Thread regarding Barnes & Noble layoffs

B&N Employees were asked on Indeed: What would be your reason for leaving Barnes & Noble?

Here are some of the answers:

I'm leaving, tomorrow is my last day. I'm leaving because of poor management district-wide, nasty attitudes in my store, and toxic business practices in the entire company. They say we're important, but cut our hours while piling on projects and work, then cut our hours when we can't make money because we're spending all our time getting those projects done. They laid off thousands of people they said "were important to us" only months before, after saying they wouldn't be doing layoffs. Between that and being promised "upward movement" which never happens, it's not exactly a great company to work for. Pity, since I love books and my customers.

Because you never move up in the company they lie about everything 11 yrs working there and the let me go because I move I pallet jack out the way for like 2 inches out of the block area barn and noble doin yo fo out of business 1 day due to Amazon soon u bookseller will see the truth that business is very cheap again if your not Latino or otherwise you never get to the supervisor position barnes and noble s---s!!

Declining management that is demoralizing and the lay off of experienced workers that resulted in a customer service decline in the store

If you leave its either going to be because you were recently laid off, your store closes, or you dont. have a good store manager.

Low pay, no advancement, hard to please management, no benefits in terms of insurance for part time, drains you and spits you out, Dayforce, constantly cuts hours, schedule is all over the place, cafe crumbling and unwilling to fix which leads to frustrated and angry clientele.

Poor pay, horrible management, no advancement to move up unless your kissing up the management, worse place on earth to work at!

Unfortunately some of the management staff and higher ups have become somewhat of a toxic environment, despite the love of my work itself it appears that there is little to no true advancement within the company let alone the store itself. Frequently over the past few years any positions in management that have become available have all been filled from outside of the store, and outside of the company itself, with little true consideration for the internal applicants who already know half of the training required to do the job properly.

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| 1111 views | | 9 replies (last February 22, 2019) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+XKovozJ

9 replies (most recent on top)

YOU’RE kidding....right ?!

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Post ID: @jdq+XKovozJ

You are kidding, right? What store is this?

I don't believe they would tell people to go online and say anything.

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Post ID: @cdj+XKovozJ

This morning We were asked to go on Indeed & leave positive reviews !

These people will do anything to put an unwarranted positive spin on their tarnished image!

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Post ID: @cvf+XKovozJ

See what they said on Indeed for MA stores. What is going on there?!!

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Post ID: @xyh+XKovozJ

NC DM really pays attention to certain ladies. Can’t imagine anything inappropriate is happening, he’s repulsive.

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Post ID: @bpe+XKovozJ

I went to the Indeed site to read comments about my store and some were shocking. I can't even write them here. And no surprise, the reviews get worse as time goes by.

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Post ID: @izr+XKovozJ

Think the DM In Chicago is bad...

KY has a real piece of work! Real fake to your face, liar. Rumors of side deals with vendors. Wouldn’t surprise me.

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Post ID: @kvy+XKovozJ

B&N is clearly headed in a downward direction. It's a non supportive environment that I would never recommend.

B&N in the Chicago area has some of the worst, untalented (DM and above) managers that I've ever worked with. They are completely lacking in people skills and simply don't care about the people they manage.

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Post ID: @pce+XKovozJ

Part 2

My time at Barnes and Noble was a mixed bag. I enjoyed being around books and coffee and nerding out with fellow staff and customers, but the rest was not good. The pay is pitifully low, without even legitimate raises (pay bumps because minimum wage went up should not count...), and the manager was horrible! She was the main reason I left, besides the pay. She was controlling, manipulative, and micromanaging. She stressed everyone out, and the atmosphere was just awful. She had favorites and would bully the staff members that she didn't like. No one wanted to be there when she was there. Also, the hours were really inconsistent. One week I would have 15-20, then the next only 8, and some weeks, none at all. It was impossible to budget. I would not recommend this place to anyone, especially since the company recently axed over fifteen hundred employees. Not a good sign.

The idea of being a bookseller is sadly way better than actually being one if you work at Barnes & Noble. Booksellers are expected to simultaneously greet customers, find books, put books in the customers hand, answer phones, find books to put on hold for those phone and online orders, ring people up, sell memberships, get emails, mention promotions, recommend product, listen and respond to headset questions and dialogue etc. The list never ends. And while all of this sounds like typical expectations for retail and customer service, and I would agree that it is, Barnes & Noble expects one or two people to be able to handle all these tasks while satisfying each individual customer that comes through the door. Barnes & Nobles tend to be large stores, the one I worked at in particular was two stories and in the mornings and evenings they would often have only one person running an entire level, in the middle of the day maybe two, and a manager running around like a crazy person. There aren't enough hours given to maintain organization, both on the floor and in receiving, which made it difficult to find product. This resulted in having to deal with a lot of irritated customers. Booksellers are basically given a giant list of chores that mainly focus on driving an exhausting amount of metrics and expected to be in four places at once helping four different customers which means, unfortunately, little time to really talk to people about books. This is the one thing that should separate B&N from online retail and the company doesn't seem to care about this, or maybe they do, but think that one person can do it all. One person cannot help someone find a book and recommend more if they are expected to be the cashier, but this is the job they expect. And they do not pay well. Minimum wage is continuously rising in California, and for the long term employees Barnes & Noble does not take previous raises into consideration. So, after being there for about 3 years, I was getting paid just a tiny amount ($0.25) above minimum wage again and nearly the same as a new hire. So obviously they do not value employees that have been there a while and know how to perform in multiple areas throughout the store. There is very little training given to new hires. Because of all this, the turnover is crazy high. Instead, Barnes & Noble seems to put more value into new signage, fancy new member cards, stickers, you know- the superficial stuff. I worked here part time through college and despite all of this, I enjoyed it for the most part. It was good enough. But things have since gotten worse and harder to accept, new people don't seem to stay and I don't really blame them. There are way less stressful jobs for the same pay. Call this a rant if you want, but I am not some disgruntled former employee. I actually loved this store, and I hope things change for future employees

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Post ID: @mus+XKovozJ

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