stocking associate

designer

sales associate

seasonal associate

retail assistant manager

Pottery Barn

Pottery Barn Albuquerque in Uptown could really be a great place to work.  However, the management and corporate do not walk their talk as a "People First" company.  They do not listen to the staff. A General Manager was run away by the cruelty of corporate and the managers at her store.  She was totally corporate oriented and had relocated here to work there.  Three managers quit simultaneously before they were fired.  They were involved in inappropriate and illegal behavior.  They were managers when the aforementioned GM was there.  They were rude, mean, and cruel. There is one more manager there from before and he is lazy, condescending and mean. He just knows how to talk a good game. As associates, we complained to the Divisional Manager and Human Resources but we were shot down and there was no accountablility for the actions, even when we have been locked out of the store unable to get into the store for our shifts.  The managers ignored the telephones and knocking from the store entrance. Now they see we were correct.  Because of those managers, we are not getting any hours on which to live.  I have been looking for more employment there (I am more than qualified to work there) and I have looked other places.  I have had to apply for social welfare for rental assistance and food stamps and management and corporate do not care about our welfare and continue to cut hours.  We are paying for their inability to correctly manage the store.  Several good employees have quit.  They do not recognize good employees, the only ones that get recognition are the people that are not qualified and that are the friends of management.  I have years of retail experience and customers like me, but I have been ignored, yelled at, put down and overlooked.  I still go in with a good attitude.  I have been existing on about 20 hours per month for three months now. At $10.00 an hour that is nothing.  Plus we are paid less than the posted associate pay of $11.25 per hour

The sad thing is that the customers recognize our issues and speak to them, especially the lack of staff and feedback for their questions.  The store's air conditioning system has been down for over a year and we are in Albuquerque, NM.  The customers have developed a lack of trust for the store as well.  Sad, because they pay our salaries, they are also important because they are people too and deserve the best that we can provide.

I can not speak for all pottery barn but our story is under staffed and the payroll is choking part of our productivity. The management is often helpful once you pestered them enough but of the five managers there are only three that are understanding to the plight of the associates and accommodating. Lastly training is almost non-existent. You might get trained one or twice but mostly you watch others and learn.

The costumers are a odd balls. Some are sweet but majority have a superiority complex.For example they numerous of times I've been told from a customer " they spend a lot of money here." In my mind and verbally saying "you are past the 30 days of return so we can not put it back on to your card". None of our customers read the receipt. Or they believe that the estimated time of delivery is the exact time of delivery. For some reason they forget that the furniture  must be constructed first.
Secondly they confuse the online store with the physical store and also confuse us with PB Kids and Teens. 

When it comes to policy they often confuse the sales associates and managers with the owner thinking we can make immediate changes. 
The billing for our company sucks. We have received way too many complaints because money is not refunded on time, money refunded is incomplete,or extra charges.

Then we have delivery surcharge, which is never explained on the website and customers become confused because they believe that they are paying for shipping twice.

There are strenuous working conditions particularly referring to foot wear. Considering that all stores have hard floors, one would, assume that employees would be allowed to wear solid color athletic shoes or clogs of the nurse variety for foot support and injury prevention. However PB has banned athletic and clogs. 

Its constant winter in the store. Both employee and customers are prone to sickness due to extreme changes in temperature. 

There are items that are discontinued without a picture reference that customers are looking for and we may or may not have but can not figure out the pricing. 

In merchandise locator and online items are not identical when trying to identify a product by name. Bonus; the items can have multiple names but at the same time can refer to a different product.

Pay & benefits
My pay and benefits at Pottery Barn are very low. Extremely low and minimum wage. I was never called in for receiving more money for my experience, education and hard work in the store as a Certified residential Interior designer, visual associate and sales associate.

Management
In general, managers at Pottery Barn have a hard time communicating with other management and the whole team of sales and visuals to really create a well diverse and community in the store as a team.

Culture
Collaboration with my colleagues at Pottery Barn is poor. Even with a group texting system through an. Third party app, it was very difficult to get a hold of the general manager, scheduler and as a group and team, zero team work from management and more of a snobby environment to walk into with management and the rest of the employees, big divide.

Overall
My experience working at Pottery Barn I worked with Potter Barn and your expected to create a availability sheet with your days and times available during the week. Once approved, you begin, however, be expected to be asked more than once and periodically each time at work, to stay late and to come in on other days outside of your availability or be forced to be removed the schedule and ignored by the general manager of your not willing to increase hours. 
I had a four day a week part time schedule and revolved around my husbands full time management position at another place in the city. My general manger took me of the employee schedule for more than a month which forced me to quit because I needed to work and was out work for more than a month and my general manger would ignore my call at the store  in Dallas by saying she was unavailable to speak with my when I would call in and my texts would be ignored about getting back on the schedule. I was very hurt by this considering I am a professional and Certified Residential Interior Designer and Professional Organizer, Subcontracting with the Container Store and Home Staging houses in the Dallas Metroplex. When Pottery Barn felt like they didn’t want me at the store anymore, they didn’t notify me, just ignored me and removed me while still under contract to work.

1.  CUSTOMER WANTS TO CANCEL ORDER/ITEM:
- Once an order goes into the "In Fulfillment" status, we are instructed to tell customers that it can not be cancelled. Orders go into the "In Fullfillment" status almost instantly once placed. So whether a customer has placed the order 5 minutes ago, or within 24 hours.
2. PRICE ADJUSTMENTS:
- This company always has some kind of sale or promotion going on. Many calls from customers are requests for price adjustments. However, this company does not honor ANY kind of price adjustment. It does not matter whether the customer ordered the item 5 minutes ago, and the item just went on sale for 75% off within that 5 minutes.
3. SHIPPING | PERSONALIZATION ISSUES:
- I have received several calls about orders arriving with items missing from their package, or receiving someone elses order. Most commonly, customers receive their personalized items that have one or more of the following: wrong name, wrong thread color, upside down, uneven, incorrect spelling, wrong font.
4. BACK ORDER | OUT OF STOCK ITEMS:
- Websites will let you place orders online when the item is not even available...either out of stock, back ordered, or discontinued. Customers are not notified that their items are in this status.
5. PROMOTION CODES:
- My least favorite customer call in, is promotion codes not working at check out. Usually, it is because the item is apart of the exclusions, but the website does not make that clear to the customer. The websites are VERY misleading. Customers receive promotion codes sent to their emails that show up 'invalid' at checkout or it says that the code was already used. 
6. EMPLOYEE DISCOUNT:
-You can not use your discount in-store unless you have a discount card (you wont get one of these as a work-from-home rep), your orders are only placed on the 'Associate Shopping' link, and you DO NOT RECEIVE 40% OFF! You can receive UP TO 40% off on select items.

I have worked for PB for a few months now and find it very unorganized. There are too many assistant managers and not many part time employees. You never know what is going on  from one shift to the next. 
The training is next to nothing, they show you how to use the register but then throw you to the wolves and when you call for help a manager (s) take forever to help because they are on the floor selling. 
I have worked several shifts where all the sales people are busy ringing and the phone is ringing off the hook. 

They don't treat the employees well at all and as a matter of fact you feel totally used. 

This really should be a job for college kids. I am a stay at home mom and find the place a joke to work for. I am only staying for the discount. 

They usually only have 3 people working and you can't even get a break to use the washroom.  They want you to push customers to open up a cc and keep demanding it every shift. You are also pressured into selling at least $500/shift. It is so annoying when they keep pressuring you to do this especially the cc  has no benefit to you or the customer. 

The shift are horrible too: ie: 2-7, 3-8 1-5, 4-10, 3-9 By the way the store closes at 9pm /weekdays and you cannot leave until the manager closes all7 registers. PB does not allow them to close any registers early. I guess they like to pay people to sit around while the store manager closes. Totally contradicts the idea that they have to cut people every night due to overpaying employees. 

I am shocked this store has not gone under yet. Everything is made in Indonesia or China and you pay a fortune for it!!

I have learned a lot in Pottery Barn about all kinds of things. Communication is definitely something I've lacked since I can remember. Pottery Barn offers great service to those seeking design advice and help for their home. It helped me a lot with speaking to people, and with the knowledge I have also gained by studying our products and by learning from my peers as well, I can communicate freely with any client/customer about what we can do to enhance their space to the one that they feel most comfortable and at home as possible. To my surprise, my co-workers are from many different cultures, and whenever we got the chance, we got to learn and bond with each other about these different cultures and different practices. It's a plus to be able to relate with those who are also teaching you many different things. 
As for the most enjoyable part of the job, I would say that the satisfaction of making your customers happy with the help you have provided them at the end of the day is the most enjoyable part of my job. I love seeing the smiles on all the customers' faces when they find the best piece of furniture for their home. A nice runner up is just simply bonding with co-workers. I love relating to them and talking to them about anything! It's a great way to get to know each other. 
Overall, Pottery Barn has definitely changed who I was a year ago to who I am now. It has given me more knowledge than anything I could have ever asked for! It'll always hold a special place in my life. 

Some days are very busy and often we are under staffed because we "may not make enough money". As a part time employee even though I have a great relationship with them I feel taken advantage of. Sometimes they call me out of nowhere and beg me to work and I come in and do it because I feel bad. I was 2 minutes late one day and I got the dont be late speach (even though we have a 4 minute grace period). So I started coming in at least 20 minutes early (which requires me to leave 45 minutes earlyer because I take the train to work) and there have been multiple times where they said can you go back home we have to cut your shift...Really! But, I don't take anything serious there anymore. Customers constantly get over on them and if they keep it up they will probably go out of business soon. Rules are not enforced for example if we clearly have a 30 day return policy why are we accepting things from 4 years ago that we no longer carry!? I've been working there for 3 and a half years and they gave me a 90 cent raise. Management positions have opened up and the hire people from the outside (sometimes with no experience) who are clueless and often ask me for help because nobody here is properly trained you learn as you go along. Customers get treated better than employees and employees do not get treated equally. On the up side the I do like some of my co-workers and we really try to lean on each other and keep each other afloat. They have a pretty good discount and a very flexible schedule.

Started during the holidays and found it extremely overwhelming, the only good managers were in stock and the sales managers were terrible to work with.

-Not enough people to work trucks during the holidays and not enough room for all the boxes, managers get mad if you haven't process enough boxes ( but also have to do stock checks and expect to have multiple people asking for a check and not willing to repeat what they said / fill online orders/ bring heavy furniture downstairs for curbside pickup and don't expect help for the sales associates with that / also try to find in store pick up ) 
-On closing shifts you will be expecting to process boxes, stock checks, curbside pick ups 15 minutes before closing and half the time its big rugs, and still expecting to take care of all the cardboard in the backroom ( half the time the compactor isn't working and impossible to take care of any of the cardboard) clean the store ( take out the trash, cleaning the break area, both bathrooms that constantly have problems, and vacuum the entire store) 
- The back stockroom is always messy and no matter how much you try to clean/organize anything it will be messy by the end of the day, and makes inventory day so much harder than expected. Expect to spend a good chunk of time finding any bedding products due to missing tags. 
 


A typical day at work involve completing a sale and making sure your customer leaves happy, satisfied, and as a friend and not just a customer.
While working at PBK I've learned how to monogram and personalized different items in the store.
Our management needs a lot of organization and work. Our Store manager works at the most 20hrs/wk. In the short time I have been there, I have had to give my availability 5 times and they still ignore it. Not one of the managers are on the same page. We have five mangers and each one would tell me different ways to do and not to do things. They don't work as a team, and often I hear them undermining authority of each other to the associates. In turn, leaving no respect for the mangers on the associates behalf.
Some of my co-worker are great and have become close friends, while others are lazy and bad mouth the the mangers.
The hardest part about the job would be the schedule is not made where there is enough coverage on the floor. Often times I have had to close with just one other person. With such a large store, we don't have the coverage we need to perform our best, and to satisfy each of our customers in a timely fashion.
The most enjoyable part of my job is interacting with the kids that come into the store, and having the privilege to help a new mom set up her baby's room and to later have the privilege to meet their new baby.

A typical day starts very early and usually doesn't end until the tasks of the day are completed. I managed a varying group of exceptional individuals from diverse backgrounds. Each member of my team is crucial to the overall function of store operations and sales success. What I most enjoy in my job function, other than the people I get to work with, is the sense of pride and accomplishment when a major obstacle is overcome or when an associate I have been coaching and training can function more independently in their role. I feel that I am most making an impact when I can help others overcome areas of opportunities and when I can resolve complicated service issues for our guests. Unfortunately there is a lack of reward or compensation for dedication and hard work within this company. I have seen far too many very eligible promotion candidates leave the company due to frustrations stemming from lack of recognition and in many cases overlooked for promotions within the company. If there is one thing I could change, I would like to see Pottery Barn invest more in their existing workforce and push for more promotions from within their employee pool.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Stocking associate 26 salaries reported	$18.55 per hour
Designer 33 salaries reported	$18.23 per hour
Sales associate 21 salaries reported	$19.23 per hour
Seasonal associate 8 salaries reported	$15.53 per hour
Retail assistant manager 8 salaries reported	$20.13 per hour

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