I'm the op that worked at HD, I got out at like 20, but I have an ex who's climbing the ladder at Abercrombie (or whoever owns it) for the last 5-6 years and it seem so miserable.

She's moving every 1-3 years because they transfer her to a new store, and because she's running the higher profit stores they send her to trash stores to try and fix them. She has no practically no vacation, has to fill in staff shortages, works every weekend. I think she's around 30-40k. So she's doing all this to eventually (6 years in now) break into the corporate world, where she'll then have to move 1000 miles away to I think Georgia.

To... probably make 60k.

I'm really curious where she'll be in 5-10 years, she's managed so many stores I feel like she'd go regional manager route or something. OR training would keep her at corporate instead.

Do you think she’s meeting the bar of ambitious and not incompetent? If so then why isn’t she reaping the rewards?

Are the people working under her unambitious and incompetent?

I think corporate sees themselves on another planet from the peasants running the stores and to allow someone outside of the caste system of.. gasp, having a bachelors degrees/mbas in mass communication to work at HQ vs having worked in stores for the last 6 years bringing the company earnings is .. like a sympathy promotion if it ever happens.

I don't think she'll ever wind up at corporate.

Yea sorry for the questions, just bothered by other claims in the thread that hard work pays off within a caste system

I worked retail in the early 90s at a huge chain of appliance/electronic stores. The managers were paid very well.

If you survived the politics of being moved from store to store, never knowing your schedule, and blatant, miserable sexual harassment ("hey let's go out for drinks and discuss how I might let you sell large appliances instead of small electronics"...oh wait..."you didn't go to my apartment...we have this opening an hour away that you have to take with no advancement opportunity".

Okay, assuming the sexual harassment is gone/obsoleted by solid company policy, there's the "chasm" from peon to management that you can only aspire to if you never make a mistake or make them quietly. Or never leave the job to get a degree. Or get lucky somehow.

Those positions at management level above peon required a lot of sweat equity and risk on the part of the worker bee. If it doesn't pan out, well, that's what...3-15 years of your real actual life flushed down the toilet.

I'm with GenX. Screw that noise.

Thank you to share your experience. While I am not experienced in this area, I feel too many other posts are overlooking the _path_ to store manager. It is a brutal grind, and getting to the top is so much luck.