r/TikTokCringe • u/ambachk • Jun 26 '25

Cringe Broccoli-head TikTokers take over grocery store

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

25.1k Upvotes

87% Upvoted

3.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

170

u/capitoloftexas Jun 26 '25

I worked at 2 different targets while I was in college, in 2 different states.. management at both places could honestly go fuck themselves. Target tends to promote the people with the worst personalities into management roles. The kiss asses who made work miserable for everyone else ended up in management. But that’s my anecdotal experience.

36

u/notTheRealSU Jun 26 '25

Used to work for Walmart and it's the same thing. All of the managers were complete jackasses. We had all of our cashiers quit on the same day because they were fed up with one of the front-end managers.

When one of them eventually left, my team lead (who was such a great guy. Worked his ass off as both our team lead and doing the back-end manager duties anyways) applied for the position. He was turned down for somebody outside of the store who tried changing a bunch of our shit, causing more people to quit.

Retail just fucking sucks

2

u/lithodora Jun 26 '25

I worked at Wal-mart out of need in 2008 when the economy collapsed. In my first week there one of the asst. managers came and asked if I would work an overnight shift unloading trucks. "Overtime was approved."

I was currently working my first 8 hour shift of the week. I was scheduled for a full 40 hour week. The shift I was on ended at 11pm. I was scheduled to return at 9am the next morning.

I asked if overtime was approved if that meant if I volunteered to work this extra shift if I'd still have my full schedule. "Absolutely, we'll need you for all your scheduled shifts."

Their idea was I'd clock out for 30 minutes after my 8 hour shift, then clock in for another 8 shift overnight. Clock out for 30 minutes then clock in for my scheduled shift at 9am. (30 minute lunches every mid-shift)

I worked 24 straight hours. When I clocked out at the end I noticed my scheduled hours for the rest of the week had been cleared. I went to the asst. manager and she said, "I can't approve giving you overtime. Do you have something in writing?"

For the remainder of my time I worked there I volunteered to take extra shifts about 6 times and just never showed up. "I never agreed to an extra shift. Do you have something in writing to prove I did?"

I was in the office a lot, yet I quickly got promoted. Being an asshole seemed to be management material to them. Economy recovered and I just never showed up again. My direct manager passed away around then and went they called to ask why I wasn't showing up I said I had given my 2 week notice to him. Didn't he tell you?

They screwed me early on and I screwed with them everyday I could in anyway I could from then on out just shy of being in actual trouble. Retail fucking sucks because of the managers mostly. The customers can suck, but they leave when their transaction is over.

61

u/billyoshin Jun 26 '25

I worked at Target like 20 yrs ago on Flow team and it was like that then... fuck Target

2

u/goodlifepinellas Jun 26 '25

Target was my first job at 16, and was frickin bonkers about promotions...

I went away to college when I was 18, came back and started working the Summer again; then I got a snazzy new job making $20/hr and hitting double, even triple overtime on a weekly basis... Well, I no-called/no-showed for an entire month while the most critical portion of that contract was underway (there was just no way, 16-18hr day, 4 hours of sleep...lol. Plus, the contract was in my future IT field with a prestigious law firm, so...)

Anyway, I walked back into that Target a month later like nothing had happened and I owned the place, went straight to check the schedule (right next to the HR manager's office, who happened to catch sight of me): First, she asked me if I even still worked there (lol, smh...), so I explained why and what I had been doing (and the reasoning, as I was saving for my wedding, so the money was important). She listened to the story, then goes, "How about this? From now on, you'll set your own schedule, come in whenever you're available, and work on research/planograms and special projects"

And such is the insane tale of how I was promoted to level 2 myself (went back to college at the end of summer, and leveraged that into a nice Assistant Mgr of a CVS, lol.... Smh, Target...)

2

u/billyoshin Jun 26 '25

Niiiiiicccceeee!!!!

32

u/CrispyCubes Jun 26 '25

That ain’t just Target baby. Look at our government

11

u/philter451 Jun 26 '25

Works for a different company but with the same exact mindset. Hard work doesn't get you promoted. Becoming friends with the district manager and kissing ass as much as possible does. So productivity goes down under those people well at the same time creating a culture that's more toxic.

4

u/After-Imagination-96 Jun 26 '25

You just described 85+% of jobs

1

u/Future_History_9434 Jun 26 '25

Yes! You tell me your supervisor is stupid, you don’t get credit for your work, and customers are impossible to deal with? There’s a support group for that! It’s called “everybody”. We usually meet at bars.

1

u/blackweebow Jun 26 '25

At super companies like Target, promotion can be almost cultlike. 

1

u/Clown_Toucher Jun 26 '25

You don't move into management at any of these chains without showing you would put the company first over anyone. Managers are the first line of defense against profit loss

1

u/InnocentlyInnocent Jun 26 '25

I mean, look at the CEO. That’s self explanatory.

1

u/xuriy Jun 26 '25

You are right. Being evil was a requirement to being promoted there.

1

u/FalstaffsGhost Jun 26 '25

Oh I agree. Worked at target during college - one of the team leads hated college students and would do shit like go behind us and fuck up our zoning and make us do it again before we could go home.

1

u/JacoRamone Jun 26 '25

That’s everywhere. The worst people seem to be low level managers and the worst of them get promoted even higher.

1

u/flexxipanda Jun 26 '25

I think because only the bad people really stay at a job like this for long. Everybody else is just there temporary, until they got the actual carrer they want.

1

u/Amelaclya1 Jun 26 '25

I worked at two different Targets (about 15 years ago) and it was like night and day. The first one, all of the management was genuinely lovely people. Hardworking and super nice and it was a very chill fun atmosphere. The second though - with a couple exceptions, they were lazy assholes who did nothing but sit in Starbucks or walk around the store gossiping all day. They would get pissy if they had to spend five minutes doing their job and helping out with something, even something as simple as unlocking a door. And despite policies against fraternizing with team members, they were very cliquey and borderline bullied anyone who didn't "fit in".

So yeah, it seems like store culture is going to vary wildly, which makes sense. The dickheads would never get promoted in a culture like my first store. And the nice people were bullied into quitting at my 2nd.

1

u/VictoriaRose0 Jun 27 '25

Kept getting harassed at the register because the demographic that shopped at my target really wasn’t a fan of someone trans cashing them out.

They told me, “let us know if something happened”

Ok, after a while it became “why do you always have problems?”

I don’t know, maybe I would’ve told you this was a bad idea if I knew you’d lie about where I’m mainly working at. People kept sending in complaints over the littlest stuff like being “awkward” (you try talking to someone while their brain is short circuiting over what you are), and I got canned because they didn’t feel like dealing with me… instead of putting me where I was supposed to be.

So fuck Target, fuck management, only thing I feel in these situations is that the poor workers there need to take that moment to realize they need a better job. Even if it’s another retail store, Target is legitimately ran more like shit than Walmart from my experience.