Working at Fred Meyer, Rite-Aid, Target, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, etc?

 Never ever work for Target

Rite-Aid is f'ing godawful. The horror stories I hear from the folks I know who work there are enough to turn my beard white.

I hear Walgreen's ain't too shabby, and the one on Guide Meridian was hiring pharmacy techs as recently as two weeks ago. You might also want to give a looksie at Fred Meyer's, I hear good things.  

targets not that bad, i've never worked in the pharmacy, so i can't tell you that. it's pretty laid back, and the people are nice. much better than some other places i've worked.

Any Target in general or certain locations? What are some of your reasons for never working at Target?

So I worked at the Target in Lake Stevens before transferring to the Bellingham store and I didn't know how good the Lake Stevens store was until I got up here. However, I feel most of my problems came within my relationships with mostly one of the Team Leads I had to deal with (management of the department). The Human Resource manager has changed since then though I've heard so I can't tell you anything about the new one. But overall, Target really isn't that bad of a place to work. They give yearly raises at least, there are benefits offered but I think you have to work full time to get any of them. The Bellingham store was crappy to work for me cuz I didn't really like many of the people I worked around, they were into gossiping and I am not. Bham being a college town there's a ton of college students that tend to work there from both Western and Whatcom. It was crappy working the clothes cuz ppl come through and will literally pick something off the rack and throw it on the ground cuz they expect you to come clean up after them, but in reality we have a TON of other stuff we have to do around just the department than just clean up after them. I think it's especially bad cuz it's connected to the mall so you get even more foot traffic coming through. For instance, depsite that the Lake Stevens store is one of the largest in WA, the Bham store gets twice as much foot traffic coming through it.
Another thing that bothered me was that it felt more difficult and a much less welcoming environment to me coming into the the Bham store than the Lake Stevens one, but again, that may have been  a perception, or because I was coming in on the middle of things when they really already had a full staff (the company has to transfer if you ask for it, at least after your 90 day training period). Or it could have been a combination of both really, I do know that most the time if you talked to the management and have pretty decent communication skills they'd be very open and willing to listen...remembering might have been another story though...
As far as departments in Target, I loved doing 1 hour photo and actually guest services at the Lake Stevens store but the Bham store doesn't have 1 hour and they said they had enough guest service ppl as it was.

Anywayz, I think I've rambled too long as it is. Hopefully it's helpful for you. In general I've heard WalMart isn't that pleasant of a place to work, but I wouldn't actually know. Benefits are aparently crap though and I'm sure like anything else scheduling depends on the person in charge of the whole thing. Good luck on the job search I'm working on the same thing myself.

Actually if anyone knows of a good place that is hiring I'd love it if someone gave me a heads up. Thanx!

I notice you did not ask about Haggen.  Did you already work there once?  Anyways, I worked there for two years and found the job to be perfect for being a FULL time college student.  Keeping in mind that no job is perfect, I am what one might consider a Haggen apologist.  I am older, so I have had plenty of crappy jobs and you could do a lot worse than Haggen.

Haggen is really good about working around your schedule, but the drawback is that you have to be willing to work graveyard shifts and weekends.  You will never get full time hours unless you want to be a graveyard stocker (and nobody "wants" to do that). Their employee benefits have declined over the last several years, but you can still get decent health insurance by only having to work 60 hours monthly (and yes, pay union dues).  Many have complained about the conservative image and uniforms, but it is a job after all--not a college party.

I had, perhaps, the best employee-to-employee relationships of my life at Haggen and I still have many friends from the store I worked at.  I can honestly say that is terribly unusual.  I looked forward to seeing people that I worked with. Everything else was pretty cool too.  I can't say I have much that is bad to say.  I will say that working in a grocery/retail store will grind your nerves and it is physically demanding.  Standing on concrete floors for many hours a day is not good for your legs, feet, and back no matter what shape you are in and what kind of shoes you wear.

I am unemployed at the moment by choice, and while not my dream job I would return to Haggen if I had to.

I worked at Target for two years, then got a new job about two years ago. I never thought Target was that bad, but I suppose it's because it was my first real job and I didn't have much to compare it to. In retrospect, I would try to avoid that place. My views might be a tad biased because I was a "cart attendant" which is pretty much the lowest job you can get at Target. I also cashiered, but I chose not to do it often because I found it unbearably boring. The hierarchy there bothered me a bit, some of the "team leads" treated the lower end employees like dirt, even though they spent most of their days just walking around while people like me worked up a sweat. Although, they had their good days too. The yearly raises were nice, but I was really bothered by how they determined how much of a raise you got (long story short they would produce reasons that you shouldn't get the full raise...most of those reasons were completely made up). I also feel like I didn't get the respect I deserved while working there. Although it sounds kinda dumb, I got really good at my job as a cart attendant, but I was rarely praised for my efforts. Then, when I quit, they begged me not to and got all upset because they realized they were losing a good employee. Oh and another thing, some of the Canadian shoppers that come to Bellis Fair are extremely rude. I have nothing against Canadians in general, nothing at all in fact. However, Bellis Fair seems to attract the worst ones. I work in Fairhaven now and all of the Canadians there have been awesome. I could keep going...there's a lot to be said about working at Target, but I feel like I shouldn't take up so much space. Hope this helps!  

I worked at Walmart in the pharmacy, then as a checker: Fucking sucked. Stupid, fat, dumb walmart/mcdonalds eating people and their stupid kids. But it's a great birth control method. I walked out of there EVERY SINGLE DAY and said to myself: I am NEVER NEVER NEVER having kids.

Worked at Freddy's for like 3 days in the pharmacy, but realized it was the same as at Walmart: boring, too busy and not worth minimum wage.

Worked at McDonald's: fucking sucked. Got yelled at everyday from management, customers, for shit you didn't do, had no control over. And management would yell at you even if you did everything perfectly (they're just pissed they're 45 and still working a job a 16 year old works). Managers and customers alike yelled at you until you cried, sometimes multiple times in one day. They even made the men cry! (Not kidding!) And not to mention you come home smelling like fries and covered in grease. Oh, and you'd work 6 hours of your 8 hour break before you got a lunch/pee break... almost every single day.

Worked at Wendy's: Much much much better management. Much more laid back: AKA longer wait times for your food, but we really didn't give a shit. Want fastfood, go to McD's. Customers were generally nicer too, but still got a few pricks in there once in awhile. Again: if it costs a dollar, don't expect it to come from the Bellweather. But it's still fastfood, so it pretty much sucks working there.

But Walmart and McD's are the alltime WORST places to work.

But then I went abroad and realized that only American customers treat people in service positions as shitty as they do. They're also the only ones throwing fits, throwing things back at you (had someone launch a burger at me at McD's), yelling, stomping their feet when they don't get their way, swearing, etc. (Seen it all, and it's pretty ugly).

And my own disclaimer: I really don't suck as an employee, I actually got tons of complements at those jobs from management because I "have a brain." (The ones lacking said brain had it way worse than me) And I had so many jobs because I refuse to put up with that kind of treatment from anyone, so I left quite often. But that's over a span of like 6 years, and I've been at my current job (WAY BETTER) for over 3½ years now.

I worked for Target (several stores)for over 5 years and found it to be fine. Working for the Bellingham target was not so fine due to reasons all ready discussed.  The traffic is really heavy because we're the closest Target to the Canadian Border. I think last year that store did more business than Seattle stores, for example. And the person who mentioned rude, slob, customers is correct.

Most people that I knew there in the last several years have quit because of this:
"However, I feel most of my problems came within my relationships with mostly one of the Team Leads I had to deal with (management of the department)."
This person (if we're thinking of the same one) is an Executive and is sited in many complaints about that store. However, its not the case that this person, or anyone there, is directly verbally abusive. And while the behind-the-scenes actions of this person was irksome and detracted from what could have been an otherwise pleasant work experience (aside from the above customer issue) its something that can be ignored if you just go to work with the mind set that you are an autonamous slave and should only do, and not think about what your doing.

And about this:
"The hierarchy there bothered me a bit, some of the "team leads" treated the lower end employees like dirt, even though they spent most of their days just walking around while people like me worked up a sweat."
Some of the management there seem to think that because they have an online business degree that their underlings are all brainless minions.  They forget that this is a college town and many of the people working there are getting complex degrees and are, in fact more mentally capable. But, If you are merely going there to put your head down and do mindless labor for 8 hours for some extra cash, and you can handle being treated like a no brainless servant, than you will be fine; however, you will work hard because of the heavy and rude traffic.
On a positive note, the Store Manager is really cool and I loved working for him.

Have you had any experience working at restaurants up here? Was it fast food or sit down? What has been your experience? Positive, negative? What were your responsibilities? How flexible was management when it came to your acaemics? Any further comments are welcome.

I was a graveyard stocker for a while at Haggen while a full-time student, and it's actually a pretty good gig. You have the whole day free to go to class and/or sleep. I made a lot of friends through working there.

Though I have yet to join the Bellingham crew, my past 2 years working at the Issaquah Lowes has been Cake. Just depends on the people I guess. The jobs there are easy.