage for semi-skilled labour. In fact, you're more likely to be lectured if you don't make sales than anything, even if you are scheduled in off hours.

High Sales Pressure- Frankly, framing is a MASSIVE scam as far as prices go. They make profit at 70% off, so imagine what it's like at more standard prices. It's said framing is about 60-80% profit, flat out, so they push you to sell, sell, sell no matter what, even if the frame shop is overburdened and understaffed, or if you're stretching the customer's budget to the limit of what they're okay with. You will get docked for: Not selling enough Masterpiece Acrylic, not selling enough 3-mat art, not selling enough package deals, not having an average sale high enough, not selling enough pieces overall, not pushing more expensive mats/glass/frames, primarily selling clearance or FrameExpress.

Cuts Corners- As a direct result of the sales pressure, you get a pretty hard cut-corners reaction. Tape is used when tape should NOT be used, preservation liner is dismissed when too busy, mistakes are hurriedly fixed up or brushed away. This is most pronounced around Christmastime, when the usual daily workload goes from 6-10 frames/day to 18-25. I have seen signed and numbered prints be taped to mats, slapped in a frame, and hurriedly closed up when they should be carefully placed with mounting strips at the bare minimum. Spacers are never used unless specifically requested, even if the art is likely to suffer for it. FrameExpress orders rarely get their acid-free backing and are usually just enclosed in a store frame just the same way a customer could, but papered over so you think you get a better deal. Things that are risky to dry mount are dry mounted anyway.

Bad Customers/Bad Customer Relations- Framing is horribly misrepresented in the advertising. What should be said as a MINIMUM of a $250 job is claimed to start at $140ish. Sure... If you literally only got the frame. This kind of sales lie gets a lot of people ANGRY when they see the final price, and that results in a lot of yelling at framers for things that... Aren't our fault and which we have no control over. Add on top of that the rush-rush-rush nature of the job and we get plenty of returns for wrinkles, crooked pieces, wobbly lines, and the like, which causes irritated customers, and the overload for a rather understaffed department makes for waves of late followed by cleanup followed by late followed by cleanup... Not a pretty work cycle. And as for the customers who do walk into this knowing what it costs, there's often a very condescending attitude towards the framer, and we're expected to just take the rudeness and try and keep up the pleasantries. There is no refusing a customer, and very strict rules on rushing them, until it is either closing time or they have become EXTREMELY verbally abusive. While you are told to get a manager for those things, you also aren't supposed to interrupt them, so often you have to take a tirade until they breathe, at which point you can quickly interject "Why don't I get a manager for you?" and hope the manager can do something about them.

Small Workshop- Workshop is far too small for the volume the shop produces, which leads to clogs in workflow and difficulty with larger pieces. If the thing brought in is large enough, it might actually be larger than the whole table to put it on, which leads to quite the precarious situation for the art/glass/frame. This might not be the case for all locations, but is for mine.

Questionable Safety- Glass-gloves with holes in them, expectations to both accept and clean art which is infested with black mold, insect carcasses, or unknown dirt, all the while not providing hazmat-approved masks of the right gradient for said mold/bugs/etc, little place for separation of shard-likely glass and safety glass, no real way to properly clean tables from fragments of metal or glass... You probably won't get seriously injured unless you staple your own hand or something, but expect lots of small cuts, scrapes, and coughs. Currently dealing with a chronic problem that the doctor had said is most likely, but not provably-enough-for-worker's-comp, caused by the working conditions.

All in all, I wouldn't have really worked here if I knew we'd be playing Manager Swap for six months and some, but it's a good place to get some customer service experience for better jobs.

Horrible management. Employees are treated like children rather than coworkers with a shared goal. Customers always have their way if they yell loud enough. This is only a place one should work if they just want a short lived seasonal job, this is not a job in which to get comfortable.


Requesting availability is a joke -- if there are people who have the shifts you're only available for due to life changes or otherwise, (be it by preference,family, or even health concerns) you WILL be denied and told to try again to fit into what the manager needs you to work rather than what you CAN work.


Training is mediocre and indirect at best. No one takes the time to thoroughly train you for the ins and outs of any position. At best you'll learn on a "need to know" basis. Which would be fine if management wouldn't make you feel stupid and scream at you in the walkie for asking for help or questions as they come up. And god forbid  you ask something more than two times. Having done so myself, I can say you will hear something not too far from my own ear-full of "if [I] were alone in the inner city of Philadelphia, [I'd] have been shot by now," instead of just explaining clearly or even coming out to help locate the item in question. A major issue that's universal among all of management is that no one can be bothered. For anything. 


This extends to properly coming down on those who actually do deserve to be punished for their lack of effort, efficiency, or punctuality. If you're the type that's often late, uninterested in putting your full effort into your work, but wouldn't mind wasting some time checking your phone for your full, poorly paid, shift then this is the job for you because you will not be fired. You'll get reduced hours but with management being as non-confrontational as it is, the most you'll get is a slap on the wrist. Meanwhile the people busting their hump to pull your slack will be made to do even more at no extra pay or incentive other than a pat on the back.


Pay doesn't equate to the quality of work you do either. They will give you the bare minimum and tell you it's a lot more than you think, and way more than everyone else got. It's not worth it. 


On that note, everyone over-stresses about everything in this store. If there's a line, expect to hear tons of yelling and screaming over the walkie. And if you're not listening along and have a question to ask, take cover, because they will come down on you screaming that there is no one to help you. Which is more often the case than not when working here. Work as if there's no one coming to save you because there will be call outs, there will be no shows. That's not to say that you will always be well staffed to begin with though. 


Consistently low staffing only leads to more frustration among all employees and management even when half of the time, they themselves will be the reason for such call outs as they do a great job at making their staff feel like less-than, often times bringing them to the point of tears. And then when they do hit the point of tears, they're consoled to calm down and get back to work in a behavior that's not too far from that of mental abuse. As they then mock and ridicule those same exhausted employees behind their backs.


This is all excluding the complete lack of concern that the company as a whole showed during the (initial) rise of covid-19. The store's blatant refusal to close by way of finding any loopholes they can to remain open and put their employees (whether they have known health conditions making them highly susceptible and at high risk themselves, for their family members, or otherwise) at risk while also leading their generally older customer base to come in keeping their big seasonal sale scheduled as normal to keep everyone that much at risk. It wasn't until the governor issued a stricter "non-essentials must close" order that the store closed to the public.


Add this to the prior situations of suspected active shooters happening where zero precautions were made other than staying away from windows, and it paints a lovely picture about just how much the company cares about its employees compared to their callous greed.


The most, and honestly only, enjoyable part of this job for anyone would have to be finding those with whom they can complain and vent to about the unnecessarily exhausting and miserable workplace.

Many kind, well-meaning people work for the company but, unfortunately, it is like most retail where it’s being run by corporate interests and ideas that don’t actually help the workers at the store level. The ones in charge, even including the store manager and district managers, are more concerned with numbers and optics (reward percentages, conversion rate, etc…) without taking into account customer service or the actual running of the store. Decisions are being made by people in a vacuum who haven’t actually worked in a store in years if ever. SMs and DMs are usually only concerned with moving up in the company and make decisions based on how their numbers look and not on how it affects their subordinates. SM’s will cut their staffing to improve their “scheduling” numbers at the expense of everyone who works for them. They will stack managers on the schedule when they’re working so they don’t have to run register or do anything that might hurt their rewards percentages (number of transactions where the customer is a member). This is how every decision is made in the company; towards this arbitrary rubric of “standards”. Like most retail they no longer give full time hours to anyone but management and are currently taking the axe to important positions and workers who have been with the company for over a decade so they can get out of paying for benefits or the modest hourly wage of people who have been there too long. More and more is falling onto the managers and all the SMs and DMs do is micromanage to make their own numbers look good. They don’t care about the well being or stress level of their employees at all. I’ve been with the company for six months have already had three different store managers and seven lower managers come and go. The week of Black Friday we did not get a truck because of supply chain issues and instead of offering support or help our district manager came down to threaten managers with write ups if they found coupons at the register. Coupons that used to be in the paper that no longer are. Instead telling us to explain to our mostly octogenarian clientele that they need to use a smart phone that they don’t want.  If they do have one the terrible wi-fi or website usually will prevent them from getting to it or just hold up the line with the one cashier (staffing cuts) as they try to get up their coupon. Instead, they’ll come back after with the coupon up so that we have to do a complete return and then re-ring (or type every UPC) for them to get that 20% back. But the people making these decisions probably don’t know this because they’re never in stores, just looking at numbers.  Upper management is oblivious and just expects their numbers to look good without ever actually giving practical advice on how to do it. They’ll complain about your BOPIS (buy online pick up in store) declines while gutting your payroll and replenishment hours. They have a “smart truck” system that changes your inventory to what you should have gotten but won’t give you enough people or hours to actually unbox anything. So instead, products people order are stuck in a mountain of boxes that you don’t have time to go through and then get penalized for not fulfilling the orders. They’ll yell at you for declining them and then tell you to cut more hours. Orders that sometimes only come in because a truck we never actually got says it’s now in our store. It’s a company being run by a blind severed head. They pay nothing for part time so it’s mostly high school kids who they then threaten with write ups for not meeting an ever increasing rewards quota. The turn over rate is ridiculous and they waste thousands on putting people up at hotels to train them only to leave them with an untenable amount of work and have them burn out and leave within a month or two. It’s a shame because it does attract kind, good people but is run by a corporate mentality oblivious of the toll it’s taken on the actual people who work there; instead looking at numbers and YTDs and things that don’t matter as much as the people keeping it afloat. But we all burn out and those who don’t care enough move up. Dehumanizing. Those callous and ambitious enough can keep putting out fires as each store goes through it’s inevitable turnover and climb to the next rung. A company run by idiots at the top of the carousel and appeased by the ones at the bottom telling them what they want to hear in hopes of one day getting up there themselves. 

I was hired as a Seasonal cashier and kept on as a regular sales floor team member. I've been working here for nine months as of Sept 2022.

There are so many duties that you are responsible for doing that you don't get trained more than 10 minutes for. It's a very fast-paced environment, so if you don't know something, bring it up with the manager ASAP. You may or may not receive more training for it, depending on if they have time for you. Your duties range from cleaning the store, pulling overstock, providing back-up cashiering, restocking, store recovery, doing SISO batches, price-changes, picking BOPIS orders... you name it, you do it at Michael's and it's probably not in your job description. This was my first job in retail, so most of this I had to learn by trial and error and merely observing my coworkers because training is very inadequate. The online training you do on your first day in NO WAY prepares you for the actual job. It's of a ''tips and tricks'' video session than actual on-the-job training. You also better hope the team member that trains you knows what they're talking about and is good enough to show you the ropes because otherwise you can get assigned an inexperienced 17yo as your mentor for training which is what happened to me.

Depending on the manager, you can ask for time off easily but gettin hours is a nightmare. They cut hours often, rearrange your shift schedule CONSTANTLY (I am serious, sometimes with little only a day's notice or a few hours!) and my manager is prone to completely disregarding my availability times. So make sure you clearly state your available times during the interview process and stick to them or they will take advantage of your tolerance of their mistakes and disregard for you a person and assign you whatever shifts they want.

The overall work environment is EXTREMELY stressful. One incomplete task can set the ENTIRE store back days. There is often not enough time to get things done and so doing the best you can is sometimes all you can do. Most MODs understand this because they have to deal with the same situations but keep in mind, you're constantly going to feel the stress looming over you. I do NOT recommend this job for anyone with ADHD or high anxiety, both of which I have. The stress of having to check your schedule every day for changes your manager might have snuck in last minute is unbelievable. Not to mention, it is commonly said that Michael's customers are ''a different breed'' and they certainly don't have any patience for ADHD people like me. Michael's has some of the worst Karens and they come out in droves right around peak season (Sept through Feb) for the holidays.

The team I work with is great though! I really do feel a sense of belonging with them and we have some good comradery moments. The team is really the strongest reason I stayed at Michael's for nine months.

Overall, the reason I'm leaving Michael's is because of the severe mismanagement. The SM does not articulate the store's needs to the DM and higher echelons, so the store and its employees suffer. The staff gets blamed for mistakes we have no hope of fixing and for not working hard enough to ''perfect'' the store when the company doesn't give enough us enough hours to work nor the resources we need for certain tasks. The budget and cost-cutting is so tight, every department is suffering, especially Custom Framing.

Basically, you can work here for a few months and it's a decent job but longer than that and you need to ruuunnnnn! You won't get a raise (if you do, it's like 12-40 cents), your hours will go up and down like stock market crashes, management will either be too loose or too tight for much flexibility and lastly, the stress will significantly wear you down (especially if you have a disorder and/or disability).

Let me first establish some of the great things about Michaels! 
It's a very relaxed work environment (most of the time). The customers are generally kind, the workload is rather simple, and the product is easy to sell (people like to craft!). I worked two different positions here and both had it's positives and negatives, like any job.

As a cashier, I was rarely given my breaks on time. I worked register during the holidays and I would have no back-up, leaving me to ring over 50 people before I could leave for the day. And forget about asking for back-up! I actually had a customer defend me because I had called and called for register support and the manager had her headset off and didn't hear the request. When she came out, ranting and raving at me in front of my line of people, she accused me of slacking and not calling for help. That's when the customer stepped in to help set her straight. I was no patsy, I defended myself, but she never ceased. When I was later promoted this manager continued to be a primary issue in my workday as she was my direct supervisor. She lacked a certain censorship required when you work with people, and had a terrible attitude. I always dreaded the days I worked with her. I was a new trainee then, and any time you asked another associate or manager the whereabouts of an item (um, over 20,000 SKUs and I haven't even gotten a walkthrough of the general location of things) they would freak out and get rude or refuse to answer, making it impossible to help the guests, and resulting in all of us in the front end growing resentful and frustrated.

When I changed to support specialist, I thought I had all my money woes solved! Not the case. I got only a $.33 raise, (come to find out I should have gotten a bigger raise after I had quit), and they cut me down to only 3 days a week with 4 hour shifts. The other support specialist and I were supposed to have every other weekend off rotating between us but she would always request the MY weekends off to have off and so I rarely got a weekend off. Not that I could complain, my earnings were so meager is was barely worth waking up for every day.

Then it gets really hairy. A nights and weekends manager (whom I never worked with except rare occasions on the weekend when his schedule overlapped with mine for an hour) asked me to coffee. We kept it very quiet and professional, but somehow, in this catty work environment everybody found out within a week or two. We still kept mum about it, but all the management team began to harass us individually on the floor or in the office, cornering us with threats and nonsense about our "situation". Ultimately I stepped down out of my position so I would not be in any way handling his deposits anymore, and became a cashier again. My hours increased, but so did the harassment. He stepped down out of his position down to a regular sales associate to get the heat off of him. Did that stop anything? NOPE. I asked my store manager directly if either of us would be fired for having coffee (mind you, there were other people openly dating and the store manager himself was engaged to a department manager under him) and he told me that it was a "gray area" but it was being handled and "nobody would lose their job". I ultimately left the company because it was not a job worth the grief! They were constantly understaffed and constantly sending people home that it was nearly impossible to get an kind of decent wage. The managers never stopped the harassment or threats of me losing my job or getting him fired (and the constant slander, don't even get me started) that I grew tired of defending an innocent situation. 

Sure, my situation is highly specific. But let me tell you this, if you are not upper management or at least salaried at this company OR are not a young adult (17-20) with no bills this is NOT the job for you!

I reluctantly worked there for two years. The only reason I took the job there was because I had already been trained in a frame shop and I needed a job.
First let me start out by saying, their frame shop is a joke. Only one framer is back there at a time, and they deliberately want you to lie to the customer. My day would start out at either 9 in the morning and leave around 3 or anywhere from 1-5:30 in the afternoon to close. Let me remind you Michaels closes at 9. So walking into work at 5:30 is really pointless. Well I would start by looking at the status sheet that would show the day's work load. Up until my last few months it was always a head of the schedule due to the great help and fellow employees. What had happened to ruin that, was management of the store decided to fire the frame shop manager at the time for absolutely nothing. How can that happen do you ask? Well it turns out that any manager has the ability to call corporate HR and claim that a person is "bringing down store morale." Which is code word for, they don't like you. The same thing happened to me after I refused to give a unauthorized discount to a customer and that customer complain about me. Now, that sounds like bad customer service, but Michaels tells it's employees that giving out authorized discounts is grounds for termination. Sounds like that double edge sword people are always talking about. That's about how my day was for the last 3 months.
Now let's get to the meat of things. The management of my store treated the place like it's personal Game of Thrones. Every last one of them lying and back stabbing each other. The 40 something general manager was the worst. Out of the people that he hired while I was there had to reach his own personal standard. One, they must be female. Two, they must be Caucasian. Three, they must be no older than 22. Four, if older than 22 must consistently flirt with him, if not, you could be found to be bring down store morale. He constantly said inappropriate remarks to these employees. One of the most rememberable ones involved him telling a 19 year old employee that "her hips looked to be getting bigger." Now that doesn't mean that older women of other races didn't work there, they did. They just were not hired by this manager. They were hired by the former manager and when the current one was hired he made sure to have them demoted and took a pay cut. He also allowed a former frame shop manager to lose customers artwork and memorabilia with no consequences. Instead, the former frame shop manager was moved to another position that dealt with less customers and was given a pay raise.
Other problems with this manager involved him receiving free gifts from a local clothing store and gallery owner in exchange for discounts and free merchandise. The gallery owner also gave the store artwork to frame and sell, but unknown, by which I mean he lied about the relationship with the local store owner, to the district manager sold the "traded" art (which was framed with Michaels money) for a lower price than what it was worth. Also, the manager kept secret about the local shop owners dealings with certain authorities of the city. He also had a tendency to cut the hours of people that he didn't like and wanted fire but didn't want to go through the red tape.
There is much more I could go into, but honestly I have grown tired of typing this, and believe this should give anyone the impression of this certain location of Michaels. Beware if you decide to work or even shop at this particular Michaels.

I'M FINALLY FREE!

I can only speak for my personal experience working 4 years  in South Jersey. I had worked in retail for over 10 years prior and took this job in 2010. Honestly, I have always been a mature, hard worker, with an ethic that tells me that there is always something to do. I rarely stand still and gab with co-workers, my hands are always moving. With my previous jobs as with this one, I usually jog to get from one place to another in the store. I’m in my mid 50’s but in good shape. 
   I was happy to get the job because I had just moved from NYS, but my job transfer fell through. I was unemployed most of the Summer, but then I got hired for the early morning truck/replenishment crew unloading trucks that could arrive anytime from 4 to 8AM. I worked pallet jacks and the rollers, then putting out stock the following days. I also learned merchandising to construct and setup planograms as well as climbing tall ladders for overstock frames. Later on I learning Queing the merchandise and down stocking. I started at around $8/Hr, ending at $9.26. Most of the time I worked a 5.5 hour day more or less, at least 4 days a week, sometimes 5. While I was there, the store has had 4 managers. They ranged from very nice to work for, to possible OCD/multiple personality disorders. My coworkers were friendly, most of the morning crew was a mix of 20, 30’s and some older like myself. As with human nature, some worked very well regardless of age, and some were VERY slow disasters who usually, I say USUALLY didn’t last too long. I always had a friendly rapor with them regardless and tried to help. A typical day a year ago from writing this would involve doing either the queing and down stocking  Mondays and Tuesdays, (or Planograms), then truck on Wednesdays and replenishment Thursdays and Fridays.
  Hardest parts of the job for me was mostly physical, I used to put out the frames mostly by myself which was usually three or more U-Boats. Then, all overstock frames and heavy shadowboxes had to be put on high shelves. Truck could be pretty cold or hot depending on season, had to be careful to be safe. I worked as fast as humanly possible, but sometimes it seemed that was never enough. 
this past year my hours were severely cut, sometimes working only one day a week. It was claimed that “I worked the same pace on the truck regardless of the size…” When my hours were reduced I got no understandable explanation. The store then hired more people after me and gave them more hours than me. lol, one of the previous managers told me I had “tenure”…
  The comments on my review I feel should have been discussed with me BEFORE the review instead of waiting for the review! I would certainly have tried to make adjustments if they had. 
Trying to figure things out, I think Corporate likes to “shake things up” by either letting people go, or making them less likely to stay by cutting hours, and/or working them till they dropped. I honestly don’t know what I could have done outside of having a heart attack that would have pleased them, I did the best I could.
  In the end, the most enjoyable part of the job was quitting yesterday and starting my new job…

Training: 
I started off as a seasonal part-time worker during the winter time as a cashier/service team member. I felt that the training and onboarding process was a bit messy (maybe that was just because it was during the holidays when the store was busy). I also kind of felt like they kind of just threw me in and expected me to know what to do, and management would have an attitude when I didn’t and I would ask them to teach me. For training, I only shadowed a cashier for a day and I wasn't trained on the floor at all. I had to figure out how to use their inventory device on my own and what to do on the floor by myself. 

Hours: 
During Christmas time, hours were good and a month after they asked me to stay permanently (regular part-time). During this time, they began cutting hours because the store wasn't making enough sales and it was a slow season. Apparently this has been a common trend with Michaels stores since covid.  The past month or two despite me being available almost everyday of the week, they have cut my hours. I only get scheduled once a week (4 hours) and sometimes me or other co-workers are not even scheduled. I spoke to management and they claim that cash shifts are assigned based on rewards results. Your hours depend on whether people agree to sign up or not. People are difficult to sign up because they become easily irritated when you ask them too many questions while you are checking them out, many of them are already signed up, and the remaining customers do not want to sign up for rewards because the company ends up spamming their emails and they can still receive the daily coupons without even having to be a rewards member. Also, when you are only in the store for 1 day a week, you lose a lot of motivation to even try. Management also claims that sales floor hours are shared amongst the team, which isn't true because some co-workers are being scheduled 12 hours a week, while others are barely given 4 hours. I guess my store is favouring or prioritizing hours of those who have been there longer. 

Benefits: 
As for benefits, they are flexible with availability, you do not need to have a lot of availability which is good if you are a student. Employees also get 30% off on all items but it's not that great because customers can receive 30% off on regular priced items too with their daily coupon. As for the work itself, it is pretty easy. Cash can be a little overwhelming in the beginning or during rush hours but you get used to it. Sales floor is also easy, you just have to put back returns, keep the store tidy, and help customers with questions. 

Overall, basically, if you need consistent hours and good hours close to 20 hours a week, this is not the place to work. There is also little room for advancement. I’m currently looking for another job while I am “lucky” to even be scheduled once a week.

Personally, I love working at Michael's and wish there were more opportunities that allowed me to continue working there on a livable wage. Being an artist, you really do enjoy helping customers find the right product for their projects. The employee discount is a bonus and really helps me out with my own work. That being said, it can be highly stressful on days when there are many tasks you need to finish, but customers stop you to ask questions at every turn. I understand that is our job and love helping out when the customers are kind and excited to work with you, but at the same time, there is some pressure from the company to complete certain tasks that can feel impossible when you're always helping customers on busy days. Frequent changes in coupon and rewards programs also often result in unhappy customers, though there's nothing we can do about our policies. 4/5 managers at this location are amazing and wonderful to work with. I cannot say enough good things about these managers, and how they always check up on employees and make this a great environment to work in. That being said, while the other manager does have good interactions with employees, there have been certain issues that make this work environment unnecessary stressful or make people feel singled out. However, the other managers here help balance that out and are always willing to address concerns. There is always schedule flexibility. However, many times we are suffering from cut hours, last minute schedule changes, or not enough hours to go around. The pay does not supplement well enough during peak season, much less during periods where the company cuts so many hours that people can work maybe one shift a week. Though you can ask for more hours personally, often times, Michaels as a corporation just does not allot enough hours for all employees to have the schedule they want to work. Raises are very small and happen yearly, if you are lucky. There are many benefits to this job (environment, discount, coworkers), but unfortunately, the pay is just not enough and the schedule is too infrequent and constantly changing to allow much of a steady, living-wage job. If pay were much higher, such as $15/hr. plus, the work would be fulfilling and I would love to maintain employment here for as long as possible. Ultimately there is too much expected of employees to reach certain goals without the pay incentive. Most positions are part-time with little room for growth unless you go into management, which has very few openings so it's pretty impossible. Management is also not paid enough. Good starter job or job for students, but not enough pay to make it worth the dedication.

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