Soul Sucking. - Visual Merchandiser Forever 21 Employee Review

The employees are absolutely abused by corporate, or whoever is dictating the horrifyingly unrealistic expectations. As part of the visual team, I was SO excited to start my full time position at Forever 21! Unfortunately, that didn't last. The training wasn't bad, however technically you can't train anyone to do a physically impossible job. The expectations of fitting more stock into the stockroom (which was a health hazard from day 1 of opening our store to the time I left, with employees climbing over 15 ft piles of boxes to get to their lockers) and onto the floor was absurd. Overstuffing and overcrowding destroyed the visual aesthetic (and corporate directive) of every floorset we tried to accomplish, leaving us hysterically trying to reorganize and refit what JUST DIDN'T FIT (continuously losing hours and hours of productive time in the process). Corporate didn't give two craps, and continued to send us more stock than was possible to handle, to the point where we were spilling out into the back hallways of the mall with no where to physically put the stock in our thirty thousand square foot store. I've heard it's pretty much like this at every store. Get ready to cry on a weekly (daily) basis. The other visuals and I took turns going into a corner of the store and having nervous breakdowns. We often referred to merchandising the store as "putting out a giant burning building by patting it with tiny pillows". It just wasn't happening. They gave us impossible expectations to attempt to meet- it was disheartening and degrading. As for my personal life- I had a four month old baby and was breastfeeding, and counting on pumping my milk at work. That ended up with me desperately running through the mall looking for an empty (dirty) bathroom stall to pump in- which wouldn't have worked out even if I did have a decent space to pump in- considering I had a strict half hour break that I couldn't combine with either of my ten minute breaks. I gave up after a week. My manager was somewhat lenient with me leaving closer to my designated time (they generally like to try to force employees to stay for many hours passed their timed schedule) because I had a baby waiting for me at home, and I am very grateful for that. If you care about the decency, respect, and integrity at your work place, and if you take pride in your work as a merchandiser and display designer, please look elsewhere. If you don't give a crap about anything and enjoy chaos, confusion, dysfunction, and being utterly unequipped to meet terms, deadlines, and expectations, by all means, go for it!! One more thing- 10% discount?? AND you are not allowed to return anything (for some unknown reason, as all other customers are allowed to return merchandise)?? You have got to be kidding me. I have worked at much higher end stores with a much more substantial discount, which in turn allowed me to purchase much cheaper clothes than at f21. I am very grateful for the real world experience I gained at f21, and even MORE grateful that I have had the opportunity to move on from that place!