Retail Assistant Manager | Texarkana, TX | Feb 3, 2014
Gained a lot of experience.
• Owns execution of the tasks for markdowns, signing, marketing, and facilities.
• Ensure areas of ownership are in compliance with productivity goals and company standards
• Work in partnership with the ASM/Merchandising Manager(s) to ensure any movement of merchandise meets company presentation guidelines
• Participates in weekly store walks with Store Manager and Assistant Store Manager
• Maintains pricing and marketing accuracy.
• Coaches team while working shoulder to shoulder with them on the best practices, while meeting company productivity standards
• Ensures productivity goals are met while adhering to company defined best practices
• Communicates successes, opportunities and solutions to the Store Manager or ASM
• Ensures efficiencies and minimizes merchandise handling to meet payroll budget and efficiency goals
• Ensures that all damaged and defective merchandise is processed per company standards
• Maintains clearance merchandise to ensure gross margin is maximized
• Opens and closes the store in accordance with company standards
• Monitors payroll when opening store, and adjusts schedule accordingly
• Complete register audits as necessary
• Practices and ensures all company policies and procedures are followed
• Utilizes recovery statements to minimize external loss
• Communicates successes, oppor
ProsGained a lot of experience that will be valuable.
ConsWould not work with current school shcedule at the time.
2.0
Maintenance Technician | Gallatin, TN | Jun 19, 2020
For those considering maintenance
Working as maintenance on 2nd shift is unbelievably unorganized.
There are apparently 3 tech levels, Tech 1, Tech 2, and Tech 3; all being based on experience (So, they say.) The pay for each level is inconsistent as in, it's whatever they decide to give you and believe me, they try and low ball you, seeing if you'll take their lowest offer.
I was a maintenance Tech 1 and I found out I was making more money than a Tech 2. What? My question to that is what is my incentive to make it up the ladder if the pay is whatever they decide? The Maintenance manager was very rude and had an ego that beat him to the door each time and his hair is always gelled to the point it looks like it might crack. My supervisor at the time was a very relaxed, team oriented leader. However, he quit out of the blue, and the Manager talked a lot of trash behind his back.
The unorganized nature of the Maintenance scene drove a wedge between the Techs, themselves. We were constantly at each other's throats and it was made even worse when the pandemic happened. They refused to hire anymore techs and we were down to 3 men. Each shift should have 6 members so, they can rotate A & B on weekends. Nope... This didn't happen. They started requiring us to come in 7 days a week and said it would be like that for the rest of the year to catch up.
The pay: Well, it pays well because you'll be working more overtime than you signed on for. I was promised 40 hours a week with voluntary overtime and sometim
I started working at the Gap as a shipment team member and we started the day really early, a typical shift began at 5 am and was scheduled until 10 am with an on-call until 2. As we got closer to the holiday season out shipments nearly doubled, and we were usually working from 5 am to 4 pm. We'd get in our shipment at about 6 am and we'd spend our first hour getting racks and carts together, filling up our supplies of hangers and getting everything we needed, like censors and censor pins and trashcans ready for use. Our supervisor would let our delivery man in and we'd start organizing boxes into 3 categories: Men's, Women's, and Accessories. We'd take the largest shipment (usually Women's) and set up a system with someone opening boxes and dumping contents onto a table, two people opening and folding all the items that were in the boxes, two people censoring price pointed items and moving them onto either the hanger or baker's racks, and someone at the very end hanging everything that was supposed to be hung, we'd finish with the whole team running all the items and moving onto the next category. There were multiple policies and procedures to follow, but they were all relatively easy to learn. After only about a week of doing this I was promoted to a Full Time Women's Specialist - helping the merchandisers do whatever they wanted with the store and products- this included setting up and taking down displays and moving folding to hanging or hanging to a specific fold. I had
ProsManagement, great break schedules, huge opportunity for advancement, company policy is great, coworker diversity
ConsHoliday hours
1.0
Customer Service Representative | Rocklin, CA | Sep 8, 2020
No leadership, impossible goals - setup for failure.
Was hired as a seasonal call center customer service representative and given the whole corporate spiel - about how it was a great place to work, how inclusive and accepting it was, how seasonal workers were likely to be converted to full time staff after holidays if their metrics were right. TOTAL BAIT AND SWITCH.
The call center in Rocklin has an issue holding on to employees, and now I know why - training was patchy, and after three weeks of it my class of fellow trainees still had no idea how to do certain things. (By the way - at the beginning of training, I was in a class of 30+ trainees. By the time training was finished, there were only 12 of us. The rest had quit. Should have been an indication!)
There is no support from management, who don't want to be bothered even if a customer is screaming at an agent to speak to a manager. Helpdesk agents and management treat customer service agents like they're a waste of time. The company policy database is impossible to navigate, and you lose time trying to look up what exactly you need to do - if the guidelines are even listed in the database at all.
The metrics are nearly impossible to meet, as you will have customers who want to stay on the phone for an hour and make you their personal shopper, so your average call time goes through the window. Those long calls will make you miss your breaks/lunch, which makes your schedule adherence impossible to meet.
The customers are the worst, and management only encourages us to a
ProsFree lunches during holidays
Conslack of management, terrible customers, setup for failure
2.0
Retail Sales Associate | Arcadia, CA | May 31, 2015
They stole my sanity - I obviously wasn't paid enough for it
At first working here was something I was looking forward to. And I thought the holiday season was going to be the reason why I hated my job, but it wasn't. That was cake compared to dealing with management every day. I understand the purpose of management and their responsibilities on a daily basis. (drive sales, customer service, associates, scheduling, merchandising, etc.) That being said, I'm not writing this review as a bitter ignorant person. (okay, maybe a little bitter hehe).....
Let me just list some things about working here I particularly hated in no particular order...
1. There are on call shifts that appear on your schedule that aren't guaranteed hours, and you have to call the store 2 hrs before you're supposed to come in. I received schedules with only on call shifts for the week and did not get to come in for any of those shifts. Basically 0 hrs on the week - but it's the thought that counts right? NOT IF YOU HAVE BILLS.
2. If you requested days off through the computer system which is what you're required to do 2 weeks in advance to the date you're taking off - the next week's schedule after you have your day off, your hours will be cut significantly. I went from working 6 days one week, requested a day off, my new schedule had only 2 shifts and an on call.
3. The more gap cards you get - the more management will like you. You could genuinely be trying for one, asking every customer but if you don't get one a manager will talk to you about them.
Decent work environment with spotty training and nice coworkers
A typical day at work begins when I come in a few minutes early. This allows me to hang up my coat and put my purse in my locker. I grab an available walkie-talkie and headset, then clock in directly at the time I am due to start working. Then, I seek out a manager or assistant manager, who then gives me the lowdown on how well we are sale-wise and promotion-wise. They give me my basic instructions for the shift, and then send me on my way. For the first few days I worked at Gap, I was instructed to work in our Kids and Baby section, which does not allow me to work at the register or the fitting rooms. I mostly would straighten and sort the products on the tables, price and relocate items that come in from returns, and greet and assist customers.
The first day I worked in the fitting rooms, I floundered a bit. I had not been instructed on how to use the phone, so I did not know the proper way to deal with calls and transfers, as it was a single phone with no switchboard or labeled keys for specific offices.
Though I had been trained on the registers, I was not trained to give out GapCash, a coupon given out as a gift to customers who spend over 50 dollars. I made the mistake of trying to give the coupon to the customer without scanning it, and then this resulted in a rather unpleasant kerfuffle in which the customer yelled at one of my coworkers for not training me, when in reality it was my fault for not seeking help in ringing up GapCash before trying to carry
ProsEmployee Discount
Constraining, short breaks, forgotten breaks, poor pay
Friendly work environment with supportive management
During the time I worked at the Gap Outlet, I learned how to efficiently and quickly execute tasks assigned to me. Most of the time, I ran the fitting room and helped keep one section of the store neat and organized. On days when we were short-staffed, I often ended up keeping multiple store zones organized along with running the fitting room. I had to learn how to balance keeping my zone presentable, running unwanted items back to where they belong, and assisting customers in and out of the fitting room. It is a lot to juggle at once, but I managed to get the hang of it. I did my best to make sure I provided good customer service, and I always made it a goal to make sure my zone was completely organized before I clocked out, whether I helped close the store or not.
The management staff like to challenge the employees, but in a constructive way. There is a lot of work involved in a day at the Gap, so it's crucial that the employees are able to multitask efficiently. Most of the time, the managers are very good about dividing up the work between the employees who can handle the extra responsibilities. However, there were a number of times, where it was difficult to prioritize customer service over projects that needed to be completed.
The most difficult part of the job was dealing with unsatisfied, angry customers. I was confronted by a couple customers who were unsatisfied with situations I could not change. I had to learn to remain calm, listen to what the customer had t
ProsFriendly co-workers, helps build people skills
It's a very creative and free, yet structured environment
I've been apart of the Gap Inc. family for three years now and it's been quite an experience. I've learned so much about myself as a person and an associate. Working at Gap brought out a creative side in me because my managers gave me the opportunities to learn about upper level management. I became an associate leader and was able to teach new employees all the tips and tricks I learned over the years. Being an associate is hard sometimes because we deal with consumer's backlash from their day, especially during the work week. Customers have come in and taken their frustrations out on me and have even asked for my input on their situations. You serve as a friend honestly. We are there to make sure our customers leave feeling better than they did when they walked in the door. It gets hard because not everyone understands our mission, but we are honestly 100% focused on our customers. One of the greatest things about working at Gap is seeing customers come back for a second time and brag about how satisfied they are with the products they bought. As an associate, I'm there to give the most honest opinion I can but also follow up with a recommendation after giving my opinion. A customer once asked me if a pair of Always Skinny jeans flattered her figure. I took a few moments to analyze the jeans and in my head I was thinking "These jeans look terrible. They're way too small in her thighs and are giving her a muffin top." After rewording my response, I simply told her I think sh
Productive an lots of fun working as a team to reach sales goal!!
As a sales associate, you can expect to help customers by greeting them, offering a promotion when they enter the store (i.e. "Hi how are you today? We've got dress shirts and graphic tees that are on sale at two for $25 right now"). You can also expect to help manage fitting rooms: typically, 8 items are let into a given room at a time, and only one person is allowed in at one time. So you might be letting someone in or out of the fitting room, taking merchandise back to the sales floor that he/she doesn't want or that doesn't fit, bringing him/her other merchandise, clearing out of empty fitting rooms, etc. You could be ringing sales on the cash register, where you'd need to know what the store's return policy is. You may process shipment (take merchandise out of boxes, put sensors on it, fold or hang it, and then put it on the sales floor or in the stock room. You'll also be expected to watch out for thieves. So it's important to know what to look for. You can't pin it on a particular race, gender, or age. I've seen mother/daughter teams that look like they're from families that make over $200,000 a year try and steal something as cheap as a pair of panties before. Things you might look for are if the person is looking around to see if someone is watching them, if they've got their hands in the middle of a merchandise rack and their bodies blocking the view of their hands, if they're carrying large bags that look mostly empty and look heavier than normal (think Abercrombie
I was a Seasonal Merchandise Processor at Gap, INC. during Fall 2014. The work was pretty easy and steady. On days where there was not too many orders, they would allow employees to go home early if they wanted. The work itself was okay.
The attitude towards Seasonals, though, was pretty rough. Nobody liked having them around and it seemed like no matter how you worked or strived to do your best, nobody noticed.
The thing I did not like most about the Gap Warehouse was that the system that keeps track of your daily output progress was designed for an assembly line rather than a packages per hour system. At first, I did not really care, but I discussed this system with a friend working at a different warehouse. The Assembly Line program does not work in a distribution center warehouse because the orders you receive are not all standard, you might get orders with two baby shirts, and then the next one (I kid you not, this happened multiple times a week) would literally be 60 pairs of flipflops. Those two packages do not take at all the same time to pack and send out on the line. This would impact your daily output profoundly. I admit that I really cared about the quality of what I was packing (in the end, all the customers cared about was getting their items, not how neatly they were packed) to the point of slowing down my production time, but according to the computer, I was at 45% productivity (That was another thing, they calculated in percentages and did not give any sort
working for GAP is a great company to work for, on a typical day at work there are always different challenges to face from promotions to re-merchandising. we have daily goals to achieve especially focusing on KPIS.
I have learnt a great deal from working with gap, I started with the company as a sale associate having never worked in clothes retail. having worked for gap for the past 5 years I have gained so much and had the opportunity to have some great training programmes which at current I am taking part in our style your success programme which is a self development programme and its great as it really helps me to learn new and develop old skills and knowledge.
as like many retail management positions there are challenges you face every day from performance issues to sickness management and employee conflict which I have to deal with on a daily basis. I have had great support from the management I have worked alongside and always have a great connection with the teams I have worked with. I do believe that as management team you need to be strong and stick together to keep a healthily balance in the work place, through regular check ins and management meetings and great communication. I have also had a great relationship with the senior leaders within the company.
with in the 5 years of working with GAP I have been lucky to have worked with a lot of different character and have found some life long friends through my time at gap. I'm a very easy going person an
Management is lacking, and there were way too many employees.
This was my first job, and I had a hard time trying to work here. When I was first hired they said I would get at least 10-20 hours a week, which never happened. The manager hired so many employees and picked favourites that only the favourites would get shifts. Often I was only scheduled for about 6-10 hours a month and left struggling to pick up others shifts to get more hours. Because of the lack of hours I was often frustrated at work because there was a lot of things I never learned to do from lack of training, and the assistant managers would get very snarky and rude if I asked them for help.
Because I wasn’t one of the favourites, I was often outcasted at work and felt like the managers were trying to pick on me while doing a shift. Often they would text me and ask that I come into work only two hours before the shift started, which made it impossible to predict when I’d be working. Sometimes I’d be forced to say no because there was no way I could get there on time, which lead to the assistant managers to give me dirty looks on my next shift.
The lack of management was ridiculous. Our general manager was hardly every working, and the assistant managers were very cliquish and gossiped way to much. Often they would be in the back eating and talking about other staff members, and when any employee they didn’t like would ask for help, they would purposefully take copious amounts of time to respond or solve the issue. Management would often treat me like a kid because
ProsA few kind employees
ConsPoor management, little to no hours, too many employees, poor scheduling, weird break times.
Questions And Answers about Gap
How are the working hours at Gap?
Asked Feb 25, 2016
If you sell credit cards you get lots if hours if your no good to them then you barely get hours. Shifts can be as small as 3 hours. 3 hours is 30 dollars. Managers have preferences and will push you to limit to achieve credit card goal.
Answered Nov 1, 2020
(Gap Factory) the shifts are 4.5 hours long to avoid requiring a lunch break. You tend to get anywhere from 2-5 shifts a week depending in sales goals (aka how many people they expect to need,) the amount of current employees, and your availability. In January - March don't expect much. Sales drop for all retail companies, so there are no hours. Best times are around holidays.
Answered Nov 12, 2019
What questions did they ask during your interview at Gap?
Asked Feb 25, 2016
If we had more that we needed you to finish in that day would you be able to work a longer shift?
Answered Aug 14, 2019
What is your availability? What is one word your friends would use to describe you? Who is one person you respect the most? Tell me a time when you had the best customer service? What is the biggest mistake you’ve ever made and what did you learn from it? When meeting a new group of friends how do you get to know them?
Answered Aug 14, 2019
If you were in charge, what would you do to make Gap a better place to work?
Asked Aug 7, 2017
Pay more and not push employee to extreme and treat with respect.
Answered Nov 1, 2020
Policy should be enforced, systems should be updated rather then completely remodeled into another more complicated system. Proper training for new hires. Recognition and promotion.
Answered Sep 21, 2018
How often do raises occur at Gap?
Asked Mar 23, 2017
Supposably once a year, but I think it's a small raise like 20 cents. Otherwise the only way you get a raise is annually when minimum wage goes up, or if you talk about leaving the company and the store manager finds you too valuable to lose.
Answered Nov 12, 2019
Once a year
Answered Mar 15, 2019
What benefits does Gap offer?
Asked Feb 25, 2016
401k and dental
Answered Aug 3, 2018
Focus on the company and your individual experience while employed there.
