retail sales associate

retail team leader

print manager

senior retail sales associate

retail assistant store manager

Office Depot OfficeMax

Simplicity of the job, you are not required to do that much. Also during my time at Office Depot I got paid pretty well (over $20/hr)
I enjoyed the people I worked with as we all knew we did not enjoy our job
It is never over 40 hours a week (typically between 35-40 for manager)

Sadly the cons out weight the pros during my 1 year at Office Depot before being laid off. 

Environment: First off the Office Depot I worked at in the greater Seattle area is disgusting. The floors are all stained, and tore up. The counters where the cash registers are were falling apart. They are chipped, scraped up. The registers are from 30 years ago and are also a faint brown/yellowish color. Display shelves are caked in dust and dirt and also falling apart because they have never been replaced since the store open. The break room was gross, and trust us we moped it but obviously not as well as we should there corners are black, with dust, old food, and whatever else. The fridge has crumbs all in the door seal. The bathrooms are gross (office depot is still running a 1990s model were apparently employees dont get a private bathroom) so you will walk into toilets that customers have decided to not flush and leave for everyone. The walls in there are also gross you can tell they haven't been cleaned...really ever. I am not a huge germ guy but I know when working there I would use hand sanitizer throughout the day and made sure when I got home I washed my hands before eating. 

Seriously walk into an Apple store for example (or even a Target for fair comparison) and then walk into an OD and tell me which one looks cleaner and more presentable.  When you walk into a clean, organized store it makes you want to spend money. No matter how much we "recovered" the store it would be destroyed by customers later. Boxes are ripped open, pens are stolen all the time (people taking one pen instead of buying the pack of 4), print and copy has paper bits laying all over the floor, alpha boxes are all different shapes and sizes and shoved onto pegs (it doesn't look organized). In other words the model of the store is bad it seriously blows my mind some VP has not walked into a store and said "yeah off first glance this does NOT make me want to shop and spend money". Again walk into a Apple store, everything is cleaned, organized, pegs are fully stocked, nothing is falling apart and if it is its immediately replaced. Office Depot does not care, a lot of things were either damaged, missing something or completely falling apart. 

Career Advancement: Non-existent here. Again in the 1 year I spent at OD I was NEVER once told about career advancement opportunities (not that I cared to stay here that long) but my old job (I wont mention due to protecting my identity) we heard about new job openings either at stores, markets, or corporate ALL THE TIME. We were constantly coached into taking higher roles and move up the corporate ladder and that conversation never happened once to me here. 

Job itself: So I was a Client Engagement Manager, what is that you ask? Simple. Its a glorified cashier. I literally would come into work and just check customer surveys, which were mainly complaining about not having an item in stock, to their coupon not working, all the way to someone complaining that there were NO OD near them....yes you read that correctly someone literally complained and left a negative survey at our location because they did not have an OD near them. After that I was responsible for loyalty sign ups and towards the end of my time there loyalty penetration (how many phone numbers we were attaching to transactions). Other than that I pretty much stood around in a stupid role called the CEO (client engagement officer) so I was basically a door greeter (another brilliant idea by higher ups) you were to just walk the store, ask customers if they needed help and greet customers walking in. Hey for over 20 an hour ill do that and avoid cashiering and working freight. I got 0 training when I first jumped into this management role too, I was sent to a "training store" which was literally just me doing what I was already doing at my home store and that was watching what other managers were doing. It was a huge waste of time. 

Coworkers: This is not a complaint about the people themselves and more of how everyone who works there all hate their jobs. Besides management you get paid minimum wage for dealing with customers who treat you like trash. Everyone has dreams of moving on to better things, not once has an employee told me "i love it here" and theres been a cashier who has worked there 6+ years and i doubt anyone has asked him about moving up and taking a different role. Says a lot about the company is that dont value employees at all. In my 1 year there I probably say 15+ people quit, or get hired and never show up, or get hired and work a week before dipping out on us. OD needs to read those surveys because life here was not good and you could see it on everyone's faces.

Really? What can you do? Office Depot needs to remodel themselves and like QUICK. It blows my mind in 2020 and some of these locations have been open 30+ years that someone has not walked in and said we need to remodel this badly. Walk into a Best Buy and walk into OD (I know they are a tech store) but they have more laptop options, their stores are clean, tidy and organized and OD is a hot mess. Have an employee only bathroom, and take some pride in the people that work there. Quit micromanaging everything, my GM would leave notes EVERY single day about "get this done, and this, this, this". Same with weekends. Do some better classroom training before you get the job. First job I have worked where you were hired and just thrown out on the floor day 1. Talk about career opportunities and how to apply. Change store hours, my location was open 8 am to 9 pm. You're an office supply store not Walmart that has groceries and other items. No one needs to print documents are 8:50 pm. Stores should be open 9am to 7pm. Creating a new model where all stores are open 9-7 allows more employees and management on the floor taking care of freight, customers, employee breaks, recovery, helping customers, etc. When its spread so wide we typically have 2 people in the morning and 3 people at night and you PRAY no one calls out because you have no one else to cover. 

Have a better severance package. I was told 2 days ago my job was being eliminated and all I get from it is a 2 week severance and couple day pay out of PTO (cause its January) and thats the end of the road for me. My time at Office Depot was a joke, its funny its just a large/big box store yet its one of the worst to work for. No employee appreciation, long hours, in a store filled with theft and damaged packages.

To end this review, I will be SHOCKED if OD is still around in the next 5 years. Amazon is king in this area and you know things are looking bad with eliminating positions and closing stores. Advertising that we will price match ANYONE and the fact we do NOT stick to company policies. The policy at OD is take care of the customer. Plastered on each counter though is a return policy. 14 days for electronics orrrr whenever you feel like it as long as you literally flip out because we are so scared of losing "customers". If you flip out because you cant return a printer you got 6 months ago than thats the kind of customers we should not want, however we will override it and get you taken care of us because we are literally getting beaten to our knees by other big box stores. I am glad to be out the door because this was the most unprofessional, disorganized company I have ever worked for in my entire life. 

Good luck!

Let me start by saying that I have no issues with this specific store...

The problem with this company lies in its corporate offices. They seem to be more concerned with making their budget than they are with actually taking care of their stores, employees, and customers.

I will probably lose my job for posting this (If they even care / read it) but I don't really care at this point...I'm tired of it.

They treat all employees (except the store managers) as expendable but at the same time they expect us to keep their product flowing off the shelves.

We get a 30minute lunch break if we're scheduled more than 6 hours for the day...but if we are stopped by a customer on that lunch break, we have to help them even though we're off the clock. We also have to bring in shopping carts that are left in the parking lot if we see them on our way back in from getting food. This often means that half or more of the "break" ends up depleted before we can even sit down to eat...

The same goes for coming in / leaving for the day...If we are stopped by a customer, we have to help them or we can be disciplined (even terminated) -- Last I checked it was illegal to force people to work without pay.

We are supposed to "Take care of the customer" and let the managers worry about the rest...but that in itself is absolutely impossible due to corporate. They cut the payroll company-wide so there's no way to keep the manpower needed in order to help every customer, and at the same time they give us tons of things that "we have to get done every day or it shows up on a report" and somehow expect us to get it all finished before 11am in most cases--as 11am is "D.E.P.O.T Time" which stands for "Drop Everything, People Over Tasks"

On paper, this is a great idea, but in practice it becomes overwhelmingly impossible...as most days we only have 2-3 people (including management) working at any given time due to payroll constraints.

What this results in is upset customers that take their frustrations out on the associates...or file a corporate complaint against the associate or store...and then corporate punishes the store/associate for it...sad but true.

Pay is an absolute joke...They pay the full time associates roughly $9 an hour...That includes the computer / tech department associates.  $9 x 36 hours a week comes out to a little over $500 per check after taxes...and that's if you don't buy into the health benefits program which would take upwards of $125 off.

Part time associates don't even get offered health benefits and are lucky to get more than 24 hours a week in order for the company to save money vs having to offer them a health plan (sidestepping Obamacare)

Schedules are flexible but sometimes get changed and the associate is not made aware of this...other times something comes up and an associate can't come in and even if they give a week's notice, still get scheduled and are chided for not showing up.

The "Tech Support" is also a joke thanks to new rules sent down from corporate. They mandated that tech associates are not allowed to run any repair tools that were not supplied by the company, but refuse to provide them with any tools...so they are supposed to somehow diagnose customer's problems with no tools.

The excuse I have been given for this is "The tech associates aren't supposed to be the ones fixing the computers, we pay support.com to do that. The tech associates are supposed to be running the free pc health check tool and selling the customers the service it recommends and nothing more."

They aren't even allowed to replace hard drives--one of the more basic computer repairs--because the Standard Operating Procedure is all hardware issues should be sent to "Central Repair" -- $350+ for a laptop if it's not the screen that's damaged...

This, to me, is shady practice and misleading to the customers...as there is a rather large red banner on the outside of the store that says "We Fix Computers!" along with a metal sign saying something similar.

If you walked into a store with a computer expecting it to get fixed, and they told you --without even looking at it because they aren't allowed-- that it would be $350 , would you go back? I wouldn't either.

The management team (at this store anyway) is great --for the most part...-- and tries its hardest to make due with what corporate has thrown them. But it's not enough to fix it.

They are so overwhelmed with trying to keep things above water that between their required tasks, and people not coming to work, often several associates go their entire shift for days at a time with no lunch break due to no relief.

There was also a recommended staffing guideline not too far back that said the only people on staff after mid-day should be the manager, and the copy/print associate...in order to alleviate budget concerns. How do they expect to keep the company going when they don't want to pay their employees / keep their stores staffed well enough to take care of their customers?

It's a highly stressful work environment most of the time, as there's usually only ONE associate (and possibly one manager) on the sales floor at any given time having to deal with the majority of the customers. This is unfair to both the customer and the employees.

All of this for barely more than minimum wage, from a company that boasts about its billions in profit...

Bottom line : I will never recommend this company to anyone as an employer, or for tech support.

I was recently employed as, well the official title was "Sales Consultant" but in reality all I was ALLOWED to do was stand behind a cash register all day with little else to do but keep organizing the same five stacks of paper for 6 hours straight.

Starting from the beginning, the management was just horrible, on no account did any member of management (whether Store, Assistant, or Front End Manager) even attempt at helping familiarize me with the store layout/environment. First day I was stuck behind a computer filling out training sessions that I was unable to complete during my entire MONTH OF EMPLOYMENT as the managers would constantly call me to another department just to sweep and clean the area! They didn't even allow me the luxury of looking around to memorize where everything was located, I was just to sweep and wipe down counters.

In the second week of my employment, I was put in charge of running the cash register with no formal training or help whatsoever. Now I've run registers before but Office Depot apparently has some closed circuit specialty machines that require ACTUAL TRAINING TO USE, that I didn't get whatsoever. To make matters worse, every time I would make a mistake, either in a return or just a regular transaction, the Manager-On-Duty would go out of their way to call me out by name over the radio or even in front of customers, alerting all associates of my, and I quote "Screw-ups and Failures" at the register, and proceed to lecture me on how the procedures work, WHICH I HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT BECAUSE I WASN'T ALLOWED TO FINISH MY TRAINING, and all the while treating me like a child with down syndrome. (no offense to people with down syndrome, you guys are great)

Also let me say that several times I had asked if I could take the time to go around the store and memorize where everything is and possibly assist the associates on the floor so I can get a better understanding on everything that my job was supposed to entail. To which my direct manager said, again I quote "You're just a cashier, stop asking about other people's departments and just worry about your own job. We can take care of everything else, just go over there and be where you're supposed to be!" Which I think is very funny as in my final days of employment, a new hire was encouraged to learn the store's layout and was escorted throughout the store by my direct manager on his very first day. I believe there to have been serious favoritism, but it was hard to tell between being berated and criticized in front of associates and customers alike.

On one occasion, I was in the unfortunate circumstance of having to call in to work to watch my younger brother who was sick and had no  one to watch him. After calling in, my manager said, and i'm not even joking here, she seriously said "Well, you should have figured something out on your own time, this isn't my problem. I'm going to have to mark you down on your 90 report for missing work." Another occasion several days later included my necessary early leave for the work day for a family emergency. Upon alerting the manager, I met the same response as before by being ridiculed, I quote "A Family Emergency? I wish you could've given me more warning, now we're going to be short handed tonight, no thanks to you!"

Now I would normally assume that I had just somehow ticked off management but I found out that apparently Office Depot hires horrible people into their management department. Case being that on March 19th, I had actually witnessed the Front End Manager and the CPD associate shouting at customers over the counter and customers over the phone, to which they audible state "It's not our fault, there's no need to yell at us for nothing." The best part of this occurrence was the Store Manager's reaction to what happened. He called over the radio asking that the manager and the associate to just "Lower [their] voices" as they were getting too loud. The man didn't even have the stones to tell them to shut up and not yell at customers! A wonderful choice in management apparently/

The final bad piece I have to say is that my paycheck was withheld for the most ridiculous of reasons. I was never told of our regular paydays and was unaware that it was every other Friday, so after finding out that our paychecks came in ONE WEEK before I had realized it, I had asked Human Resources about the status of my paycheck and I was told that she had apparently "forgot to tell me" and planned on letting me know but never got around to it!

It was just bad overall, unless you can stand completely abhorrent management for slightly more than minimum wage then I suggest you stay clear with a 10 ft. pole

I've been an IT engineer working with tech and computers for several years and am extremely overqualified to work here, so I was hired within a few days after applying online. The interview went extremely quick and I was asked very few questions. The management was extremely good about working around my other job schedule and had no problems giving me days off if I need them. On my first two days of work I had to watch 8 hours of training videos that didn't apply to anything I would be doing, but they were mandatory so I didn't complain. I'll watch boring 10 year old videos and get paid, sure. After the video training was complete I had to shadow a sales consultant for a couple days and learn everything. After that I was on my own doing tech services and selling computers and anything in the tech area.

On a typical day I'll come in an hour or two(depending on what day) before the store opens to prep everything and switch prices on everything in the store if it's a Sunday. Every Sunday you have to change the price tag on about 500 random items and it's tough the first few times but you eventually learn where every single item in the store is. Generally there is a huge crowd of old people waiting to get in when the store opens to buy something miniscule like a pen or clip board, then people trickle in a few at a time until lunch where there's usually a ton of people. After lunch time, people start to come and go pretty steady until around 3pm, then it dies off until another crowd at 5-6. There's always 20 people who come in 10 minutes before the store closes too. The tech area usually doesn't get many customers until the afternoon and 75% of them won't have a clue what they are looking for. If you have patience and are knowledgeable about technology then everything is super easy. For a tech associate you do extremely little "tech services" in store. 90% of the tech services we offer are done by a remote service. We just hook up the computers and connect them to an online service and they do all the work. We have to give out business cards with a coupon for a "free pc health check and tune up", and each store has to do 7 of them a week. You will also get a lot of phone calls throughout the day, and they will always ask for some sort of technical service or how to do this, or "my printer wont work", etc, and generally they get angry and don't comprehend that we are sales and not a free technical service hotline. 

As a tech associate you are required to really push the protection plans for electronics, and really they are a good deal and are worth it since they cover accidental damage for 2 years. The management encourages us to use skeevy techniques and do anything we can to sell them, because that's where the store makes money, and that's where the employees make most of their commission. In my first month I easily made an extra couple hundred dollars just from selling protection plans. The management also gives out incentives by week or by month, where we'll get an extra $5 or $10 every time we sell this or that, so it's super easy to rack up extra money. 

You get 30 minutes for lunch, no more, no less, and you can either hang out in the break room or leave the store to eat.

The management is nice to you if you are a hard worker. If you stand around and aren't constantly doing something you will get grilled for it. If you get caught looking at your phone you will get written up without warning. If there is absolutely nothing to do, then walk around and straighten things up or clean your area. If you are constantly selling, helping a customer, or cleaning things up, then the bosses are going to love you because really, that's the whole reason why you are even there. So many employees get mad that the bosses treat them unfairly, but they are slackers and can't understand that they need to work if they want to be treated well.

Really though, the company is great to work for and there is nothing difficult at all about working here. As long as you aren't a complete doofus and are willing to learn and work hard then everything will be super easy.

My time at OD was short but this feels like a manifesto of why you should not work for OD. If you want to skip straight to my end point, read the last two sentences. So going from OD from Publix showed me another side of retail. My store seemed better than other Office Depot/Office Max stores but there's so much to talk about. For one, I was hired as a Copy/Print employee but outside of two days of a combined 5 hours of training I was trained in my first week and a handful of occasions in Copy/Print when they were desperate for help, I never worked in there. I was always on the register and they kept me on there because I was so good at getting rewards. I couldn't expand into other departments. Scheduling could be an issue as well, as management would change hours on me out of nowhere and not notify me until that day. I kept telling them not to do that and they listened. The managers (depending on your store) constantly hound over numbers such as number of sign ups per day and your percentage over it. They don't fire over it but it becomes very mentally draining because Office Depot customers tend to be some of the worst. Due to the low income of the company, often times its the prime target store for ink/toner thieves, dust cleaner sniffers, and shoplifters in general that steal anything between school supplies to floor model laptops. Corporate does not seem like they care for the company at all. Like, even if the stock at the time of writing this is at 1.67- down, they have the power to switch things around and make the company great again. But they insist on spending millions of dollars advertising things like pet products, cheap toys, stuffed key chains no one buys, and much more. It feels like a waste and often times we're left with goals that we cannot meet because they do not understand how store level customers work. Office Depot is being driven into a program based company, selling services and making money that way yet the stores suffer the most from this and employees have no say in it because to OD, unions are the equivalent of a communism uprising and anything you do against policy usually ends in termination. They lead on one of my good co-workers who has shed blood, tears, and sweat for this company for 4 years while promising her that she'd be a print supervisor and yet the company feels more comfortable hiring outside of the company so they can give lower pay rates to newer hires rather than give current employees that show promise raises. The company, as of September 29th, 2019, is currently open and feels more like it's trying to slow down its own inevitable death that it brought onto itself for spreading itself thin. OD feels more like a supermarket without food but does not specialize in anything. It's still shocking to me that the CEO of the company is making 1% of all the gross pay in OD. Even as such, the paygrade and hours can be an absolute killer to anyone that is part time. Your time and hours can get cut like butter if the store does not hit its incredibly high sales goals every day, every week, all the time. One of my co-workers was down to working only 1 day a week and I myself was down to 2 days a week at some point when I was picking myself up from a performance slump. I do not speak for every single store when I say anything about management, co-workers, anything store specific, etc. But seeing the stories of so many current and ex-OD employees, I feel as if my store was one of the most tamed ones. It was not the best of all, but it gives perspective to how the company is going. I feel sorry for my co-workers there looking back on it and they were all great, but that alone shows its not the common worker's fault and its corporate. Overall, stay away from OD and work somewhere else if you want a retail job.

Typical day of work: 
You walk into the store to find that the Operations manager or the Customer Service manager is the only associate on the sales floor unless it's a good day and the Tech associate has been scheduled. The Store manager sits in his/her office until "Depot Time" starts @ 11am & then retreats back to the office @ 3pm when Depot Time concludes. The only section of the store that is deemed necessary to have fully staffed is the Copy & Print Center. Cashiers are no longer needed or scheduled as the Store Manager that is standing @ the door handing out fliers stays put while commanding the 1 (maybe 2) asscociate(s) on the sales floor to run to the register when a customer is ready to check out, During the day, the associate is directed to straighten product on the shelves, yet pulled away by the manager standing at the front to assist customers, resulting in a reprimand for not getting the task completed by the end of the shift.

Management:
Lower Store management are normally hard working & possess the "team" mentality. Store managers, not so much. While avoiding the majority of the work, the Store managers are supposed to close 1 night/week & work 1 weekend/month, but if the Store Manager & District Manager are good enough friends, all of that is negotiable, making the other management in the store have to cover the worst shifts, forcing them to forego any sense of home or personal life. The only accountability being held, is that of the lower Management level.

Workplace Culture:
The customer is ALWAYS priority, unless the new plan-o-gram comes out, then that is priority, but nobody extra has been scheduled to help the customers while the plan-o-grams are being worked, so the customer is priority, until the manager sees the task is not being worked, then the plan-o-gram becomes the priority again. Then the "higher-ups" think it's "cool" to divert what little man power is available to work on some trivial exercise, such as posting a permanent door greeter to stand at the front, then that is priority. When all is said & done, when EVERYTHING in priority, then nothing becomes priority, resulting in nothing being completed.

Hardest Part of the Job:
I would have said the largest obstacle to overcome was spreading the staff so thin & attempting to complete all tasks assigned, but that takes a backseat to being, underappreciated is not the word, recognized as expendable. The drive for the associate to take pride in their work is quickly negated from them. 95-98% of the workforce is hired as, & maintains part-time, status with no guarantee to the amount of hours they will receive & no hope for promotion. As they continue to work hard & prove themselves, taking on tasks to show management that they are willing to learn & move up, when a managerial position does present itself, they sit back & watch as someone from outside the company is brought in, producing a crazy level of turnover in the company. 

If you are a member of management or 1 of the 2 full-time associates, you are NOT allowed a personal life. The mentality of "live to Work, not Work to Live" is imposed. Full-time associates are refused the option of getting a schedule that allows home life, if it interferes with the Store manager's schedule. These associates are refused the option of attending college and are forced to resign or are fired  if the attempt is made to better oneself. The company requires open availability from its associates & expects them to sit around & hope to be scheduled, even if they are not needed.

Most Enjoyable Part of the Job:
Meeting & working with new people & knowing that you are recommending the best product for the customer's needs are the best part of this job.

Company has great potential, Ravi, the CEO has the right values its a shame its not shred by more people in the organization.

Retail is not a sustainable longterm career, I know I had one. Pay and Benefits continue to decrease in all companies, Office Max is no exception and their merger with Office Depot means a lot of location closings and fired staff. (they as much stated it in the merger announcement the amount of annual projected realized savings. You know these will not be just better company purchase pricing, as this increase profit level, not create realized savings. 

They have continued to increasing accountability and responsibility of the hourly staff, without holding midlevel and top level management accountable for the choices they make.  Instead they hold store level hourly staff accountable for their decisions and directives. I have seen this in multiple locations. 

As far as the working environment in the store it depends on the store manager, and where and what you do in the store.  If you want to go with out lunch, no breaks, not use the bathroom, and to do well a pay to learn design work while the company charges $66 an hour for your time and you cover the costs work in the Print Centers, of any store with a lot of competition, If you insist on lunch and breaks you are more likely to get these on the general sales floor.

If you are starting in store management expect to be paid less than your counter parts at other companies, some locations do pay better than others. The work life balance can be better than at some companies, but I would not expect this to last with the upcoming merger. ( Keep in mind the cultures of both companies will change with this event.)

Also in the long run unless the new company changes radically the way it does business from how Office Max & Office Depot go about day to day business this merger will short run improve same store performance and cash flow. Long term if the new company does not start focusing on total customer count (traffic) over only average ticket the customer base erosion will continue and market share lost to general merchandise companies,  i.e. Wal-Mart to name just one.  

It can be a good job to work at, while striving to attain other goals, but to start a career with long term expectations have realist pay and long term outcomes in mind. Also realize that this may still not be a stable company to work for, consider their losses as disclosed in their quarterly and annual earnings statements. 

I could describe my day and the other basics but in the market I was employed it would be to easy to identify me.  And when making a choice over who to work for, I think it is more important to understand the broader nature of the company and its culture.  If you don't fit or are not willing to compromise your values to their cultures you will never enjoy the workplace. Better information is better decisions personal and professional.  




((Bad training on knowledge to provide/perform skilled services (graphics design, computer technical services, technology implementation) (employees must provide or pay to learn knowledge company just profits off this, very inadequate company training), Over charges for services, out of date overpriced technology and expects you to sell it over the competition who sells first tier products (new) at the same price point, does not have a real functional tuition program (the strings are to much for how little they do)))

So I'll follow the recommended platform for giving my opinion on Office Depot and start with my "typical day at work."

Typical Day
-----------------

I typically start my day at 6 as I am usually logistics (aka I work the truck). I come in and our logistics team will have a huddle to talk about our plan for working the truck and our approximate finish time. If you've worked a truck before it's pretty typical; break the saran wrap, offload onto u-boats, work the boats, keep it clean. We go about our day for about two hours. Before we open at 8 one of us takes our first 15 to work the lists we have (i.e. Fill List). And then the problems happen. We typically have enough people schedules to come in at open but usually a few of them are late, which means we have to sacrifice logistics team members to other positions so those positions can be filled. In some rare cases the positions won't be filled for some odd several hours which means we have less hands on the truck. As well as not usually having some people on at the time of open, we will typically not have anyone scheduled for floor duty (or at least not someone competent) and will have to help customers frequently, which eats more of our time we need to work on truck and distracts us for long periods of time in some cases. It eventually comes to a point where we cannot finish the truck or even work on it efficiently anymore and we miss our mark for finishing which then upsets our corporate overlords. So we work on the truck as we can and end up not finishing it before we leave, which leads it to be something we work into the next day.

What I learned
-----------------

I learned that corporate will never see what it's like to be an employee. They set unrealistic goals for us and get angry when we don't achieve them. Worse, they actually come in and ask us why we aren't achieving their unrealistic goals and push us harder to do them. Short of it, don't work for corporate. 

Management
-----------------

I am neither for nor against the management. My logistics manager is very competent, but not very personable. My customer service manager is very personable and a competent manager but she doesn't act as a manager, more of a higher paid employee. My assistant manager is worthless. My general manager is a nice guy and he is a great manager, however he sees on the same level as corporate and seems to think that we are just underachieving as a store, instead of seeing the ebb and flow of the store and working along it. I won't get into the district manager or anything higher as all I know is they think we're on the same level as a store that gets less business in a more affluent neighborhood. 

Workplace Culture
-----------------

The culture of the store is probably the best part of working at Office Depot. You can make friends relatively easily, and most of the customers aren't actually dim. It can be a pretty normal environment, especially for a retail store. Again, if it weren't for the toxic management then Office Depot would be a much better place to work.

The hardest part of the job
-----------------

Office Depot doesn't really have much in the way of difficulty when it comes to working for them. I'd say the hardest part is starting. You have to get over the hump that is retail. Once you get over that then working at Office Depot in general is pretty simple.

The most enjoyable part of the job
-----------------

Honestly the most enjoyable part of the job is meeting people. If you like to meet people then Office Depot is certainly better than most retail jobs to do so as most customers are pretty relaxed or at least understand what they want before entering. As well other employees will be in a similar boat to you so you will always find new people to talk with.

•	Perform a wide range of activities related to safety training and safety program administration.  
•	Assists Area on safety training matters.
•	Conduct classes and demonstrations to teach principles and proper equipment operating techniques 
•	Prepare training materials and classroom for class activities.  
•	Coordinate equipment for hands on demonstrations and evaluations. 
•	Conduct product demonstrations and familiarizations 
•	Evaluate safety training programs, develop corrective action plans and facilitate safety training action plan completions. 
•	Attend train-the trainer courses, conferences, and seminars 
•	As training material updates are received/made, provide training materials to managers and/or employees and/or conduct training.
•	Assess employee training needs, developing and/or improving training programs
•	Interpreting legal documents and government regulations
•	Maintaining order in an environment of changing priorities
•	Teach prospective drivers all procedures and functions, which involve the put away and retrieval of products from locations. 
•	Train associates concerning the operational procedures and teach them how to become effective and safe drivers within the warehouse. 
•	Transport products by forklift equipment to maintain continuous flow of product. 
•	Ensure forklift equipment is in good operable condition. 
•	Identify process improvement and communicate to department leaders. 
•	Communicate all issues to management that could result in process delays, safety issues, or otherwise cause a loss to the company or its associates. 
•	Follow all known safety procedures and utilize good operational, loss prevention and safety judgment at all times. 
•	Proficient learning capacity to receive cross-training in order to support other departments 
•	Working knowledge of how adult learners acquire, apply and retain vocational knowledge in a diverse environment; ability to modify training approaches as needed to maximize learning for diverse learners 
•	Ability to understand and comply with all company policies and procedures, including but not limited to, those related to attendance, safety, conflict of interest, confidentiality, honesty and ethical conduct 
•	Place or pull merchandise pallets. 
•	Replace or pull lost items to/from their various locations. 
•	Maintain and repair merchandise bins. 
•	Communicate findings of flex count onto Lost and Found Stock Documents 
•	Load trailers. 
•	Responsible for ensuring data integrity and accuracy
•	Responsible to ensure all data reported is complaint with company standards. 
•	Review and analyze processes, documentation and data to identify any gaps in the effectiveness of risk and control providing reports to management
•	Provide proactive consulting and facilitation on risk, control, and governance processes for those areas under review.  
•	Executes audit engagement plans and perform all steps related to audits and special projects.
•	Utilize data quality tools to profile data quality issues.
•	Serve as the liaison/work with various teams to extract and analyze data as required for specific engagements.
•	Provide assurance around the effectiveness and efficiency of various operational processes.  
•	Interact with leaders in many different areas and at many different levels. 
•	Research and create daily inventory exception report, identify and report close dated product, and ensure ongoing inventory accuracy.
•	Investigate, resolve and prevent inventory discrepancies by reviewing current transactions in SAP
•	Identify and report close dated product

A typical day would consist of doing 20 tasks that would take 8 hrs to finish in 1 hr. Literally! The expectation is to wait hand and foot on every single person that walks in, this is not an over exaggeration. Normal flow of 500 customers per day with 4 employees (that includes any managers) sometimes 5 employees if God was on your side that day. So here is the math 1 cashier, 1 copy center person, 1 tech person, and a manager to wait on approx. 500 customers. Wait don't forget that you still need to work on computers with viruses, running slow, 10 year old computers, customers that can easily suck an hour out of your day because honestly they shouldn't own a computer, build chairs for customer pick up, cover lunches for tech department, copy center, and cashier, oh don't forget about plan o grams, shooting items that are out of stock to be refilled on the shelf, pull merchandise to fill empty stock, and running every 5 min. to lock up to grab a technology item for an employee.You are expected to sell protection plans, which pay you a commission if you can reach an intangible goal. I have worked sales for almost 20 years and always make commission goals until working for this company. In 4 years I was paid 1 commission. So if they tell you, "you can get commission" just laugh in their face because your hard efforts in selling is just money for their pocket not yours. You have to wear an earpiece and radio at all times to communicate which is nice until they started whats called the ISCE program, the expectation is for the manager to say "you have a customer coming in your area" (as if you are blind) then you reply "I got it" while your working with the customer the manager is blabbing in your ear "don't forget to sell add on items, ask about protection plans, are they reward customers" then if you could concentrate on anything the customer said, help the customer then after your done with that then you need to hassle the customer to do an online survey. Then you reply to the manager that you have helped the customer as if the manager is blind. Just remember 500 customers a day. How long before you end up with a headache? How long before you hate what you do? How long before you lose your mind? The company expects to see a 95% satisfaction from online surveys. I saw the other day a store with a award for highest customer service in the region for 78%. LOL. Office Depot is way off the mark. Question on the survey "Were you acknowledged by an employee?" If it was a no you scored an 80%. For a calender year the store I worked in never scored 95%. This is one of the busiest stores in the region too. The district manager never offered help to improve the score unless threatening your job is help. 
I can't ramble on this soap box anymore because I feel my blood pressure rising. 
If you love never finishing a task, a manager in your ear for your entire shift, spamming customers about surveys, and never getting a commission check for your efforts as a salesperson then this job is for you. 
If you are used to being a successful individual, who has a positive attitude, offer great customer service, and respected take a job somewhere else this is not for you.

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