For those that missed the original post, I quit my IT career for a part-time job at Lowe's, for 1/4 the pay. Can't afford the low pay ATM, but I think my wife and I can muddle though until I go full-time, get promoted, whatever. I want to thank ALL of you who encouraged me! Cannot say how much more sane you all made me feel.
First thing our trainer did was give me a 10% discount card and program it. "Are you married?" Made another account for my wife. No lie, first thing we did.
I worked closely with HR on my last two jobs to build and improve our onboarding process. Lowe's made me feel amateur. Let's just say it was about as slick as such a complex legal and logistical process can be. (Yes, there's far more than most people see or think about.)
The person that got us going did the job I've done in my last two roles, got new people on the right foot. Yes, even working IT, I was the first person they met and got settled with. She did pretty damned well. Got stuck watching a recorded onboarding meeting, loathed the presenter. Ever known one of those women who are all smiling teeth, while frowning at the same time, and totally fake? "Oh my gosh! What GREAT input!" Fuck me. I started first and the other 3 guys finished first because they skipped some video. Cheating bastards. :)
LOL, they had the exact rig I built for one company. Some flavor of Debian, locked in kiosk mode, Firefox, on a crappy PC. Perfect for onboarding, training and as a time clock.
They seem pretty cool. The CEO was nice to listen to, seems a solid leader. Black guy, and they talked about DEI initiatives a good deal, doubt they're backing out, I'm sold. The store manager chatted with us for 30-minutes. Hell, my last CEO was an excellent leader, with half the staff, and he didn't take 30 to talk to 4 low-paid beginners.
The main thread I picked up, from my interview, to the CEO talk, to the manager, was that you can move up fast if you come in, do a good job and take care of customers. Well hell, that's what I'm best at. Everyone I've met in leadership started on the floor for shit pay, CEO as well.
Turns out my direct super is the British dude that's helped me before, love that guy! Be sweating my ass off in the outdoor area soon enough, the position I asked for, but I think having that man on my side will get me through.
So, be honest, am I fooling myself here? This ain't my first rodeo and I got very positive vibes, but it's a monster retailer so there's that.
EDIT: Forgot some of the meat of the story. Time and attendance policy seems lenient enough, though I'm not used to even thinking about it. PTO is crap compared to what I'm used to, which taking about every Friday off. Can't say about health, 401K, all that, but they offer it to part timers. Not great, more than I expected, who knows. All in all, no threatening crap like I expected for $15/hr. "You toe the line or you're fired!", kinda bullshit. Turnover is a metric they take seriously, and call out management on it. I'll drill into it more tomorrow when training is more 1-on-1.
I would be very hesitant about anyone saying it's quick and easy to move up if you just put in time. Big box stores seem to have pipelines into management through business schools. The highest I've ever seen someone get into without specific education was a department manager. Assistant managers always came from other stores into training roles, or out of a school business program. Across multiple retail stores, general and specialized, and currently work in employment services helping people find employment. They just rarely do this, and the pyramid gets very narrow once you get past the store level.
And maybe I'm jaded by the retail industry in general, but every CEO is slick talking and confidence inspiring. You don't get there without it. The work-life balance will also be gone once the holidays come around, and you find out the store is perpetually understaffed, and you will get an instant termination for missing a scheduled shift on Black Friday, Xmas Eve, or New Years Eve.
I've seen people do it when I worked at Whole Foods fairly often, but the work conditions worsened as you went up in some pretty big ways. Once you hit the level of department manager, you could be swapped into working at any store within a 50 mile radius of your home store, without any option to refuse if you wanted to keep the position, so having a car was basically mandatory, though they didn't swap them around that much if you were doing a good job where you were. If you went one level up to assistant store manager, swaps got way more frequent, and you were salaried. Store managers seemed pretty stable in their locations, provided they were putting up good numbers, but them and their assistant managers both had to work some pretty crazy hours. On the plus side, they did get pretty sweet bonuses. My store manager at one location would sometimes earn more in bonuses than he would in his salary. This was all pre-Amazon takeover, though, so I'm sure things have gotten worse in the interim. Heck, they started making it more shit while I was still there in the bid to get Amazon to buy them.
Point is, even in companies where it is possible to go from the shop floor to upper management, there's always a catch to it.