sales associate

associate

retail sales associate

operations manager

retail supervisor

Old Navy

Working here was a bittersweet experience. A typical day includes going to the back, clocking in, and completing your health check. You’d talk to a manager that is in charge for that hour and they’d tell you where to go (cash register, sales floor, fitting room, helping them with a project, etc). You are usually told when to go on your break or lunch, but sometimes things may get hectic so you’ll have to ask them yourself or just go and let them know on the walkie. You get paid breaks and unpaid lunches. If you’re opening and you’re new there, your jobs usually include cleaning the store, placing items in the fitting room back on the floor, or recovering the store so everything looks okay. While opened, you can be on the sales floor recovering, in the fitting room, running go backs, on cash register, or doing a loyalty blitz (asking everyone in the store if they wanna sign up for the loyalty program). Closing usually includes doing the same as opening, excluding cleaning the store usually. 

You learn how to work in a fast paced environment here. It gets super busy before school begins, during sales, and the holidays. You also learn how to multitask, provide great customer service, resolve issues with customers, and work in a team setting. 

Management here is so-so, some of them are good, some of them are okay. There’s sometimes no communication between managers, so managers may tell you to do something differently than the other. This location goes through a lot of managers and I’m unsure if it’s like that at other locations. They are very understanding when it comes to changing your availability because of school or personal issues, and allow for you to become a FAN (only work around the holidays and it is mandatory for you to come in when they schedule you, from what I can remember). My main issue is that they don’t tell you when you’ve worked with someone exposed to COVID-19. I believe the company required this during the beginning of the pandemic, but I guess they loosened this requirement because of mask mandates and vaccines? I’m not too sure, but I personally wish it was still required especially when some employees may live with someone that is immunocompromised.

Coworkers are usually younger (teens to early 20s) and are very fun to be around. There are the occasional older coworkers but they are also very fun to be with. You get a lot of hours during the summer and holidays depending on your work experience, but hours tend to die down once school begins and after the holidays (example: 4 hour shifts for 2-3 days a week, sometimes only a day).

I would say the hardest part of the job is getting loyalty and credit card sign ups. The company requires that you get a certain percentage every hour and maintain that percentage. Managers will tell you over and over again to get sign ups. Sometimes they’ll tell multiple people to go around the store asking for sign ups, which is annoying for employees and the customers. A lot of times, we don’t know what customers were already asked by other employees, so we ask some customers multiple times. They have complained about this and said they have felt hounded in our store. A lot of the customers can be a pain in the butt (as with any other job). 

The most enjoyable part of the job are the coworkers! They are all very enjoyable to be around and are quite nice. If I were to leave, this would be the thing I miss the most. 

I began working here as a second job and it was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. 
Where do I even begin? The management was a nightmare. They were aggressive, pushy, invasive, and frightening majority of the time. I had anxiety attacks before going in for shifts because all I could think was, “what am I going to get berated for today?” When performing new tasks, you were rushed and berated over the walkies for everyone to hear. I scalded my hand steaming clothes once because I was startled by a manager hollering at me over the walkies about how long I was taking to steam a pile of clothes to perfection. Yeah. Everything was wrong or done incorrectly no matter what and you were humiliated for it. 
The shipment shifts were a nightmare because you could be moving as fast as you could at 6:00 am and it was never fast enough. More berating would ensue. New employees always looked petrified and broken-in employees looked like they wanted to die. The clothes arrive in plastic bags and they don’t recycle them, so there were 10-15 (maybe more) massive garbage bags full of plastic bag waste being tossed into the dumpster several times a week. 
They never trained me on register in the 8-ish month period I was employed there and then had the audacity to get angry with me when I told them I couldn’t hop on during busy times because I wasn’t trained. Then I was forced to ring on “Mobile Register” (a literal iPod) which didn’t work majority of the time, and customers who were pulled out of the line to ring on the MC (yes, you had to literally summon the card paying customers out of the checkout line for this) would become furious with me and so would the manager I would subsequently have to call up to handle the situation, because according to both customer AND management, it’s YOUR fault if an iPod Touch isn’t performing flawlessly as a cash register on store-wide WiFi. 
My favorite part? My dad passed suddenly while I was employed there and only one manager sent me condolences. When I returned two weeks later, I let them know that I’d need a day that I was scheduled for off to help my mom with important legal stuff since I’m an only child and the death was not something we were prepared for at all. They told me I had to come in that day anyway because “your job is your priority”
My job that pays $9 an hour, gives me anxiety attacks, makes me feel like I am worthless and stupid, and has sucked the life out of me prior to this traumatic loss I’ve JUST experienced, is my “priority” over my grieving mother and my responsibilities as a daughter? Cool. 
Also, the constant pressure to push ONC’s onto people was almost dehumanizing. When I think about the amount of people who were shopping and minding their own business and had to endure multiple employees approaching them about ONC’s to boost their numbers so they wouldn’t get harassed or yelled at by management makes me want to physically vomit. It was embarrassing. I was forced to knock on fitting room doors while people were changing and list the “benefits” of having a credit card through ON. Ridiculous. 
Fast forward a few months after I quit and I was given full time at my original job (another retailer that I love and respects me, my home life, and my health) and we hire someone I worked with at ON months prior who was also deeply disgusted with her experiences. I felt validated because she understood it all and had similar situations occur in her time there, and we both actively tell other people about how horrible it is.

I am a college student who applied for a part-time job listing and selected "10-26 hours" on my application. I am working 40+ hours a week. I asked for fewer and was told I could do 30. I am scheduled for 39 and 3 quarters next week, just short of getting benefits....
Most of those shifts are 7 and 3/4 hours, just short of getting an hour long lunch...... again, I am in school and applied for a part-time position.

There is an insane push to sign up customers for the loyalty program. I was originally trained to ask when it fit naturally into the conversation and I had built up a rapport with the customer. But corporate will not budge on their 10% conversion rate goal, so we are pushed to ask literally every customer, whether we've helped them at all or not and even if they just walked in. It is draining.

There is a lot of time when the store is fairly empty and things are already recovered. During this time, you must pretend to be working. If you stand still, sit, or walk without occasionally touching an item, someone will appear to remind you you have to be recovering. It doesn't matter if everything looks fine, you need to pretend to fix things for hours on end until there's real work to be done.

The technology we have to learn to use in the store, necessary to perform many tasks, is spotty at best. We are provided 12 "mobiles". Corporate will not allow us more. We ALWAYS have more than 12 employees working and there are never enough devices to go around. If you are lucky enough to get one, it will be low on battery, the scanner will not work, and company apps have consistent glitches. If I am supposed to get 3 Navyists this hour, I need a mobile that works and scans-- there is no other way to sign up Navyists.

Finally, we are recently being pushed to provide "excellent customer service", aka upselling and rewards program, and to be dressing more fashionably and in more of our own product. When I applied and trained for this job I was told "the product sells itself, you don't need to learn sales" and "the dress code is super lax, we especially want to stress that you do not need to wear Old Navy clothing and shouldn't feel pressured to". Now, I'm being told I need to learn both fashion skills and sales, and it is being strongly hinted we should be buying and wearing our own product as a means of promoting it. All this is fine, but it isn't minimum wage fine. For minimum wage, I will do the minimum-- that means I'll keep the store tip-top clean and neat, I'll approach customers to offer assistance and help them find what they need, and I'll do any other requested duties such as BOPIS, curbside pickup, reticketing, etc. Minimum wage doesn't get you a fashion expert who spends all their salary on the brand and upsells constantly. Minimum wage gets you a functional store running smoothly. 

The people are great. We're all just trying to get by and keep our jobs; it is the corporate higher-ups pushing these demands on us (with the exception of scheduling issues). I love my coworkers, and my superiors are caring and good teachers. I learn a ton here every day. The break room snacks are top-tier. The experience I'm gaining is so valuable and I feel so much more prepared and qualified for other jobs.

I believe my particular experience at Old Navy was a very specific one that not a lot of people get to encounter. Our team opened our store from the bare bone empty white-walled department setup from the ground up. I'm talking no shelves, no booths, no mannequins, heck we didn't even have a store on day one! We had to train at semi-local stores to prepare for business at our location. But we sweat and worked hard to put up shelving units, hang bars and mannies to get that place up and running. It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed every minute of it. We were even a test store, so there were always exciting things happening for us as the new hit top spot Old Navy in the area. There were opportunities to move up, promises of new experiences, pay raises for those who showed promising qualities, and we were moved up a position to be leads. It was great.
But then... the dark clouds that hang over evert retail store started to roll in. Managers got cranky, corporate started to press hard, sales and cards dwindled fast during the post-Christmas slow season. Times were rough and hours were scarce. Our managers even suggested picking up secondary part time positions to supplement our income while the sales drought carried on. It seemed endless... myself and my fellow employees who were lucky enough to show strong sales associate skills in the beginning were the only ones getting hours anymore. But then of course people got sick of winter and started shopping more as the second quarter came along and things perked back up.
It was, by this time, I was expected to be on the waiting list to become a manager. But a couple inquiries to our management team provided me with little to no response, and I was running out of waiting time. One of the other managers (not the GM) decided to take it upon herself to offer me a position at another location as a BOH training manager. I delightfully accepted. One interview later and all I was waiting for was a phone call... which never came. Months passed and I was now convinced that it just wasn't going to happen. Even after one of our existing managers transferred off to another busier store, I offered to take his place, and watched silently in the background as another one of my coworkers to his place. It was ver disappointing. To be put on the fast track for the position from the very start, right from setting up booth and shelves, to sitting here a year later with nothing. It hurts to be honest. But like I said, my experience was a very strange one and I don't think you'll find too many others like it.
So. If you can handle a hefty crowd of people and folding clothes for four hours straight with some really decent breaks in between, go for it. It's a great starter job for teens and a good second job for those not making enough at their current one. Just push through the tough parts, because there are quite a bit, and you'll do fine.

This is honestly the worst place I’ve ever worked and I’ve been working retail for awhile now. They started out nice and understanding but the managers are the opposite. I got hired with 4 other people and out of the five of us only one of them still works there. They give you issues about using the restroom, if I spend maybe 3 minutes to actually use it then I had to wash my hands and spend some time sanitizing the area (store rules) I was questioned about why it takes me so long. (I was legit in there for maybe 6 minutes) I was questioned publicly with customers nearby about why it takes so long and told of I have bladder issues I need to speak to them. It’s highly embarrassing and they could have pulled me in the back room to talk about. They won’t work with you on scheduling, I couldn’t work until after 10 and they kept scheduling me for 9:45 shifts, they even have a habit of adding time onto your shift than what you are emailed. It happened to a coworker, she was scheduled for a. 9:45-5 shift and they asked her the day before if she would stay an extra hour. She refused and they still scheduled her for it. It happens a lot according to the other coworkers. They almost never give 15 minute breaks, so be prepared to wait until lunch! Working there I never got a single 15 minute break. They try and promote being ‘fast’ sometimes, one shift they had me running all around the store and I was told I need to be fast because if I’m slow I’m letting the team down. I was the only one who had to do that exercise and it honestly made me question if it was because I am fat. They don’t care if you get hurt, I severely sprained my ankle, was taken out for 3 days and tried coming back for two shifts. All I was told is that I need to work on being fast, I was in so much pain after an 8 hour shift I was crying but nobody at all offered me words of encouragement or comfort. I put my two weeks in that night and went to have my ankle looked again for my doctor take me out of work or any activities for close to 3 weeks. I explained the situation to my manager and sent her a copy of my letter taking me out. She said that she understood, but then a day later sent me a text asking me if I can come on to work the next day and telling me that if I can’t come in I need to call in. I legit gave her a note and explained the situation. Another thing I want to mention before ending this is that they care more about getting old navy cards or naviest enrollments than anything, the morning meeting is all about how many cards and sales you are expected to get for a short shift like five hours you are expected to open 1 card for an eight hour shift 2 or more cards. They drill it into your head that on the floor you have to stop every customer and ask if they have a card then relentlessly try and get one. If you don’t get the card then the cashiers are supposed to do the same thing at the registers. This location is especially hard because they like to focus on being the ‘number one store’ and if they don’t get good numbers they let you know if you are doing poorly. 

Applied for a part-time job but ended up on this seasonal trial thing. Found this out on orientation as well as needing your tax information to fill out a tax form. Most of the hires I was with were just confused as I when filling it out mostly because WE DIDN'T KNOW WE WERE GOING TO FILL OUT A TAX FORM THE DAY OF ORIENTATION!

Here's how things worked when I first started to work at Old Navy. The schedules are set two weeks beforehand and so it's difficult to make plans when you don't know what your schedule is like. If you try and schedule a day off but three others did the same on that exact day, then ya can't call that day off. It's reasonable, so don't be lazy putting it off. Paychecks come bi-weekly so that's nice if you work the two weeks you're scheduled. If you want to pick up shifts off from other people, you can through an app all the managers and coworkers are on. HOWEVER, you can only be picked up if you have done the role. For example, Person A has worked only on the salesfloor and so he cannot pick up a shift from Person B who is a cashier. Most of the cashiers offer up their shifts and so it can be frustrating, especially as a new hire who hasn't touched the register for MONTHS.

If you make it through the trial, you'll be asked if you want to be part-time. If you accept, BOY-O-BOY, you in for a ride of not doing any work for nearly a month. From my experience and hearing what the other new hires said, they had only given 1-2 4 hour shifts a month for schedules that are assigned 2 weeks in advance. It's infuriating because the store tends to shift their products (certain racks of clothes, shoes, certain types of clothes, etc.) around, making it difficult to find products for customers. You are constantly asking coworkers where products are when you work there. Even if you are a regular part-timer, the only other people that have a good regular schedule are those that have worked there for a long time. It's expected that they would since they've worked there for a long time but it doesn't encourage new hires to even be there when they're BARELY there.

Even as you are working there, it can get sooooo slow when the rush is over. It's even more difficult to sign people up for the Rewards because not a lot of new people are coming in. Those that do come in are people already signed up in the Rewards program. IT SUCKS.

However with those issues in mind, it seemed like most of supervisors did their best to help you out. It was nice of them too and so I don't really blame them for the experience that I endured.

Old Navy was my first job, and I was really excited to work there! However, I was soon really disappointed. To start, the management was really toxic and fake. They would be fake to your face and then go behind your back to other managers and EMPLOYEES and talk about you. There is definitely cliques and management has their favorites for sure. There is little to no confidentiality when speaking with management, and often things that were told to one manager in private was being brought up to me by the whole management staff, and even some employees. In the beginning they were fairly flexible with schedules to a certain extent, but as time went on they made you feel very bad about changing schedules and often did it whilst making you feel guilty. There was also really no room to move up in the ranks because at my location they often hired from outside. That being said, you can move up from a brand associate to a lead, but you're essentially doing the department managers work for the same wages you were making prior. They offer merit raises every year, or maybe 6 months? I think it is a year. But they are a mere 15-30 cents which definitely is not enough to pay the bills. Also, you can be a lead of more than one area and do twice maybe even three times the work for the same amount of money. The work environment is also very toxic. The managers are VERY pushy about getting their employees to get customers to sign up for Old Navy credit cards because the managers benefit from it, I'm sure. They make it a competition and pretty much pit you against the other employees just to see who can get the most. And if you don't meet their standards they make you feel incredibly guilty. Getting hours was incredibly difficult when first starting out. I was lucky to get 2 shifts a week. But as I started to prove myself I gradually got more. However, once I became a lead I got some consistent hours. That's until they start hiring a lot of new employees (because they have a very high turnover rate) and then your hours are the first to get cut. You also get thrown in there as well and really don't get properly trained which leads to frustration from managers when you don't know how to do something. When I put in my two weeks, I gave my reasons for leaving and they took that opportunity to discredit every reason I had for leaving and made me feel like my reason weren't valid even though they definitely were. 

To be clear, this is not a review on the entire company, just the Spokane branch. I can't speak for other branches. Honestly, It would save you a lot of stress and frustration if you chose to find another place to work at. 

My personal motto
"the harder and faster I work, the faster my personal achievement arrives" 

My first Employment fit my motto very nicely, and here why.

Old Navy was the perfect environment to create personal motivation goals to quickly improve work agility and consistency.


What’s so great about Old Navy?

Great Management
Amazing team effort with Staff and Employees
Relaxing work environment
Always something to learn and do 

Summary: 
Before I worked at Old Navy I didn't get out of the apt much at all. After I was employed I was really shy at first, but I quickly became comfortable with the staff and the presence of random people. I felt as if the managers and associates always knew what to say in tough situations.

Such as:
-They knew how to motivate me,
-They were extremely supporting when times were tough,
-They're always looking out for my well-being
-They were always friendly and professional
-They also are constantly checking your company intellect i.e. protocols and procedures to keep you up-to-date.

Old Navy has helped me discover a new side of myself.
They helped me discover a new way of thinking. 
“When times get tough, top employees shine”

There were very few things I disliked about my job, but there were some downfalls.

What’s not so great about Old Navy?

Minimal Room for Advancement
Over-employed at times
No benefits
About 20 hour’s week (On a busy week) 


My Ending Thoughts about Old Navy....

I feel like when new management is employed, all the credit you have gained with your previous boss/employers is washed down the drain.
Next thing you know they are talking to you like a 5 year old about common sense procedures that completely undermines your trusted knowledge and experience.

Let me make one thing straight. I consider all management, employers and staff to be absolutely outstanding and I consider most of them as my "Old Navy family" that I will never forget. They were always by my side and I wouldn't be a great salesman today without their help.

But for the sake of my future Career, I refuse to spend another 2 to 3 years working my heart out by increasing customer experience rates and credit card rates, if there are minimal shifts and almost no advancement opportunities.

When I was 16, Old Navy fit into my life style perfectly. Mainly because I didn't have bills to pay and lived with my mom. I'm 19 and have been moved out of my mom's for a year now. 

I learned that a part-time, minimum wage job, is not enough to live off of when you have to pay for food, rent, clothes etc...

It really depends on who the store manager is. I personally enjoyed the work itself. Other retail competitors are starting to catch up and surpass their wages, but they've been a bump up from min wage/lower paying stores since I started. It's a nice job if you enjoy forgetting about work when you clock out. They have nice little incentives and "parties" for getting certain work done, credit card applications, sales goals, employee of the month, etc.. For holidays they pay you your average day of work, regardless if you work that day. If you work that holiday you get what you worked plus the daily average pay. If you have a good store manager, there's not much stress besides when you have a rude customer.
My second store manager ruined the job for me though. They would lie about advancement opportunities and pay, and allowed a lot of lazy/petty people to work there. Them hiring lazy people/bad managers and not correcting them made the job hard. Management was chosen by friendship and not experience. Was even more frustrating because the new managers would ask old employees how to do things, or tell them to do something the wrong way. Even worse still, you'd be met with rudeness or ignored if you suggested doing something the correct way, and then later told to fix whatever when it didn't work. They also did not follow covid laws and regulations. There were problems for years and no higher ups ever noticed or did anything about it.
So overall I'd highly recommend this job if you're just going to work a few days a week. I also forgot to mention that their scheduling is VERY flexible. You set your own availability (though if its limited it may limit your hours). Even under poor management it was good. And unless you call out all the time theyre usually pretty forgiving if you need a sick day or need to leave work. Most stores let you switch shifts as well. Would not recommend working it for long periods of time or if you're expecting to get promoted. Additionally, pro tip, go in to the store you want to work as a customer before you interview or apply. I've worked at more than one old navy and you can kind of tell how the store is running and the kind of people working there by visiting. If the store is a mess on a weekday and the cashiers/other employees are rude its probably not going to be a good workplace. 


No matter what you do in this role it’s just like most retail stores where only the managers actually make money. All the brand associates are started at minimum wage no matter how much experience you have. I put in a lot of effort in my role and got constant praise from my manager and told me I was the one prime example of the job role but when it came time to get a raise I was moved 15 cents above minimum wage it was a joke. You only get one chance a year to get a raise unless promoted. 

Outside of my actual role. This place is like a high school. There’s over 300 employees and most of the sales associates are young 16- late 20s. If you fit in that demographic and you’re social you’ll have fun here but you won’t be as appreciated. The reason I stayed so long was because of my coworkers they made coming to work fun. It could get a little clique-ish but for the most part people were nice and sociable. 

A lot of micro management from managers that work at this location (Times Square). Since it’s such a big store there’s over 12 managers, I can’t remember exactly how much. With 3 floors there’d normally be 2-3 managers working the sales floor at a time trying to get associates to hit sales goals , sell loyalty , credit. They would just watch and dictate but never really contributed to numbers or cleaning. (Most not all). They allow an hour break unpaid for full time workers so unfortunately that meant 9 hour work days for full timers. 7-4s, 8-5s, 9-6s etc. It’s one of those places where you start working and think everything’s great until you realize its not. 

The best part was the break room it’s actually kind of like a cafeteria, there’s a tv , market place , etc. & the people here outside of the managers were great besides the people who were in competition with each other to become a lead or specialist. 

There was a lot of favoritism in this workplace. I was technically one of the “favored” so I didn’t complain too much but it was easily witnessed. Amongst COVID they’re trying to get a lot of people to return to work but still offering everyone minimum wage. WAKE UP the price went up. Another issue is that this location is constantly hiring due to a somewhat high turnover rate so employees would have inconsistent schedules due to the hours being distributed to new hires. Outside of that you got hours based on favoritism, if you’re great at your job or if you’re constantly begging for hours. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Sales associate 89 salaries reported	$13.49 per hour
Associate 193 salaries reported	$14.00 per hour
Retail sales associate 35 salaries reported	$14.21 per hour
Operations manager 12 salaries reported	$23.07 per hour
Retail supervisor 19 salaries reported	$17.96 per hour

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