retail sales associate

sales associate

retail assistant manager

shift leader

preschool teacher

Once Upon a Child

During a typical day at work I would be asked to work the floor for a majority of my shift. I would start out by straightening the floor, making sure it looked nice, and greeting customers. While greeting customers I would always ask if they needed help finding anything or if they were looking for anything in particular. I would follow up by informing them of any sales/promotions occurring at the time and letting them know my name in case they needed anything in the future. After working the floor for a while I would go behind the counter and tag, hang, and run any clothes out to the floor if needed. After I would sweep and straighten until it was time to perform closing duties. The closing duties I performed included taking out the trash, cleaning the bathrooms and play area, binning clothes to go to storage, bringing in strollers from the outside, sweeping/mopping the store, and straightening the floor. At Once Upon A Child I learned how to maintain a professional attitude at work around your friends and customers. Working in a sales associate position also taught me how to interact with people using polite manners no matter the mood or tension of the situation. I also learned that it is unacceptable in all cases to not show up or call during your scheduled shift. My co-workers are some of the friendliest people I have met. I get along with everyone and I look forward to seeing them at work. I would say the hardest part of the job would be working in the backroom. The backroom is relatively tiny and can become very unorganized very easily. It is hard to maneuver most larger objects around the room and the bins full of hangars and clothes can get pretty heavy. I would say the most enjoyable part of the job is being able to interact with customers and helping them out. I love the feeling of knowing I made a person's shopping experience a good one. If I had to explain any cons to the job, my biggest one would be that there is no set number of hours that an employee is entitled to every week. The amount of hours i get on a week to week basis is extremely inconsistent and having to worry about bills to pay makes the situation stressful. Also there is no set schedule so the days of the week I work can be inconsistent. The friendly work environment makes the job enjoyable and a good learning experience. The nature of working at a small business makes the job good for any part-time employees who are just starting out but not ideal for a long term job. It is not management's fault for the inconsistent scheduling, it is just the nature of the beast. It is important to understand that the store's performance relies on the public. If less shoppers are coming in then there is less money being made, which results in less hours on the schedule. Overall Once Upon A Child is a fantastic place to work if you enjoy working with the public and working in a team with others. The flexible schedule gives the opportunity to have a life outside of work and school, but while working at Once Upon A Child it might not be a terrible idea to get a second part-time job.

If your looking for something flexible with great pay look somewhere else.  This owner will pay min wage for you to do the work of a manager that would otherwise get paid  50-60k a year.  You poorly staffed and then expected to send people home early yet still complete the all of the work before you leave but you need to leave on time.  Overtime will never happen as she would rather under staff than have the coverage.  Running this business on a bare minimum with customers and employees needs as a last priority is what is expected.  If you get along with the other employees the owner will not stand for it, your a show for her to watch and manage via video and she will create drama where there was none.  Don't expect to have a life outside of this business as it is another thing the owner will not tolerate.  Pray that your kids and family stay well and never get sick or die as you will not be allowed time off you will be accused of faking the incident and she thinks because she is older that everyone uses the "my grandma died" as a fake excuse to get out of work.  The real reason people call out at this place is because of stress, poor mental work environment,  dirty conditions as the air vents are never cleaned, take a look for yourself next time your in look up at the vents in the rest rooms or the air returns on the sales floor,  it snows dust bunnies periodically.  If you have allergies be prepared to be dosed up with benedryl all day every day if she give your more than twelve hours a week.  If you beg for full time your expected to be a turn coat to all other employees a snitch and be at her beckon call all day every day.  If you so choose to work here I wish you luck as if you can make it past the first week with little to no training you will be doing fabulously on your own.  Don't expect empathy or assistance in getting shifts covered as she doesn't have a heart nor does she tolerate changing shifts or requesting days off months in advance even if she doesn't allow paid vacation or any benefits, asking for time off is not allowed and your hours will be cut even further.  She has her favorites and they can do no wrong so understand that going in that no matter how much they screw around and push their load off on new people that no matter what is said they snitch and to her that deserves her loyalty and nothing else.  The most enjoyable part of this job was working with some of the other girls, but the owner will quickly make that a nightmare for you if you decide to be friends or speak outside of this place of employment.

This store’s daily operations include: signing customers and their belongings in, cashing the customer’s buy out, price tagging the customer’s buy items, preparing the buy items to be organized to be ran out onto the store floor (i.e., hanging, attaching, bagging, sanitizing), running the arranged items(by size, color, and type) out on to the floor in their respective places, answering the phone, removing hangers from customers’ purchases, checking the customers out, asking for their phone number for the rewards membership program if they have one or recommending they sign up for one, cleaning up around the store or bathrooms, and making sure there’s no clothes in the wrong places or on the ground. 

You will learn from your coworkers and one shift leader (the youngest, most respectful, and most competent) how to do your job, customer service, how to answer customer phone calls or any questions they have, and patience in dealing with difficult customers or the majority of leadership. 

This store would be great for those who are independent, as there is a significant lack of coordination and teamwork. 

In regard to management, there is an unfortunate amount of favoritism, abuse of leadership, and condescending gossip about the staff that discourages employees from speaking up about the unfair treatment they have endured. There is also an unfathomable lack of communication regarding retail operations making the job more difficult than need be. In addition to, inconsistent and underdeveloped training with no constructive feedback affecting productivity. 
Going forward, perhaps, leadership receiving training where they could develop stronger, more professional, and more respectful leadership skills would help decrease unnecessary stress on the staff, as well as the store’s high turnover rate. 

The most enjoyable part of your job will be your coworkers, the majority of customers, and the relatively easy and repetitious work tasks.  

in this store there is little room for advancement. however i will say you and your co workers will have to communicate more frequently there will be lots of store activity's fun sales days. wonderful incentive plans are in place. if your energetic and need a constant adrenaline to function this place is for you. there always something to be done. there is always a store project around the corner. your agenda at work may change day by day due to supply and demand corporate changes. your work day can also stay he same for a week or month it depends on how busy your store is and what time of year it is. the hadest part of the job is keeping a smile with unhappy customers some customers may not like there offer for there items. they will take it out on you. some customers will push and pull and bump into each other on sales days. there may be days a person is angry you passed or your co worker passed on there items. all you can do is remind them to try another time it is possible you may have an abundance of items similar in size or shape to there item that is not selling well at the time. the hardest this about this job is keeping up sometimes when it gets extremely busy and keeping all customers happy. you win some you lose some all you can do sometimes is smile and nod. ask your manager if you can have worst case sanario meeting where your manager plays the angry customer so he or she can help you further understand the correct responses. Remember most of your customers are going to be tired parents who worked all day then came home to a demanding family or parents whom spent all day with there demanding family they may pick you as there outlet if you have to provide them with something they do not want to hear be sympathetic polite and do not forget to smile like you mean it.

A typical day at Once Upon A Child is very stressful, we deal with multiple social encounters all day every day and we have tons of problems to solve because we are a resale store. 
Working there, I don’t believe I took away much because every day was stressful so at the end of each day, you don’t really take away much from the job itself. I did learn more about money handling, and professional ways to answer the phone. 
Management is definitely, lacking experience. We would have multiple issues go unsolved. Conflicts with employees that would go unsolved. Conflict with customers that the manager wouldn’t take seriously and would blame the employees for these issues when the system itself is flawed in the business, anytime any employee would express that we need to change things or maybe this would help the business or our manager would just shrug it off instead of listening, taking in that information and maybe changing things that would benefit us, and that’s why we have so many issues. Unfair treatment, favoritism, lack of compromise and even lack of discipline for employees. 
The hardest part of the job would be there’s no balance or structure in the workplace making days, stressful and many employees, including myself would feel overworked. 
The most enjoyable part of the job would have to be the people I met along the way I will say we did have a good majority of staff who were lovely people and worked very well with everyone, but that’s the only reason why any work we get done because we try to keep the balance in the business. 


Go into work, I work closing shift, customers bring in their gently used stuff and we make an offer on select items, sell other product, and revive shipments of new items daily. every clothing item that comes through the store has to be tagged and hung on a hanger than ran out to the floor in a certain organized fashion. at closing i count registers and make sure other coworkers get the other closing duties done such as, trash, vacuuming, overs and unders (the rack), and clearing the clothes off the counter then tagging as much as possible. hardest part of the job is dealing with the customers and their selling their items to us because people expect more than we can pay, they love our prices when their shopping but don't understand we can't pay them what we plan to sell it for, with us being the middle man and needing to make a profit. its hard to explain and people get frustrated on the daily. most enjoyable part of the job for me is the behind-the-scenes work, the filing and paper work in the office, like book keeping and ordering/receiving, and the counter work, hanging clothes is what I'm fastest at. Also worst part of the job is i don't get paid for what i do. i uphold a managerial position but do not get the correct pay as a manager would and since I've been going above and beyond without being asked, i've waited for the raise and my boss's have failed to keep me happy working there. i also get disrespect on the daily, my checks shorted, and no break time available on certain shifts.

I worked here almost 2 years. I would not recommend. You get paid very little. Managers are lazy and if they don't want to work, you are expected to do your job 10 times faster. Managers have no idea how stressful the workload is because they never have to do what you do as a csr. Managers will sit outside and smoke for 20 minutes instead of helping their employees or doing their job. Two of the managers were best friends and it was definitely a very unprofessional relationship fueled by favoritism.  You are expected as a csr to train new hires since managers dont want to do it. There have been many instances of unfair treatment towards me and others. I also dont really like the rules corporate puts into place and it puts you into very uncomfortable situations with customers a lot of the time. A customer also stole my phone once. Not the best experience. Good coworkers and good laughs but i just couldnt do it anymore. I was loyal to this company and i was one of the people who have been there longer than most of the staff including managers. I felt like i was constantly targeted and that my frustrations weren't being heard. The higher ups were not any better. I hope this job learns to do better and i hope they come to the conclusion that the turnover rate is high for a reason. I also asked if i could have a day off to go to a funeral that was at 6 and they asked if i could still work that day.. 

I’m sure after reading this, many will know who I am but I do not care. This job was great in the beginning. I genuinely enjoyed coming to work and working with the people. It was not drama filled. There were some workers who were hired the same time as me that eventually quit, but I stayed and for too long. It was never really the management. The manager and assistant manager are great. It’s the workers who can be a bit too much. I always knew I wasn’t very liked by a particular person. I never understood why and brushed it off. Until this said person constantly was rude and outed me on purpose. Would talk over me, interrupt me. When I voiced my concerns/feelings to management, they were solved for a bit and then it went back to how it was. The longer I worked there, the more drama filled it became. You would think in a children’s store there would be no drama, but there was. Some of the workers never did their job. Sales associate means you get on the registers and check out customers as they go. You do your job as you are told not as how you want to do it. That is something I fear this workplace will always struggle with. However I did not write this review to bash people, just to share my experience. There definitely was some favoritism here unfortunately but that’s expected anywhere you go. I would recommend this job to a high schooler wanting to get some money, but I would not recommend this as a full time job because this job will become your life. 

a Typical day was restocking, being at the cash register, pricing, tagging, hanging, and putting away all the clothes, toys, and equipment all quickly.  i Learned that i am a fast learner but that my fast was not fast enough.  the management was great, but the training was poor to me. another employee got trained what to me was correct. my training didn't follow the schedule at all. i got there on all my training days got trained fine the first 2 days. on the 3rd and 4th day the were supposed to train me on other things but didn't. on the 5th they finally showed me not train just showed me how to do equipment, but from then on any questions i had they just kept saying what do you think so i said what i thought would be good and nope i was wrong. so my co-workers where great but not much help to me.  the hardest part of the job was the superhero speed i needed. for example i needed to tag clothes 10/min that seemed fine, i was slow at first about 1 every 30 seconds then i got a lot faster. i got to a speed where i was tagging 1 every 10 seconds. did this for about a week and they said its not fast enough i need to tag cloths at the speed of 1 every 5-6 seconds....so i speed up (stabbing my fingers 35% more) until i could not tag anymore, also i never got to leave at my clock out time i always worked after closing.  the most enjoyable for me was helping out the customers and hearing them say thank you, it made me feel helpful.

I'm sorry but I hated this job. I was part of the "O.G." crew that was there when this location was developing, even helping set up the shelves, etc.

It essentially scarred me from wanting to ever help build something from the ground up because the manager - the most scatterbrained person I've ever met - canned me THREE days after the Grand Opening. 

Claimed I didn't do some processing of the clothes right, even though I did exactly what she wanted me to do. Granted, I've made a mistake or two but I'm pretty good at correcting and learning from them but three days??

Training with her was something else - don't get me wrong, she's sweet and can be charming - but she was all over the place. I'm surprised we got through the work we did. She'd forget her glasses and we searched for them instead of going over work.

I get the methods needed to make sales and profits; we'd have to be extremely picky (i.e. "like new"), I get it but it felt like highway robbery pricing stuff for pennies on the dollar.

With that said, people need to lower their expectations when it comes to this particular establishment, as a buyer or a seller. You are not going to get within five dollars of what you paid for when it comes to brand-name items you're trying to sell. They're going to sell three times for what you got paid for the items.

I hope the manager has become less scatterbrained as the business has picked up but I would not work here. Nor would I ever recommend it.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Retail sales associate 118 salaries reported	$12.41 per hour
Sales associate 107 salaries reported	$11.87 per hour
Retail assistant manager 30 salaries reported	$14.05 per hour
Shift leader 25 salaries reported	$14.09 per hour
Preschool teacher 8 salaries reported	$16.38 per hour

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