Coles Myer Employment Process (2 Viewers)

[Scanorama]

I applied for Coles Myer in July 2004, did the online quiz a week later. Had my group interview in early September 2004, passed it. Then 2 months later, got the manager 1-to-1 interview with the manager at Kmart Hurstville as Christmas casual. I got the job on the spot.

Started on 30/11, the only thing I did was just put the new plastic strip on the shelf, where they can put the price tag in it. I did that for 6 weeks, until one week I found out I have 0 shift. Then the manager told me 'Due to budget problem, we are no longer able to give you any shift, however if there is any shift in the future, I will let you know'. So in total I earned $1450 and that was hell.

Co-workers were fucked, and the customers were simply worse, not only they are rude, they ALWAYS fucked me around, blame me for everything. Fuck I hate Kmart. So when she told me I got fired, I wasn't sad at all, thank god im out of there.

Now I got a new job at Woolworths, been there for more than 3 months and have just got off my probationary period and now I'm on permanent part time. People I work with are so much nicer than those one in that shit hole, customers are more polite too, although they are still annoying.

 

[hipsta_jess]

The problem I have with my CML brand (Bi-Lo) at the moment is I'm being jerked around with my hours. Don't get me wrong, I knew my hours would decrease once uni went back, and the Christmas rush and all that was over...but our store manager (*cough* incompetent, psycho wenchbitch *cough*) constantly overspends budgets in other areas, and her magic answer for recouping money is to simply slash the hours of all the casuals.

 

[Collin]

Slashing hours off employees is one primary way to cost-cut. It happens alot within business. What other areas was she over-spending her money on? Just curious.

 

[*Minka*]

Firstly, they will give people no hours for three weeks and then call them when they are at University, knowing they are there and telling them to leave their lectures and come in or expect no shifts for six weeks. Common knowledge that you go into the black book if you knock back a shift for ANY reason - including universities and FUNERALS. One girl was made to feel like shit for cancelling three shifts as her grandfather died.

I hate getting yelled at for having to ask a register supervisior to do a pirce check for me. I KNOW we need a manager to do it, but I have spent twenty minutes paging and calling them and they won't come. Firstly, it is embarassing to me when I am ignored by several people in front of the customers and there is nothing I can do. Secondly, if I just took the customers word for it and took twenty dollars off the price, those managers would be the FIRST to yell at me.

I could understand they were busy if not for the fact that when I am leaving for the day, I see several of them standing around when they are not on lunch having a good old chat while ignoring a page from registers.

 

[MiuMiu]

Collin, I worked there for 3 years, I was a team leader, I saw the inner jerking-around. I saw the utter incompetence, not to mention indifference of the line managers.

I often had to do the rosters because my bosses were too incompetent to know how to handle the budget properly. I was the one who dealt with casuals because my manager called them all lazy and unreliable because they had other important commitments (ie uni and school) that meant they could come in to work with half an hour notice.

Colesmyer is losing the plot very quickly, that is why I am soon to be upping and leaving.

 

[sunjet]

Sounds like coles is shit, meh got an interview tomorrow, don't really care if I get it or not.

 

[Cyph]

The problem I have with my CML brand (Bi-Lo) at the moment is I'm being jerked around with my hours. Don't get me wrong, I knew my hours would decrease once uni went back, and the Christmas rush and all that was over...but our store manager (*cough* incompetent, psycho wenchbitch *cough*) constantly overspends budgets in other areas, and her magic answer for recouping money is to simply slash the hours of all the casuals.

Yes, Jess.

We all impressed you work. Very impressed. How do you find the time to do that with Uni? It must be so difficult!

Now, take your whinging elsewhere, stfu and build a bridge to get over it. Welcome to the real world, honey.. you'd better get used to it!

 

[hipsta_jess]

My god, its like you follow me around, watching for my posts, just so you can say something.

I didn't ask for your opinion, so how about you "stfu and build a bridge to get over it."

And, you have no idea what my uni committments are, so just go away.

 

[Cyph]

Yeh, I am following you. What's your point?

Oh, poor Jess! full time uni + work... however can she cope?! What happened to mummy and daddy paying for everything?

 

[Collin]

*Minka* and MiuMiu, I fail to see the need to generalise negative attributes upon the entire CML brand and all retail outlets from the personal experiences limited to a few stores.

That isn't fair, nor a guarantee of accuracy. Some stores will naturally suck with incompetent or unfair management and co-workers, whilst others may not. You can say whatever you want about your store and situations in which you have a right to assert an accurate and appropriate opinion upon, but my biff is against the blunt generalisation of such negativity upon the whole brand.

*Minka*: Concerning the rosters, I'm sure those circumstances are related to Casuals, yeah? With those employees, they are obviously on a contract specifying a minimum number of hours guaranteed, yeah? Now unless management is breaching the contract, I don't see the issue. This kind of shit happens to me too, with hours taken off and me often demanded to work during uni hours, but in the end, I still atleast get the minimum hours or more I'm entitled to via the contract, so I don't have justification to complain. If you're not under a contract, then there's even less reason for you to complain about.

MiuMiu: There are always going to be incompetent managers around. If such was the case for all CML brands as you seem to want to imply (perhaps out of anger and frustration which is understandable), then CML would be dead. Instead, we've seen a steady increase of profitability over the last couple of years (OK, maybe not Myer or Megamart rofflecopter).

Again, my point to both of you is that it's not fair to label these assertions upon the entire company.

 

[Cyph]

People don't seem to understand the meaning of the word casual.

If they had part-time work on a consistent basis, they'd offer a part-time job because it's probably cheaper to do so. You're really only filling in for those part and full timers on holiday, sick leave, etc.

That's exactly why I took a permanent part-time job. Regular hours (too many really, worked the last 12 days out of 15), paid sick days, paid holidays, w00t!

 

[*Minka*]

I believe I am enititled to complain about being demanded to work University hours or be fired/not roestered on in the future etc. However, that is my opinion.

 

[Collin]

Well they have to run a business. University hours are usually general business hours. Obviously the managers are gonna care more about running a business rather than your academic schedule, so shit like this happens. Availability is a big issue for an employer, and rightfully so. If I was forced to resign due to university schedule, I would cop it in the chin and move on. You can't expect the world to revolve around you and your needs in these situations.

 

[*Minka*]

I am permanently stuck on registers. HATE IT. Want to be moved back to cosmetics pronto, but they won't let me. Sigh.

 

[Collin]

Why were you moved out of it in the first place? Hahaha, check-outs suck. :rofl:

 

[*Minka*]

Because of University. Checkouts seriously make me want to remove my eyes with a rusty fork. Why oh why did I have to get this job?

 

[MiuMiu]

Collin and Cyph don't seem to understand what these people are complaining about. I do.

In my brand, there are very few permanent part-timers. For the particular area I looked after, there were 3. The rest of the work was done by casuals.

Casuals in general in CML are not treated by the true definition of casual. You aren't just called in when someone is sick or there is an extra job to be done. Thats why CML casuals start to get upset when their shifts are reduced significantly.

 

[MiuMiu]

Yeah that and the fact that officeworks is rarely 'busy' in the kmart/target/coles/bilo sense of the word.

 

[Cyph]

Collin and Cyph don't seem to understand what these people are complaining about. I do.

In my brand, there are very few permanent part-timers. For the particular area I looked after, there were 3. The rest of the work was done by casuals.

Casuals in general in CML are not treated by the true definition of casual. You aren't just called in when someone is sick or there is an extra job to be done. Thats why CML casuals start to get upset when their shifts are reduced significantly.

yeah, I understand what you're complaining about. I spent 18 months with a company who would give me somewhere between 6-30 hours a week, you never knew... that's the nature of being casual.

I had enough of that and got a permanent part-time job with another company where I regularly get 30 hours a week.

 

[hipsta_jess]

Thats fine when the majority of your work is done at night, and doesn't interfere with uni. However, my store closes at 10, so quite a few of my shifts are earlier in the day. I need the flexibility of being a casual because my timetable will be changing (hence interfering with my work availibilities) and, I need to be able to take more than a months holiday a year because of prac.

It really is a double edged sword.