Typical Day:
> Check my stores (I have several I'm responsible for) & any deliveries that have come in via my tablet (company provided)
> Look at current/upcoming activities per store
> Determine which stores I need to visit most immediately while also paying attention to calls per store & frequency (when most recent/last visited)
> At a store, gather existing order/stock and put it out on floor
> Often area will need to be straightened, cleaned and tidied up
What I've Learned:
> Time Management. Still fairly new at this job, so I'm able to take a little extra time, but will need to soon begin figuring out how to make my time more efficient at each store. (Not sure how to do that, but supervisor is always available to help with questions like these.)
> Scheduling. With several stores in my care, I need to balance the frequency of visits to each. As well, I also need to determine what my week will look like and which store visits to combine into a day.
> Reading plans. With seasonal changeovers (i.e. when the seasons change, so does the product) it can be REALLY overwhelming to redo the seasonal area of the store. Often I'm given a couple pages of instructions with lots of direction and information. For anyone that finds big picture work overwhelming, this can be killer. (I've been fortunate to have wonderful supervisors that have worked with me thus far.)
> Communication. Absolutely, learning to ask for help, request training, and conveying any issues have all been aspects o
ProsFlexible (w/in some limits), Variety (different stores, different people), Easy Work (it's cards! no worries about critical things)
ConsPay (not great, better than min. wage), Advancement (tho part-time, no clear path of where to go if I'm in company long term), Little Frustrations (all jobs have 'em, don't they? see hardest part of job in my review)
Little Hours, Little Pay, Useless Management, No Advancement
I worked for this company as a part time merchandiser for 9 years. Not once was I ever offered any bit of advancement, even though I could do the job blind folded. I was actually told by my supervisor shortly before I quit that there would never be any advancement for me because I didn't have a degree. Unreal. The supervisors for American Greetings is completely useless. They tend to hire in fresh from college graduates whom have never done this job before, and put them in a management position. They don't have a clue about how the jobs actually run and work. Have fun trying to reach your supervisors. You can email them, and 90% of the time, they will not respond. Only time you hear from them is if they have a question, then you are expected for a prompt reply. Calling them will get you no where either.
The hours that are given per account are unreal and unrealistic. I was hired in being promised at least 30+ hours a week. Lucky if I would be scraping in 10-15 hours. By the time you take out the cost of travel, it just wouldn't pay. Their raises are mediocre, and laughable. A few cents raise a year, that's about it. New hires with no experience will come in making a few cents less than you.
The job itself is fairly easy and fun to do. When it comes down to it I enjoyed the job itself. I liked being able to work at my own pace, on days that I wanted to work. I didn't have to be stuck in the regular 9-5 routine. This job does require you to work the day before, and the d
ProsWork at your own pace, set your own schedule, flexible hours, easy work
ConsLow hours, low pay, lots of travel, no advancement, horrible management, outdated equipment
On monday you go online to get your calls and hours. You also have activities assigned you must complete. You have 48 hours to follow an order into your account. You put out orders, straighten the account and do any activities due. As TRS I trained new hires and ran revisions. I also covered the accounts without merchandisers.
I learned how to work with store managers, Best Practices, setting new departments, building card displays and working with the computer, telxon and Motorola hand held devises.
There were 6 different managers over a 10 year period. There is little help from management. If there is something you have questions about you cannot get answers or help. They do not like when you take your mandatory breaks. They are always looking for ways to write you up and get rid of employees.
You work by yourself most of the time. On occasion you get to work with a group, which can be fun.
The hardest part of the job is trying to stay within you assigned hours. You have 48 hours to follow orders in accounts. If there are more than one order due in an account and you get one call you have to try splitting what time given or risk getting written up. You also have some computer work. They are not willing to pay you for the computer work. I was told no more than 5 minutes for marking an activity. Computer work consists of getting your hours and calls, checking and marking your activities, reading and writing emails to your manager and the call center and entering
ProsAble to work around life events, usually
ConsLow pay, no breaks, no compensation for computer or cell phone use
Typical day at work is that you will receive on average 1.7 hours in a store that has over 4 rows of cards, 2 sections of party goods and bags, not including the seasonal merchandise to stock and do clean sweeps. This does not include going into the stockroom to obtain your merchandise--hopefully you are able to get to your merchandise.
I practically was thrown into the lion's den with this job. Although I was "trained" on the computer, there is nothing like doing the job hands on. I was put into situations that were not on the training. You are responsible for purchasing your own tools i.e., rubber bands, tape, etc. No reimbursement for those items and no mileage on your regular calls.
Management--what management. We only received e-mails informing us of what is expected of us and to give management a call if needed. When the call is made to management, you never get an answer--straight to voicemail with no return call. Send an e-mail requesting an answer and there is no response or if you get a response, it's "it must have went into my spam file."
My co-workers were wonderful as they know what each one is going through.
The hardest part of the job and another thing that you are not told is that you are responsible for talking to the managers of the stores to be allowed to put a particular item out on the floor. Most of the time the managers are no where to be found or if found, they are too busy to speak with you, or if they stop, the answer is there is no room. Management
Proswork alone
Consoverworked and underpaid; management does not communicate; hours are not satisfactory.
This particular job had to be the most waste of time. Although the pay was pretty decent for a PT job, the team for NY-Metro were very unprofessional, disconnected and liars.
I was very up front from the beginning about my scheduling by noting that the first couple of weeks during my training, some days/shifts may have to be adjusted based on prescheduled interviews which the TSM was very completely on board with. After setting me up with a trainer who by the way was late an hour to an hour and a half for every training, was never prepared with the necessary tools to carry out the duties required for this job AND had trouble balancing her own job.
Looking past all that comes with new hire training, I proceeded to reach out to my TSM in regards to tools needed to perform the duties and just never got a response UNTIL the ONE TIME I mentioned to the trainer that I could not make it for one shift and immediately received an email from the TSM with a subject line of EMPLOYMENT TERMINATION....Huh?!? These are the same people that I was always in communication with but never was able to get a response at all....and now I am being terminated, this makes no sense.
Called HR to see if they could give insight on the matter only to know that apparently my availability was conflicting with the job, but I guess the TSM never shared that she completely understood and was okay with the scheduling during the in-person interview. But then conjured up false text messages that were
ProsFlex
ConsVERY POOR MANAGEMENT WITH NO SORT OF TRAINING CIRRICULUM
I have been a merchandiser since 2010 starting with Nabisco and then for various other merchandising companies. I love this field as work and honestly American Greetings has been my favorite and best merchandising job out of it all.
Typical work day: I check my orders on the company based employee only website, I plan out the days I can go to the store so I can bring my orders out to the sales floor (cards of course, gift wrap, stickers, bags, season products, etc...). I have to track my own time of when I come in and out of my stores and input them in the system later. I work independently. I have 4 stores in my route that I have to service.
What I learned: I learned how American Greetings operate as a company. I am very much involved with inventory with my Motorola hand-held. I order card products for certain stores and keep track of products no longer in use.
Management: I am fortunate to have a great manager. He is our territory supervisor and is very helpful and nice. It is easy to communicate with him and he makes sure we are properly trained in our work.
Your co-workers: Since we mostly work independently alone, we don't really see our co-workers. Our co-workers are usually the workers in the store that see us on a regular basis. On special occasion when I do work with AG co-workers (like for a re-model or re-merchandise of a store) they are all nice.
The hardest part about the job: Was learning the terminology and how to do work a little differently
Self Directed but Lacking in Benefits/Compensation
The best part of this job would be having the ability to do it on your own time meaning most of the time you can go to the stores whenever you want each week. The bad parts of the job are that as a part time merchandiser you get no benefits, the stores you are assigned are often 30-60 miles from your home and they do not pay mileage or even travel pay if you are only going to one store. They only pay you for traveling between stores. If you have a store that is 50 miles away and it may be the only store You have a call in that week, you don’t get paid for driving to and from there. Not being paid mileage for the wear and tear on your car and also simply because gas prices have risen they should have offered some sort of relief for their “front line” workers. Management is shady. They don’t care if you follow planograms or directions as long as the stuff is not in the bin at the back of the store and you have not let any activities go past due then they pretty much don’t care about where you put the stuff. They tell you they want things done right but they don’t allow enough time to do things properly. They really mean they want you to throw the stuff on the shelves, use as little time as possible, and if you work off the clock it is fine. They don’t say that publicly of course but I know coworkers who do it on the regular and management knows this too and nothing is ever said or done. The managers say things like take as much time as you need to do the activity or clean up a
I worked for AG for a few years in a more rural part of state. The stores were many miles apart and all mileage was not reimbursed, but some was.
The training I received, both in person and virtually was thorough. It was also paid training. I felt confident in my tasks. If I was unsure about something I had two people I could call, as well as other coworkers I met along the way.
The time given to complete tasks were sometimes unrealistic. The corporate people who assign those hours/minutes need to actually put boots on the ground and realize that there are things they don’t account for. How far away is your product stored from where the display is located? Are the boxes easily accessible? Do I have to find a manager so that I can access my boxes?
The manager was very good about communication with the team. He gave yearly reviews as well.
The one perk i appreciated about AG is that they would send random items as a thank you or holiday present. The items were beneficial for the job and of good quality (power charger, handbag). They also gave Rose points, which could be added together to buy from their online store.
I really enjoyed the flexibility of my job as a merchandiser for American Greetings. I only quit because of a family relocation. Because we are still rural the availability for AG jobs are nil, and with lots of driving between stores again.
The pay wasn’t anything to brag about but the flexibility was of great value to me.
I enjoyed working alone. Whe
ProsFlexibility of when I could work during week. Good communication with manager.
ConsDidn’t allow enough time for tasks to be accomplished. Not a lot of hours in rural areas of state.
The operations would be easy if there was team work people doing jobs correctly.
I,m going to be honest here don't know if that's a good thing doing a job review or not but just way I am. The culture of the company definitely need's improved upon. There is a lot of talking socializing goes on by big percentage of people (not working) that causes other people to suffer due to it. Trainers could do so much better if would but choose not too. The culture is big percentage does not want or like for any one to run above production even to point of harrising over it afraid raise production rate including trainers so there fore they do not encourage people to do their best or help them so they can do their best. They could be so much more productive if people would work together not against one another, pull together as a team. I,m all for team work, but not when I,m having to do my job and others jobs while they stand around and talk not work in order to be able to do my job. We do have new management he does seem like he cares trying to improve upon it, but when people under him are not do not help very slow process on improvement. The job is not hard, hardest part is the stress being agitated cause have to do others jobs while they goof off, talk (not work) in order to do yours correctly. Don't' get me wrong I am thankful to have a job, but shouldn't have to do others jobs that they get pay to do while they goof off not work. I do not mind helping others working together and especially if someone is not feeling well or something but not while they st
If you're interested in or offered to do holiday order filler DO NOT DO IT. Shoot for a JITL position. My husband lucked out and got one & it's easier work over there apparently.
I ALONE was in charge of 40 chutes that quickly shot down cards, non-stop. I would speed through emptying each individual chute while packing the cards into boxes. Depending on the season we were working on, depended on the workload. I.e. Mother’s Day and Christmas were the busiest and most hectic. Considering the fact that we were pushing out a lot of cards, meant the cards would get stuck covering a sensor to sound an alarm to hurry and unclog the cards. At times there would be 4-6 chutes clogged at once which made packing extremely difficult. What sucked, even more, was coworkers would stand around and WATCH you struggle. Your floaters barely come and do what they're supposed to which is to help you when you need it. Nope, no help. Everyone stands and talks and laughs. But yet, I'm over here struggling to keep up with the alarms going off constantly and barely able to do my main job... To pack the boxes. There need to be TWO people on a line, one person is impossible. I remember before my shift, I would debate on even going in, I would be SICK to my stomach, nearly in tears, dreading to even go. By the time I got home for the night, I would waste my whole night dreading the next day. I absolutely hated this job. Listen to me, do NOT do it.
If you do, just know, that I told you so. & Good luck.
ProsYou usually get weekends off
ConsRoach Infested, Rat Infested, Bats, 15 Minute Breaks, Too Much Stress, No Help
Questions And Answers about American Greetings
How often do you get a raise at American Greetings?
Asked Aug 6, 2021
Every year
Answered Feb 26, 2023
The pay isn't worth the hastle and bad management and the amount of physical labor just for 13 or $14 an hour isn't worth it
Answered Feb 25, 2023
What is the best part of working at American Greetings?
Asked Nov 22, 2019
Best part is the $ and flexibility... it's a good company...
Answered Jul 6, 2022
They go all the way to help you get the job done right.
Answered Jul 3, 2022
What is a typical day like for you at American Greetings?
Asked Aug 1, 2020
GETTING UP VERY EARLY SO I CAN GET ALL THE CARDS UP BEFORE CUSTOMERS ARRIVE I LIKE IT TO LOOK NEAT
Answered Mar 4, 2023
Putting stock into displays, straightening cards, and helping customers locate products.
Answered Feb 17, 2023
What is covered by the health insurance at American Greetings?
Asked Feb 15, 2021
No health insurance provided.
Answered Mar 29, 2023
No insurance
Answered Feb 27, 2023
What is the promotion process like at American Greetings?
