I worked at Walmart for a while, and a few of my coworkers described working at Dollar General as a torture chamber. They say that WHILE working at Walmart
I've heard it both ways since I worked at both. My manager at dollar general left walmart for dg, but when I was at walmart after (due to the $5-6 more per hour) so many people came flocking from DG. The only upside to walmart is you can be rude to customers if they're rude to you cause nobody can find a manager
Well, there are more empty, so people tend to be more bold about stealing or straight up. Trying to fight the employees and I'm not talking about some s*** I've seen online. I'm talking about some shit I see when I go to the fucking dollar store.
As a former dollar tree employee... 100% accurate. Even the parts you were joking about. I really can't stress this enough. We were told to stack helium containers in front of the fire exit. I threatened to call the fire marshal. They ignored me. I called. They threatened to have me fired. I got my boss investigated by OSHA, made them into a liability for the company, got them fired, then quit.
Do managers get paid significantly more (or district/area managers if looking for a promotion)? I can't imagine the pay is a high enough incentive to treat their fellow employees like this. And good for you!
Not all heros wear a cape... or do you? As someone who takes violations like these as serious, my store was doing a remodel (big ass box store) and a pallet of hardware was left in the fire isle. it was overnight but we had so many workers working in the store. After assessing it was abandoned I moved it off stage. A lead said it was OK because the store was in remodel, I flat up told him that fire exits are not something you keep clear at your discretion, and we have nearly as many workers as we have customers in the day. If anything, all the tools (linoleum tile work also uses a blow torch) ment there was even a hire risk of fire.
Good for you! I was just thinking, what can people do to protest, and was thinking ...what if everyone went and like, filed OSHA or safety violations...
Love that companies always say, "A union only gets between us and our employees". I am sorry but if I am alone in the room with my abuser, I want someone to jump in between us.
Agreed. Third parties are wonderful at work places. Email verification of what was said at meetings with the bosses. Cameras should be everywhere. I also want permission to record. I’m gonna do it anyway but permission is nice.
As a former Dollar Tree employee, 100% true, I remember vividly being told that not only were all the security cameras in our store fakes to ward off potential robbers, but we literally sold those exact same fake cameras in the same store, same model and everything. Kinda breaks the illusion when you look up from the box that says “realistic fake cameras” and see the same ones hanging from the ceiling, that is if you could see it above the towers of boxes in front of you
that reminds me of this time i was sponsored by gucci. they sent me the wrong size shirt! they fixed it real quick but man oh man was i worried i wouldnt have a new gucci shirt to wear out! how embarrassing would that have been!!!!! any way, i never had to try to get money, it was just handed to me. life is EZ mode!!!!
When I got my OSHA 10 certification, my teacher told me that the one group of stores that get more OSHA fines then anywhere else is dollar stores. When asked why, she said it's because they get fined and just find it cheaper to pay the increase in fines then actually work to make their stores safe for the employees.
One of my students worked at a DG and he couldn’t organize a union but he got the employees together and they got management to sign an agreement regarding pay and hours. I was so proud of him.
Hey! As a former Amazon employee, I can say that Amazon also has similar anti-union training videos, and makes every new employee sit through them as a part of the multi-hour training video gauntlet they put you through before you start. It sure does give you the sense that the thing these companies desperately need are, in fact, unions!
If you haven’t seen LWTs segment on union busting, I recommend it!One of Amazons anti-union videos come up in that one. ua-cam.com/video/Gk8dUXRpoy8/v-deo.htmlsi=eq7BPUzGcJbqGjFT
i worked at walmart fomr 2014-2016/2017 and we were told the same/saw a video on the "evils" of unions. knew it was complete bullshit even at 18 fresh out of hs.
My mom just quit Dollar General (in Florida) and I practically did a happy dance when she told me she was finally done working there! She’s over 70 and was working there to make ends meet and was always being called in! We finally got her and my stepdad into some decent income adjusted housing (far away from Florida) so now she won’t have to work at all. My mom’s mood has improved 1000% since leaving DG.
Y’all, it isn’t just the dollar stores. The seemingly higher end retail establishments are often facing the same things; it’s a joke how accurate this video was. No one gets paid nearly enough, tasks keep getting piled onto them while man-hours keep diminishing. I loved that he threw in cleaning the bathrooms. Not a single thing in the store is going as well as it should and everyone hates it, but we’re still showing up doing our best. Be kind to retail workers.
Most def. But no one pays attention to the DOLLAR STORES because “low income” people are the main consumer. America focuses on the rich. That’s it. That’s all. If the rich aren’t complaining. What we say doesn’t matter.
For real. I have a friend who works at Pandora, and she doesn't get commission. For how much that stuff costs, the least you can do is give credit where credit is due
As a Dane I usually find American stores shocking and kinda offputting with just the insane laundry list of bullshit expected of the employees. Like the only thing I expect them to do is scan my items, generally run the store (stock items, clean etc.), and answer my questions about where stuff is if they have time. I do not expect them to bag my items like I'm a grown ass adult and I'd feel kinda insulted if someone started doing that. I also don't expect them to stand up, which for some reason is a thing in the US, like why the fuck would I care about when it's obviously impractical not to mention uncomfortable. And I do not give a shit if they smile or are cheery or say a nice goodbye, I wear headphones almost all the time when I'm outside and I'm only here to get the stuff I need and then leave. I don't buy food for the experience of it, I buy it because I need it to survive. Like I'm not about to claim that working in retail is particularly nice in Denmark either, it's still some of the lowest paid labor here and you still have to deal with customers. But at least retail workers here aren't expected to do random pointless bullshit that contributes nothing to the functioning of the store. And I think it's at least a broadly acknowledged truth here that work sucks and no one really wants to do it so we might as well be nice to each, and also no one likes to shop for groceries so we all just want to leave as quickly as possible. I heard most of this from an online friend in Florida and I think if I ever visit I'll just like hang around him working for one day and mock all the customers for being little babies.
you're a joke. read the title of the stink'n video, it's a segment on dollar stores, and it's supposed to be a comedic segment... Y'allA_Amazi being hyper critical where it doesn't count.
The customer is always right. If the boss is giving you a bad employee experience, that doesnt permit you to take it out on customers. Be kind to customers. If theyre employee is frustrated, believe me, the customers are too.
I've worked for dollar general and dollar tree. I also live in a rural area where they're the only place that sells food and goods. This is INSANELY ACCURATE and I'm honestly in disbelief someone is FINALLY calling them out.
I get the feeling that it depends a bit on where the store is located. The only ones that I've been to are in areas with competition and they haven't looked much different from other retailers. I've been working next door to one for the last nearly 4 years and they've still got some of the same employees as when I was hired and even though we've got a ton of positions open, I haven't seen any of them coming to join us. Then again, that Dollartree looks nothing like the ones in this video and I always see multiple employees there.
Wendover productions did a video about dollar general as well and covered a lot of these topics, but focused more on the stores, their impact on the community, and how they have slowly taken over retail in rural markets
Yup! Did you work there when their "motto" (hung up in our break room) explicitly said making money for shareholders was the #1 priority? I forget the exact wording. I *like* retail, but DG was awful. I left for another retail job for reduced pay and it was a huge improvement. The schedule stayed the same (except vacations and people getting sick), which meant I could actually make plans and rest. At my DG, the coworkers and customers were awesome but the corporation treated workers like less than shit.
Lots of stories out there of people winning suits when those crowded isles created by poor corporate wage management has a box fall on you. Just saying, guys
I worked for DG for 4 years and it was hell. Corporate gives the stores barely enough hours to allow for one employee to work at a time. Its the only retail store that I know where cashiers are required to stock shelves. My DM would complain if he saw the cashiers behind the counter.
Well my company: They have huge amount of grocery stores, hotels, restaurants etc. During the worst lockdown phases restaurants were closed and nobody was staying in hotels. This company didn't lay off anyone. Instead they offered an option for restaurant and hotel workers: They could work in grocery stores with their original hours, but with grocery store wages. Grocery store wages are higher than restaurant or hotel wages here. Many of those workers earned a lot more during lockdown..and when lockdown was over they returned to their original jobs. My employer also have paid Christmas-bonus during last years. During Covid-shutdown-years it was about 100-150€ (about the same in dollars), but last year it was 300-500€. We have our own social media channel.. and base level worker can say there that CEO's ideas suck..as long as you remember to stay "matter-of-fact". Would this multi-billion corporation make John nauseous?
I had a job like this. They made people work alone on the night shift. I was one of them. I said it wasn't safe and we should at least have 2 people. Management laughed in my face. Not a couple months later, I was robbed at g*n point. I was lucky as a young woman in her 20s, all he wanted was money. I didn't have a panic button. I was traumatized and had to start therapy that the company didn't pay for. Another job I had this year showed the same anti-union propaganda video almost word for word. These companies do not care what you have to say. They'd pay you less and treat you worse if it weren't for the work unions did.
My mom was manager at Dollar General when I was 6 years old. As a 6 year old spending long nights in a closed DG, I helped her stock shelves, take trash out, and collect shopping carts so we could leave hopefully before 1 a.m. I don't know when we got home, I always fell asleep on the way home.
my mom was a high powered exec at an advertising firm when i was 6. both my parents retired by 40. i never had to do any kind of physical work, we've always had helpers, maids, laborers, etc to do the stuff we're above doing. we got a lot of good nights of rest considering all our time was free. when you have $$$ life is EZ mode!!!!!
Worked at a Dollar tree as a manager for 2 years. Had to call OSHA multiple times because our ceiling was falling down and leaking and black mold was all over the walls. Wasn't offered any benefits other than one week vacation. Would have to literally break up physical fights between customers. The second i got my college degree i was out. Working retail full time and still needing food stamps should be illegal.
Food stamps are a handout to billionaires, on the front end and the back end. Food stamps subsidize wages supposedly paid by billionaires, while the stamps end up in a billionaire's pocket. You were just used as a vehicle to transfer a handout. 🤢🤮
Wow, I'm fascinated how in the US you view 1 week vacation as a "benefit". Here in Europe, in most countries, having 4 weeks of paid vacation is a right. The benefit is whatever your employer gives you on top of that, in my company's case 38 days of paid vacation in total.
I used to work for a company that processed Dollar General's worker's comp claims. The most common injuries there were gunshot wounds, spider bites, human bites, and one in particular was listed as "trauma to the right side of the head with toaster oven"
My wife works at Dollar General, everything in this report is completely true. She's working on becoming the new GM for her store just so she can attempt to improve her store. We've had stores here call the fire chief to have them come, declare the store must be closed due to being a fire hazard just so they could stay closed long enough to stock.
Be careful. A few GMs had to cover multiple districts bc there weren’t enough GMs in the region. The regional managers are a new level of hell and incompetence. I did corporate IT for Family Dollar and I will always feel for the store employees. These companies know what they are doing. The documents they use are often not locked and anyone on the network can read their dirty work.
No no, they ARE helping the store and the store ONLY. The store, who is SUPPOSED to help provide the community who needs the items in the store. The store in this case is taking ADVANTAGE of the people helping and the worker because the more people help and provide free labor the less the store is incentivized to pay to provide the service themself. The worker in the store is being helped but will not gain more money for it and was put in that situation BY the store. The helpers are being used for their labor, it does not benefit them either. The customers pay a markup on the items, which is supposed to be for the service the store provides. but since the store is not providing it and abusing good Samaritans and worker alike to work more than one could, the mark up is not justified enough. This ONLY benefits the store owner who is not doing anything and yet getting all the fruits. Everyone but the store owner is getting fleeced. This is called "rent seeking" behavior. Which means: getting money without producing anything of value for said money. In this case, the amount they mark up does not reflect the value of the service the capital owner provided. Overworking and underpaying workers while charging as much as if they did not overwork and underpay them and pocketing the difference: Rent seeking.
War? Stonks. Bank collapse? Bailout. Then stonks. Housing crisis? Stonks. Global pandemic? Stonks. Inflation? Stonks. Gas prices? Stonks. Most people don’t have access to stonks? Stonks.
@brandonayong5823 They don't even have that in the US. ... And yet, the US acts just like the Royal family. Canada, I understand. Australia, Kenya, Uganda, Jamaica, or anyone else who still has the royals as their figure head "head of state," I understand. But the US? The fug is there excuse? Capitalism. Of course it is. What else could it be? lol.
@@theodorebear6714those rats been there for generation on generation. The humans are the rats' pets at this point. The rats been there longer than most of the employees probably.
@@trevaenglish1542 the rats family has been living in that neighborhood for thousands upon thousands of years, likely before humans were even on the continent
I worked for Dollar General for almost 2 years, and this lines up exactly with my experience working there. Our store manager survived on 5 hour energy, diet coke, and cigarettes, and she was about as strung out as you'd imagine. I hope she's doing well
I've been in quite a few dollar stores over the years, but I've never seen one as clean, spacious, well-lit, and organized as the one in that commercial.... usually they look like some kind of dimly-lit post-apocalyptic warzone with that low-key "eau de garbage dump" kinda smell o.O
I always laugh at the back of their trucks on the highway with the oh so properly dressed mother daughter duo doing their shopping. No tats, no hair colors, no pajama bottoms 😂😂
Every day manager that gets to plan their termination tapers off their hours to something reasonable before they go. I had 2 months of 40 hours before I quit. The back warehouse was full and we had an entire truck just stocked in the rolltainers on the floor. For the entire last week my orders to staff were 'do stuff?' And I told the customers we were remodeling.
here 30 hours a week is considered part time. 40 hour weeks are normal and 80 hour weeks are what you need to survive at $16/ hour. Mostly cuz you would get 36 hours of overtime. Now how would one achieve this? You don't, the company doesn't wanna pay that o.t. ( or a real wage!) so just higher a manager on salary and abuse the rules. They make x amount a year without over time pay. dollar general just min/maxed it that's all....
@@maxwellt.wiseman8570 A couple of my local DG stores were forced to close by the fire marshal because there was so much product in the aisles it was a safety hazard! 🤯🤦🏻♂️
All the actors in the end sketch were great. And I'm not just saying that. Freakout lady, rat baby wagey, and the indifferent to mortal suffering corporate man, all nailed their roles. Like they were born to play them. I would love to see them get on SNL or something. I'm not their agent or anything, I was just really surprised with how funny and impressively well acted that was.
My great-grandfather turned down a 33% share in what would become Dollar General in the 40s. He owned another general store in Scottsville, KY and was content with just sticking with his single store. He never once expressed any regret or bitterness about it and he and my great-grandmother were some of the happiest, kindest people I ever met and both lived into their 90s. I wish more people were like them and were just content with their little slice of the pie. (Also I probably wouldn't exist had he said yes)
That manager guy plays bad managers of stores quite well and convincingly. He was the manager in that Dane Cook movie "Employee of the Month", which was actually pretty good for a silly, slapstick and adolescent humour comedy. If people liked the TV comedy Superstore, I would say they would also like Employee of the Month.
the really funny thing with the dollar bucket sketch is I bet they paid a dollar general to film in one of their locations, looks like real windows and the exterior is on point
I worked at a Dollar Tree back in college so that I had money for food (God forbid I needed the job for more), and I was robbed with a knife to my back a week before graduation. The most I got was a phone call from my district manager asking if I was ok, and I still had to finish my shift that night. I have so much sympathy for the people that need those jobs. I normally was one of two or three people that covered an entire store for a shift. It was hell.
Did they rob the store, or did they rob YOU? Cause it seems to me that people could just load up a cart and walk it out the door and the employees would not give a shit
Former FD ASM. This is accurate. The expectation was to assist customers, restock shelves and clean with one person for 8.50 an hour. Our store became infested with rats multiple times, finally, it got so bad some fell from the ceiling on a customer and her son which is when the health people were called and we were shut down multiple times. Also, the DM expected us to chase people who were stealing. When I quit, I lied about where I was going because I was afraid they would try to sabotage my new job.
Wait, people TELL their bosses where they're going to be working next. I just told mine "I've found a place with better hours," or "I'm leaving the field to do something with my degree," and didn't think I had to explain any more than that.
This is why America does not want universal healthcare or better worker rights. if you have the ability to leave a job that is abusive, you would. IF someone paid me 8.50 and told me to do all that, when I lived in Belgium, I would not rush, I would very casually go about doing the things and when things are in disarray at the end of the day, let it be. It's not my problem to make sure the company functions and if they fire me... ohwel, who is going to run the store then? But that is because I have the means to get fired, enough funds to survive, my healthcare is not effected and the worker protections from the gov, means I will get a nice stipend for them unjustly firing me. So eventually a business like that would just go under. Now that I work and live in America... I will be a lot more hesitant to do this, because if I am desperate enough to take an 8.50 job I probably do not have enough to cover my basic needs and I would lose health insurance or have to go on an expensive private plan. So if i lost my job I would be WORSE off. This is how and why America operates. To keep a boot on the neck of hard working people to force them to do things against their best interest because they HAVE TO. Unionize and organize! (also I would work hard if and WHEN my compensation matches my effort and if I would be valued instead of treated like cattle)
That is strange. Why would they even ask? That's none of their business and not even a law. You should've just told them "I don't know, but I'll figure it out." or better yet, "MYOB!" if you don't need them as a reference! Ha. Besides, most of the time, employers never really call the workplace, just your specific references that you give out. And if they do call the workplace, they normally have policies that can't say anything more than that you simply worked there since this date up until this date for fear of being sued for defamation/libel haha.
@@metademetraAlso in the US, you can just leave without ever even notifying anyone and just let them figure it out. If you already have another job lined up or if all your references are trusted co-worker friends of yours, then it doesn't really matter if you let them know or not at all. Long as you weren't doing a contract job, then it's all fair game. Companies can fire at will, you can quit at will! Plus, most of the time, employers never really call the workplace directly, just your specific references that you give out. And if they do call the workplace, they normally have policies that can't say anything more than that you simply worked there since this date up until this date for fear of being sued for defamation/libel haha.
About 25 years ago I worked for a company that merchandised cards. My job was to go in and reset the card displays. I was sent into a Family Dollar that was changing some of it's layout. I noticed the employees taking laundry soap off the shelves and tossing it into bins. I asked one of them if they weren't afraid they were going to damage the product. They told me it was all going into the trash and that they had just restocked it YESTERDAY!!!! Even though they knew they were going to be moving where it went, over a month earlier. I asked about them donating it or taking it home to use since they were throwing it into the trash. They said they put a camera on the trash bins to keep the employees from doing this (even though they didn't even have a camera watching the registers!) and the trash was kept inside to keep people from taking it out of the trash to use. Now this wasn't a few things of soap. This was an ENTIRE AISLE, JUST STOCKED. When I asked why they didn't donate it the employee said she had asked corporate the same when she first started working there. The response "those people are our base customers and if we donate it, they wont come buy it". I've never purchased anything there since.
One of the most despicable acts of capitalism, throwing out perfectly good products and food because giving it away would rightfully put them out of business. The measures taken to prevent "theft" are stronger than anything else in the company. It's inhumane, they actually just hate people, and nobody should accept these practices.
I've been an Assistant Manager for Family Dollar for 7 years and I've never felt so heard. Everything in here is 100% accurate. Our store looks great but its not easy to keep it this way.
I stopped at a Family Dollar a couple months ago. The store was pretty decent as far as most items on the shelves in good order, with not much in the aisles. But while I was waiting in line to pay a couple men did a snatch-and-run shoplifting. One distracted the cashier and us customers by talking loudly and throwing products in the trash can by the door, while his friend filled his arms with clothing then they both ran. A few customers in line dropped their merchandise and ran into the parking lot after the men, which seemed pretty risky to me, but they came back empty-handed. The cashier checked us all out while trying to call her manager. No weapons shown but it still must have been scary for her.
Most likely your store looks good as a result of one of those rare occasions where there is a manager who puts in the effort and further inspires a few employees to be the same. Again, this is an uncommon scenario...but it happens. Typically those types of workers are worth way more than what Dollar stores are willing to pay and never stick around for the long haul.
Years ago, I was in a Goodwill...they get most of their merchandise for free, the CEOs are millionaires/billionaires, mark up some products more than what the same thing at the dollar stores cost yet a friendly employee told me she hadn't had a raise in 8 years. Insane. The corporate greed in out of control. I now call them GREEDYWILL.
A lot of supposedly "non profit" orgs are like that too. Basically as long as the company spends all the money it's taken in it's "non profit." Sure in reality there are very specific ways they are expected to do and then verify this but the result is still the same where CEOs get outrageous salaries voted in by trustees who just happen to own the real estate the nonprofit pays tippy top dollar for or better or same with whatever companies supply the organization with whichever consumables they go through or just massively overcharge for cleaning the floors at night, etc, etc. Many years ago there was a 92% tax on incomes greater than twenty times the average wage. This tax wasn't so much meant to be paid but rather to act as a barrier and deterrent to companies pulling exactly these kinds of shenanigans to peel off every spare cent for the managers and owners alone. Naturally this kept average CEO pay to less than 20 times the average income and by so doing it removed the incentives for these CEOs to empower the greed of any corrupt trustees or to funnel profits to shareholders (though since stock buy backs were essentially illegal back then anyway this was hard to do.) Back then the One Percent could only get richer by letting the rest of us get richer too while today they not only take it all for themselves but they also actively look for new ways to claw back what little we've saved. But for twenty years after WW2 this nation payed off that war debt and drove the biggest increase in economic activity and wealth in human history and it was ALL because that old top marginal tax rate made it impossible for the billionaires to take everything for themselves alone, allowing that money to fall to workers as living wages but also low prices with high quality as there was much less incentive to gouge and little profit in it. As a result this money actually being spent and circulated _literally was the postwar boom_ that made everyone richer and saw the Middle Class grow like crazy. And it was all because of that tax which ideally never needed to be paid just avoided the legal way. Unfortunately the One Percent managed to undermine and skirt it getting tax breaks to donate that money to causes that only benighted them ultimately seeing lower taxes that allowed greater greed. By 1980 they'd funded BS rightwing colleges to sell their propaganda and invent Trickldown and even before Reagan sold this magic beans to the boomers the top rate was reduced to 70% on paper and really less than half after tax breaks and much worse was set only on incomes above $10 million which was well above twenty times the average, decoupling that rate from a set multiple of that average being the biggest difference removing the need for us all to share in the good fortune rather than see it all go to the top. So CEO pay went from 20 times the average in the 1950s and 1960's to 60 times average in 1980 and over 400 to one today. That old very high top rate with very few loopholes fixed to a multiple of the average made all the difference, literally every issue we face from corporate resistance to progressive policies on climate, living wages and democracy itself would all be so much easier to tackle it was essentially only worth 8% of what it is now to fight us. Even Citizens United would hardly matter if there was 92% less of that cash to taint politics and if anyone it would taint would only ever see 8% of it after that. That old top rate is the real secret ingredient to duplicating the widespread prosperity the boomers took for granted.
@@karlwithak. I'm sorry if that's your suicide note, it's lame. You probably even missed the fact that Corporate Rule and the Status Quo of the last forty years was completely built on dragging the fiscal narrative rightward by leveraging the eternal yet empty threat of the GOP going after abortion. Fear of losing seats to classic "anti abortion" Republicans too smart to draw the inevitable blowback of actually going after it allowed the relatively few corporate Dems to make you (apparently) happy with choosing only between socially progressive but supposedly electable fiscal conservative candidates instead of getting risky on all around progressives not to the right of Nixon. The fact that evangelical billionaires lobbying the SCOTUS and MAGA hordes jumping into politics undercut the old GOP threat of threatening reproductive rights has *completely shattered the control that the One Percent once had.* The literal reason we've seen so much positive momentum in organized labor is that there is NO unified or organized control for the first time in a generation. The lights are on but nobody is home. Institutional inertia coasting along is all there is delaying us from accomplishing _anything we want_ over the next two or three election cycles. So buck up already, Mopey.
I literally saw an empty plastic mixed greens container for $5. It was one of the exact containers you see in grocery stores with various types of greens for ~$1.99-3.99 WITH the greens inside. The label was still on it, too!
This cant be more accurate. As a ex dollar general assistant manager everyth3he said is correct. I worked 6 weeks...one day after xmas my girlfriend had an emergency and had to go to hospital...they wanted me to just drop her off and get to work...after some back and forth with my manager...i just never picked up my phone again and never returned. Never turmed in my keys, just acted like they never existed. Some may say i was wrong but this place was horrible...i made $13hr in 2021...let that sink in...$13hr to run a store...if you have ever been in a dollar store and boxes are everywhere and cant find any help....thats whyim glad im in a better position in life but some people have no other choice and i feel bad for them
That that lady knew exactly how to pronounce ‘filet mignon’ & ‘escargot’ then pointed out people like her have to eat ‘raymun noodles’ is absolutely my favorite thing for today.😂
As a former employee of one of the three named companies, the worst part is that I'm left sitting here thinking, "yeah, all that is true and there's honestly even more that the show didn't have time to cover."
Golly, I bet there wasn't any unpaid labor with having employees clock in early and clock out late, but intentionally within rounding distance to round down! It doesn't sound like much, but it added up to 1 to 1.5 hours a week per employee on average (5 minutes early, 7 minutes late, and if you had lunch, 5 minutes short). With 4 employees at 12.5k stores ("back in my day"), that's at least 50k unpaid hours per week. At minimum wage of $7.25, that's over $360k taken from workers and fed back to CEOs and shareholders. *edit:* I am underestimating the number of workers, and using the low end of 1hr unpaid per week. I am also using the lowest minimum wage in the country (my state was higher). This amounts to just under $19 million a year as a conservative estimate. *edit2:* this doesn't even count what they did to managers at the time. Obligated to work 54 hours a week, and when a law was being passed that would require compensation for >40 hours, I got to sit in on a call that explained they'd be reporting 40 hours, but the 54 hours was still mandatory
@@ZedaZ80 so how much are these shareholders earning in dividents, and how much are the top people earning in wages. And would a decision to cut down dividents be able enough to make a drastic change here?
@@nielskorpel8860 Not that much, dividend yield is at 2% and the stock price went down from 259 to 121 in 1 year, so this is an all around shitty company.
Right. The one I worked for staffed the areas that had executives living in that area. And because the public knows it is understaffed several stores are regularly robbed.
As a former Dollar General Manager of 2 years, I cannot agree with the feel of this video more! My front doors were shot out at 8am and my DM made me reopen by 9:30. We still had police there!! These companies are killing small communities.
Did you maybe ask yourself why you live in a neighborhood where it‘s apparently no big deal if A SHOP WINDOW GETS SHOT OUT??? That never happened in my west-european country. Maybe you guys shouldn‘t focus so much on greedy corporations and instead ask yourself why poor people (especially negros) cannot behave?
You know what's really bad and true, at least in my area, is that many of these stores are located in bad areas where crime exists and crazies hang out. Sad but true. Damn shame.
Goodwill in general. I worked in the corporate offices of one of their highest grossing chapters for 5 years. The things I saw and experienced. They love showing off people with physical disabilities for clout but the amount of fighting I had to do against my boss to attend my doctor and therapy appointments for my mental illness, which still counts as a disability, was ridiculous. Somebody used the company facebook account to spy on me and they fired me over a post I made. I had to take them to court to get my unemployment. They kept changing their story but in the end I learned they broke 3 laws when they fired me. My lawyer told me this wasn't his rodeo against Goodwill. I've had two former Goodwill employees ask me for his number.
As a store manager of Dollar General I feel this so much. My first month at my store I was robbed at gunpoint and saw my coworker get shot. Two months later I got four trucks in six days and no one to this day knows why. I currently haven't had a day off since November 5th. And no one at any level in store makes enough money to do this job.
Is it possible to just hire enough crew and to hell with corporate? Be a rebel by showing corporate more sales would pay for the staff and cover the added costs.
the Biden Administration has proposed a new rule that would require employers compensate full-time workers in management, administrative, or other professional roles for any overtime worked if they make less than $55,068 annually.
As a former assistant manager for dollar general in Tulsa, I can verify that they don't give a hoot what we go through for them. You work and slave away, you get no time with your kids, and when you ask for more help, the answer is always a resounding no. I make more now in 3 hours than I made for an entire week working for them...
There was a mom and pop that had been around since the depression in my community. They survived Walmart They survived 2008 They could not survive dollar general.
This is now not relevant anymore but, there used to be saying "when you see a Dollar General as you come into town you know this place is an economical failure" and the dollar stores just pile it on.
As a former assistant manager I can confirm that every single bit of this is 100% accurate. Single coverage, unrealistic expectations on work load, no real security measures, unbearable heat, low pay, no help, and the company could fuckin care less. They punish employees for trying to stop shoplifting (shrink) by making it against policy to stop a shoplifter but also if store shrink is to high the employees can't receive annual raises. This whole episode is spot on.
Used to work for Dollar General. Was one of the worst places I have ever worked. The quote by the CEO at the beginning was at a shareholder meeting bragging about how good the pandemic was for business while all us store workers worked without little to no protection and shit pay. I am so glad that you covered this. Thank you for bringing attention these stores and how they profit and run their businesses on the back of underpaid and over worked employees.
Worked at the dollar store and it was horrible, made 7.25 an hour and then keyholder got me to 7.50 an hour. Covid came, I quit and then got unemployment. My 2 kids and I could actually save and allowed me to find a better paying job. I now work from home and make 19 an hour. I tell every dg employee of my job and how they can do it to. Fu-k dg the worst company in the whole world
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I can't believe over 400 violations amounted to only a $13.1 million fine. If you want to know why the system doesn't work, it's because the punishment for unlawful behavior is not a deterrent, it's just a tax.
I can't believe they're allowed to stack violations like that. There's got to be a point a company gets put under mandatory management if not outright shut down.
$13.1 million in fines over the course of years to a company making $1.6 billion in *profits* per year is a fuckin' joke. At this point those fines are just the cost of doing business.
In any other situation the american carceral system would say incarceration and torture is the solution. But if youre a corporation its just cost of doing business
I worked at a dollar general for six years. Night shift for 80% of it, everyday I would go in hoping I didn’t get yelled at by my boss, cussed out by a customer, or robbed. Some days I would daydream about wrapping my car around a tree instead of going into work. My boss was extremely verbally abusive to the point I spent four years on autopilot and I would often break down in the break room just wishing I was dead. After six years the most I made was $10.25 an hour, I felt trapped. The day my boss got fired, the assistant manager quit also. I hit my breaking point that day because I knew if I didn’t quit too I would be there from opening to closing everyday until they found some new people or I finally went to sleep forever. I quit that day and it was the best day of my life. I learned to not take shit from anyone, the next time a boss popped an attitude with me over something that was out of my control, I wrote them a two week notice that day. The old manager I had at dollar general even had the audacity to ask if I wanted to come work for her at Family Dollar. Hell would freeze over and the sun would die before I even considered working for her or any dollar store again.
I know it's hard to get money to pay for rent and such, but please don't let yourself be abused just for a paycheck. Honestly, I've been homeless, and it's way better than voluntarily going to a screwed up employer.
I am glad you learned to stand up for yourself. I hope you also learned other real skills, both "human" skills and *human skills.* The difference being, "human" skills are used working _with_ and _for_ and _over_ other people, and *human* skills are using what you were *born* with: moving quickly with high endurance, whether stacking bricks, tieing knots, or distance running; learning to actually _use_ your senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, and memory, math, logics that define us as *sapient.* ( _homo sapiens sapiens,_ you may have _heard_ of it but, probably never had it defined to you) Then there are _civilizational_ skills, like fixing a car or toaster or soldering a pipe and doing plumbing repairs or fixing a roof or planting food and creating fertilizer and choosing the _right_ fertilizer, or researching how something like a vaccine or insulin or an antibiotic was discovered, what problems and steps were made at refining it, and _make it yourself._ It is shocking how _easy_ any of those things _are,_ and how hard it _was_ to get there; starting with _how hard it is to notice things for the first time!_
In nursing you'll be putting an IV in somebody's arm and a nurse manager will walk by with their hands in their pockets saying room 202 needs a bedpan.... So give it to her!!!!!!
Thank you for doing this, it's the type of change that needs to happen, because it's the only change that will matter to corporations like this. In the new hire packet for dollar general it states that DG's mission is to provide a good return for shareholders, value for customers and a chance at employment for store associates, in that order. I read between the lines that the actual objective is to please shareholders, the rest is just a means to an end. I've been working for dollar general for 5 months now. 85 percent of my wages immediately go into a savings account so i can pay my bills. The remaining percentage barely covers thr most basic of living expenses (sometimes I'm left washing my hair with bars of soap or things like that). I'm on food stamps, cant afford a car and despite saving the majority of my paycheck each week, all it took was a couple of somewhat higher utility bills to wipe out every dime I'd saved from then to now. Im getting out of here ASAP and have an interview this week. I pray that im leaving dolllar general soon so i may have some quality of life again.
Many people in this country are working in situations that treat workers like slave labor. Meanwhile the corporations are raking in the dollars. Thanks for shining a light on one of many awful situations.
Most us are - I'm 34, I've worked in 10 different industries for 14 different companies. Anywhere you're not extremely white collar or have a union, you're a wage slave, and treated as such.
Corporations are little more than feudal lords and we are the serfs who work their "land". Their whims determine whether we can put food on our table, have power in our home, or have a roof over our head.
@michaellew2029 quit your job and the landleech whose work you are being forced to do puts you on the street. What you're saying would be true in a voluntary system of labor, but not under a rentier capitalist system.
@michaellew2029 but, to your point, they can also "not" quit and fix the problem with a union, rather than running from it - and I'm not really a fan of running from the people causing your problems.
I am an atheist. I don't believe in God. There is no proof that God exists. I use logic and evidence to form my opinions about the world. I don't find any convincing arguments for the existence of God.
My sister used to work for Dollar General and was pretty badly injured by falling freight. It took *forever* and a intense lawsuit to get any sort of compensation. All she was asking for was for them to cover her medical bills.
I feel bad that you Americans have to endure this kind of dystopia! I got this rare leg injury and had to see doctor for five times..and get this rare medicine. It cost me about 50 dollars..since parking wasn't free! Obviously I got full pay from all those days I couldn't work. Our society would have had me covered..by my employer offered a more expensive, but faster and efficient option IMPORTANT EDIT: For my sick days employer only has to pay for BASE hours. No weekend, evening or night extras etc. ... BUT MY EMPLOYER DECIDED THAT IT PAYS FOR EVERYTHING EVEN WHEN THEY DON'T ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO. Imagine how reliable and faithfull workers in my country are?
Dude they genuinely would rather fight a $500,000 lawsuit than pay you a penny to get better. They wanna make it as unattractive as possible to ask for care. I'm glad you got the compensation, but as someone who fought that fight, I'm guessing that you guys missed out on a lot of life and opportunity while you were stuck banging your heads against that wall.
@@dome2919 Look.. America is Fucked UP. This is general idea with your newest ally. I mean your $500000 lawsuits are a complete joke. They would never happen anywhere else. I heard about a case where this lady received $700000 from McDonalds since a hot nugget landed on her daughter. In Europe.. there would have been a case..where they would have seeked mothers role in this injury. Mother would have been trialed and had a conviction for failing to control her kid. They would have seeked if that mother is truly capable to have control of that kid..after the fine that mother receives from that McDonalds incident. The idea of the family receiving any money from this is insanely stupid.
@@winzyl9546 Exactly!! Instead according to studies my country has been the happiest for 6 years straight. ..if only Americans would really understand how much taxes they pay..and how little they receive back..maybe that could open few eyes?
My company got called to a Dollar General to board up the storefront after a break-in. The manager signed off on the work, and we were told us how to contact their corporate office for payment. We called and mailed them for three years trying get our invoice paid. They didn't bothered to call us back once. I guess vendors aren't the only ones expected to work for free.
"The company wants you to know" always leads to my thinking "we are saddened about the public finding this out about us but don't worry you'll forget about it later today"
"We are committed to this" = "We are definitely not going to do anything about this but we hope that by promising it will seem like we have faced the issue"
I love how a place becomes a mess, the higher ups say "we're going to take measures on training so they can handle this" - said training is making the bottom line sign some paper saying "yes I got the training that did not actually exist" and that's the end
That's not the point of minimum wage@@karlwithak. Besides, I'd take a Dollar General employee any day over some stuffed shirt who sends emails from bed all day.
I used to be a regional and corporate employee at one of these companies. I could tell you some stories. This segment was brilliant and deserved. The major issue I always saw was how divorced from reality the executives were. They are paid extremely high salaries and given lucrative stock options. They establish an insane standard for stores to maintain but then provide no resources to help them attain it. I could go on and on….
@karlwithak. Lol. How can you say that when you don’t know me or my experiences? I was in the meetings and heard the decisions as they were made or had them communicated to me later. You don’t have to believe me. Just go into a few of these stores and let me know if you think they seem like well run businesses.
@karlwithak. Aight mr 40 subscriber think tank go off king. Show us what that business school education can teach someone and actually explain why someone is wrong.
These dollar stores really are the laughable, predictable outcome of late stage capitalism. Out of touch super rich executives, ever increasing exploitation of workers and waste of resources as they want to churn out as much crap as possible, killing the town's local mom and pop shops in the process. Yep, Capitalism will kill us all if we don't start shifting to a better system. Reminds me of that New Yorker cartoon, with a tattered suit former executive sitting around a fire with some kids and a burning world behind them, saying: "Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders." Let's not actually GET to that cartoon's conclusion. We don't have to let it happen. We can choose to cooperate, collaborate and co-own our way, in our communities, to a brighter, sustainable future of abundance and prosperity for all. Knowing is half the battle, so that is where we are now: Send out information, share and discuss. Good sources to check out: One Small Town Contributionism, The Zeitgeist Movement and Peter Joseph, Moneyless Society, Democracy at Work, Second Thought, Our Changing Climate and World Beyond Capitalism channels on UA-cam.
The old Dollar General CEO, Rick Dreiling, used to quip that he was the most requested CEO to appear on “Undercover Boss”. He thought it meant because he and DG were popular.
I lost my sight and had major mental health issues happen while working at dollar general and couldn’t get unemployment benefits when they fired me… this story hit different 😢
I’m glad you covered the twisted world of Dollar stores. In our town, the fire department actually forces Dollar General to close AT LEAST once a week due to the fire hazard created by the bursting freight trolleys and cases of merchandise shoved down the aisles.
I’m not American, I’m not familiar with these shops, but the FIRST thing I thought about when the over-full aisles and store rooms was shown was “that’s a fire hazard waiting to happen” 😱
Good on your local FD. I wonder if the store pays the workers when that day of catch up comes around. Can't believe DS hasn't said screw it and shut down the store themselves.
@@rosey_ie Biggest thing really to blame is the warehouse. They send us way to much. There are items that we havent recieved in months to a year while they give us same items over and over again. Our new Ceo which he came back from retirement is going to fix things.
@@rosey_ie What is the retail shopping experience like where you live ? And where is it ? But I've been thinking the American indulgent addiction to brick and motar "Lets go Shopping" needs to go the way of the dodo . While the traditional stock the shelves and let people peruse them will still be needed for some things. Many things could move to a virtual shopping experience , and then pick up your packaged order at locations , if not using delivery systems. Also communities should start setting up library type systems for many items we only need on a temporary basis. Ultimately consumerism as is ... is caused by the consumers habits . So the retailer side is merely exploiting a weakness of choice people make .
I worked for a dollar general. I was fired because I was forced to close the store since I was literally still dealing with covid symptoms and nobody would cover the 3 hrs of the shift. The management in that company care about as much as the rat being offered a Pringle.
I had to quit for similar lack-of-concern. My manager and the boss of the location refused to follow the COVID safety protocols and when I called up the chain in concern I got shrugged away. My coworker with asthma passed away from COVID later on after I quit. 🙃
Working at Dollar Tree during covid was terrifying, my manager, a couple co-workers, and a lot of customers actively refusing to wear masks, and when they did wear them, they wore them wrong. Tried taking it to OSHA, but they closed my case without properly following up on it, just took my manager's word and some staged photos at face value. Store got temporarily shut down due to multiple employees getting sick a couple months after I quit. The cherry on top was putting up with all that bullshit while being called an "essential worker" and making less money than people on unemployment.
I'm a current DG SM with 25+ years of retail management experience. I can attest to this story. I've seen sh!t that I didn't think a company was capable of inflicting on their associates. The freight flow is so ridiculous and it's nothing that sells. Yet they keep sending it. I've been there a month and probably thrown a whole store's worth of stock in the trash.
In addition to the solid range of topics covered by Last Week Tonight, I'm also impressed by the talented actors hired for the sketches. Everyone swings for the fences every single time. So good.
As a current Dollar General employee my favorite part of the training videos I had to watch was the one about reducing shrink (basically loss prevention) The whole point was that most of the loss that the store suffers is from employees stealing from the company. But the way they chose to frame it was so funny to me. Because the video shows an employee stealing from the register while the voice over says "She was tempted to steal thanks to mounting bills that she was falling behind on" and I'm just like "Okay, cool so you admit you don't pay your employees a living wage then?" You can just tell it was written by a bunch of assholes in suits who assumed that everyone would take pity on the multi billion dollar company and not the person who was working for scraps to support herself and her family. I'll also add that the short clip they show of that anti union video was just a tiny sliver. That video title said it was about communication and tolerance in the work place if memory serves. The video was 10 minutes long. The first minute was about how "Hey, don't be racist" and then the rest was bullshit lies about evil unions were going to take your paycheck.
I worked briefly at a DG last year, and that anti-union video was hilarious to me for all the scare tactics it used. "Did you know that unions ask for a FEE to be a part of them?! You wouldn't want THAT, would you?!" Utter ghouls.
as a current DG employee i literally screamed when that fucking guy from the union busting CBL popped up. i have a video of that same one on my phone too lol. i was like "gotta film this shit" as it went on for fucking ever saying over and over and over how a union would make it harder to have our voices heard (even about schedule changes, which like, is that even true?). they claim unions "have become like multi-million dollar corporations" off of dues taking from your (already too small) paycheck.... standing in front of a truck with the giant dollar general logo in the side like do you fucking hear yourselves?? god re-watching that CBL again is making me angry
@@authenticallysuperficial9874 No one I know has a problem with companies making a profit. But ignoring basic human rights is not the way to do it. A couple of percentage points less profit can change a horror story into a community asset.
The real scummy thing about DG is that when they open a new store they are fully staffed, they do a great job pushing every other small mom and pop out of business, then once they are the only show in town they cut their staff and let the store go to hell like what you see here.
Yeah! The family owned grocery in our small town of 2000 closed and literally there was nowhere to buy food then the squalid DG , Casey’s or another gas station. DG built a new DG Market and it is immaculate and well staffed. Of course the fresh food is pricy even by todays standards. I guess it’s better than nothing. We have a lot of elderly people who would struggle to get to the surrounding towns 15-25 miles away. Let’s see how fast it deteriorates.
Same and apparently the store I worked in was one of the better ones since we didn't get robbed and the air conditioning sort of worked. I did leave the store several times mid shift to go to the bathroom at the store next door because the one at our store didn't work.
I love Last Week tonight and appreciate this story. As a teacher, I really hope that John Oliver covers teaching conditions in schools, it's getting pretty bad and some of these aspects are disgustingly similar to teaching.
A friend of mine had an incident where a student had a mental breakdown and started threatening everyone in the classroom. They tried controlling the situation but clearly needed some help. Called the front office and the office told them they needed to handle it themselves. That school not only failed that teacher but every student in that room who was terrified.
@@hardcoremagicalgirli work in physical therapy and the majority of teachers come in due to being injured by students and the board not taking them seriously. a lady i was working on got kicked by a 4 year old having a tantrum years ago and has nerve damage from it. edited to add: same woman tells me stories of how disruptive and flat out murderous kids get sent to the principal's office to "cool down" for like 10 mins at most and then get sent back to class where they continue their antics
Worked at DG twice. Six months the first time in 2016, quit in the middle of my shift because I could not take another second. Lasted one year the second time in 2021-2022. That second time, by the time I left I had been there longer than any other employee at that store. During that year I went through 5 store managers, even more assistant store managers and countless other store employees over that year. At one point I ran the store by myself for a week. I was a part time employee with zero training past the register & stocking lol. Actually they never trained me on those either, you just figure it out. I lost count of how many times we were shut down by the fire marshall due to the aisles being so cluttered with stock that we could not get up in time before the next truck would come. One time a tractor trailer hit the front of our building, partially ripping our store front sign down. So it was dangling over everyone's heads as they walked in/out of the store. We repeatedly asked to close as it was unsafe and they refused. They kept saying they were sending someone out to deal with the sign but no one ever showed up. A customer finally called the city to complain. The fire marshall and someone from the city came out and shut us down. Put a sign on the door that said the building was condemned lol. We had been open like that for a full week. That sign could have EASILY fallen and hurt or killed someone. They do not care. Amazingly once they had been shut down they had someone out the next day to deal with the sign...which just consisted of cleaning up the debris because the firemen used their equipment to rip the full sign down when they showed up as it was unsafe to leave it dangling for even a second longer. I spent my birthday stocking alone inside the locked store while my assistant manager slept off a hangover in her car after staying out all night drinking with my store manager the night before. That was actually a great day. I don't mind stocking, I didn't have to deal with customers and I love being alone. Couldn't even be mad at the managers bc they were SEVERELY overworked and burned out. They literally never had time off and still had shit pay even at their positions. At one point we had no store manager so they had the assistant store manager work from 7am-6pm, 7 days a week for MONTHS!!!!! She asked if she could have one day off and they said they'd get back to her and of course never did. That poor girl was in a very, very tough spot in life, needed that job and couldn't just quit so she was trapped there just dealing with that. To this day she is the coworker I feel the worst about and I truly hope life is better for her right now. I will just say that no matter how awful the job itself was, NOTHING was worse than the customers. The customers are straight up dehumanizing towards dollar store workers. I've worked in other retail stores and it doesn't come even remotely close to comparing.
Precisely .. which is why the Founders of this nation was so determined to decentralize it and structurally pit it against itself. (Took a bit of trial and error, their first attempt at a Constitution resulted in some of the States printing their own coins, but they were VERY clear-eyed - the Revolution era history is dumbed down to colonists vs tyrant King .. but in reality King George was more along the lines of a Gorbachev who himself was hapless before the blurred corporate/government State .. the fact that the civilian fleet of slave-trader could overnight unfurl the Union Jack as part of the willing British Merchant Marines says it all in a nutshell - and part of why those who did not go along with that idea (ie "pirates") fought on the side of the Colonies. The Founders knew that in the long run the only solution was to create inherently competing (and not in a sporting manner) centers of power that could not be consolidated .. but it was of course, most insidiously by the 17th Amendment .. but I digress. I will say that aspects of many early Hollywood swashbuckler films go uncomprehended by modern audiences due to this oversimplification of our history (another fun fact .. one of the biggest seeds of the Revolution is no longer taught, because we have surpassed the original grievance: that Britain controlled commerce by requiring and limiting licenses for every trade - the reason Lincoln practiced Law without a License wasn't because he couldn't afford law school .. not requiring a license was SO ingrained in our solicitor system for the same reason the colonists chose to ride horses on the "wrong" side of the road - and also because our idea of freedom included the idea that anyone could change their mind about what they wanted to do for a living any time they wanted to .. with no one's approval but their potential clients and customers. It is part of why so many medicines were developed here .. because no one required a special license to access the drugs required to create them. Again I digress. And don't get me started on why it took hillbilly Americans to actually "invent" such as airplanes that first rose in the minds of Europeans trained from birth to stay in their lane... @@gnomatic
The employees are so depressed at our DG. Sometimes the store is closed because no one showed up. As a former dollar store employee, I can never blame them.
I love the stuff John covers. Labor has been a nightmare for years and becoming conscious of that is a duty for all of us. If we stay complacent and compliant, they stay rich.
It’s call voting 🗳️ if you vote R to own the libs you’re voting against yourself & your family! Remember Republicans want to get rid of Social Security & Medicare 😳 then people will be living on the streets with the working homeless!🥲
1/100th seems generous. I doubt they could handle a cash register at a fully staffed store, so at the conditions they leave their employees at they'd have a mental breakdown within a minute. Two tops.
Have you guys ever met execs? They’re typically not in charge of shit unless their competent enough to work their way up there. The two richest people I know also happen to be the two hardest working people I know. One is bringing in 2mil and the other over 5 mil a year. They handle extremely stressful situations that are a lot more difficult than a cash register.
And? You don't have to work at dollar tree. You don't have to work any job you don't like. This is the United States. You can move up. You can educate yourself.
This is so true. I worked at Dollar General about 10 years ago, and for 3 years, it was a nightmare. Starting pay was $7.25 an hour with a quarter raise each year after that, so when I quit, I was making $7.75. I was a cashier and stocker, so I couldn't use the restroom when I needed to, but the shift leaders and the manager got to take as many bathroom breaks and smoke breaks at they wanted. I was expected to unload dozens and dozens of boxes up and down the store while also keeping an eye on the register at all times to ring up customers. The shelves were a mess or empty. The aisles were crowded with boxes and carts, so customers couldn't get what they needed. Only 2 people would work at a time. One of my shift leaders even told me my husband wasn't allowed in the store because "he would distract me from working". But of course, HER fiance could come in whenever he wanted, and they would talk and talk and talk. I would be screamed at by customers because what they wanted wasn't on the shelf or because I wasn't at the register waiting on them to come up (so they had to wait while I raced from the back of the store to the front to reach the register). Customers expected me to know details about certain foods and drinks, like health benefits, and then would try to shame me for not being a good employee because I couldn't answer their questions. For about a month, we ran out of bags. NO BAGS. The customers had to carry stuff out in their cart and load it into their cars. My boss eventually went to Sams' Club and bought bags with his own money (never got a refund from the company). He kept telling the warehouse we needed bags, and they refused to send them. One night, there was a blizzard, and I wasn't allowed to leave the store until closing at 10pm. I damaged my car in a snow bank on the way home. Another night, the DG a few minutes away from the store I worked in was robbed, and even though my fellow employees and I were scared, we weren't allowed to close the store. We had so few customers that night because they were too afraid to come in. I could go on and on about how horrible this job was, but I believe this comment is long enough.
@@graceamelia4840 2013 minimum wage was $7.25, but it's not surprising they were underpaying her. Wage theft actually dwarfs all other forms of theft combined.
Man, the anti-union orientation/training videos brings me back to my time working at Lowe's. I laughed pretty hard at the BS scenarios. What's sad though is that a lot of people don't realize that that's propaganda. I had coworkers who genuinely believed the nonsense. Also, any time a company tells you that you're not allowed to talk about your wages with your coworkers, that means you should ABSOLUTELY talk about your wages with your coworkers.
Oh, yeah, anyone telling you not to talk freely about your job and the details of it is totalitarian, and not someone you want to work for. I mean, obviously some things need to be secret as far as what you might be working on (police investigation, doctors working with patients, etc.) but your salary? That's public information. I once was casually talking to a brand new employee in the same position I'd been in for years, and found out he was making like 20% more than me or something. Turns out the woman in HR had a crush on him. I spoke up and we all started getting paid the same (higher) amount. There's no excuse for unequal pay, regardless of gender.
I worked retail for 30+ years in some pretty crappy places, and am thankful I never had it as bad as this, but that being said, that still leaves a lot of room for a few tons of crap. So amen brother. "Essential workers" my ass. What made us "essential" was wage slavery, which is what allows those in better circumstances to afford to buy their big flat-screen TVs.
Workers should absolutely have the right to collective bargain with their employer, over wages, working conditions, staff numbers etc. That said, unions have a nasty habit of becoming institutions in themselves, corrupt, ossified and rigid. Teachers unions are a major reason the US public education system is so terrible and has undergone administrative bloat and auto-workers unions were a major contributor to the fall of Detroit's auto-industry, are two examples. Collective bargaining between the workers and the employers is a good thing, but unions just tend to become corrupt institutions in themselves.
I worked for one of their maintenance management companies, and when I tell you they cut corners at every single chance they could, I mean to the point of not hiring sanitation crews to clean after their sewage backed up and filled the store in a layer of raw human excrement. They would hire the plumber to jet the line to clear enough blockage that sewage would drain again, and expect the one or two employees in the store to clean it all up. Our maintenance workers would show up to stores that were closed during business hours because there were no employees, or they wouldn't be able to get to the issue because the back room was floor to ceiling boxes. The corporate office would deny door replacements, referencing that the lease was almost up and so they were just going to close the store and open a new one down the street instead, leaving this one not secured in the mean time. They were truly a nightmare to work with.
I think the enormous success of these chains is that they've figured out where the food deserts are and provide the only source of goods in the community.
They covered this before. These are not food deserts, they push out local stores. They push out because they are cheaper, which seems to be positive. But they take all the profit away, unlike the local store. So the community becomes poorer.
I really appreciated this episode as someone from an incredibly rural state there are whole communities that rely on dollar stores to get by. Even in the more populated areas they tend to be the only store that is close by. The one by my house is constantly struggling with keeping the shelves stocked. It’s gotten a little bit better in the past month because they just hired a few people but I know it’s going to get bad again soon. People never work there for long. They don’t even bother taking down the now hiring sign. It’s been up for years now. Also that skit at the end was amazing lol 😂 I think it might be the best you’ve done so far
My friend, Brian Eurie, died in Indianapolis while working at Dollar General. He was shot and killed during a robbery. It happened all the time. No one at corporate listened.
I work at a Dollar Tree. My training day was on memorial day and I was the only person on the cash register with a line that went down two aisles. Customers were yelling at me and I literally couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
The truth that's almost political suicide: We need regulations. Regulations for minimum pay, for overtime pay, for staffing levels, perhaps even for CEO salary limits in relation to workers.
When some talking head starts talking about how well the economy is going this video should be shown. This is the reality for over half of America. A small group at the top siphoning billions from millions of people who barely clear $20K in a year working full time in shit conditions. But the economy is going great. 🙄
Sadly, folks have been told that this is the sacred way how America should work: on the lottery system where a few lucky ones cash out. And because I could be that lucky person I won't allow the lottery system to be changed. If I ever get rich I don't want to pay taxes. @@mostunclean6619
In an ideal world labour unions would not be necessary b/c companies and management would just treat workers decently b/c it's the right thing to do. Unless and until this world springs fully formed into existence, Trade Unionism is a necessary check on the power of capital and every worker should be represented by a union.
I worked at dollar general while I was in university. It was the worst job I’ve ever had. My managers stole stuff out the back which I didn’t care about. But then one manager framed another manager of stealing over $200 and got her fired. Then upper management came in and hired a new manager who told me “I shouldn’t have been promised time off for school and needed to work on school days” 🙃 then followed up with “dollar general cares about education because they have a scholarship fund” 😂😂😂 scholarship won’t mean shit if I can’t attend my classes
My elderly mother got a job at one because my parents were really desperate for money. The DG was so bad. My mom was never actually alone, but she was the only one who worked. The manager and her buddy just hung out and watched UA-cam in the office. Manager bragged about how much money she made, and would loudly tell the employees and all customers about her VERY far right views (we’re in MA, so not quite as common as other places). Absolutely atrocious person. My mom was scheduled over times she couldn’t come in either, and would get in trouble for it. My mom quit, she decided she’d rather be dead poor than work for that atrocious organization.
My supermarket offered "tuition assistance for college," making being a cashier a "great investment." They fail to tell you it's $2,500/yr, capped at $20,000, requires a full year of near full time employment, and is only paid to you after you pay for classes on your own up front.
@@ChristinaR404 YES the scheduling is wild. I would have to go into work on my days off to learn my new schedule and sometimes I was scheduled for that evening and the manager wouldn't even tell anyone. Or they would do the schedule at the last minute, cal and say "hey you're working tomorrow morning". A total nightmare company!
@@scifirealism5943 I love that they expect us to work full time and somehow make time for our classes... And absolutely garbage amount of money considering how wildly expensive college fees are! $2000 covers the cost of some books
@@scifirealism5943The resturant I served at until recently always promoted their scholarship program. I complained when I read the fine print when there was an age cap and it was only for undergrad. I was like "Hey you guys all know I'm getting my masters online! Why can't I get $1200 too?"
OMG! I applied last week as an alternative to Walmart as a Senior 😮! Pulling application immediately! Thank you for your humorous journalism and support for DG workers! Wow! So sad for the employees dealing with this crisis.😢
The Dollar Tree stores in Canada aren't allowed to behave as badly as this because we have a bit better labor laws. There are always several staff members on duty at the stores near me, the stock is put away and they're clean. I've also seen the same sort of thing just south of the border in Washington state where they have stronger labor laws too. I'm sure working conditions could always be better but the first step is strengthening labor laws everywhere.
Unfortunately, the shithole south of your borders is actively destroying labor laws so this becomes even more pronounced and normalized. And the people cheer it. As an American I can confidently say we are the dumbest, most self centered and egotistical people on the planet.
As long as America has Republicans, the corporations have someone fighting for their rights. Because corporations are considered freaking PEOPLE here in the US due to Reagan-era Republicans who worshipped the fallacy that is Trickle Down Economics.
basically financing those rich gang-bosses running them. Those bosses are abusing people who have no other options to earn a living and it is absolutely terrifying
I worked at Walmart for a while, and a few of my coworkers described working at Dollar General as a torture chamber. They say that WHILE working at Walmart
I used to work at a Walmart. Humankind needs to invent a whole new language just to explain how godawful these jobs are.
That is bad when working in Walmart looks like paradice compared to working at $ Gen
I've heard it both ways since I worked at both. My manager at dollar general left walmart for dg, but when I was at walmart after (due to the $5-6 more per hour) so many people came flocking from DG. The only upside to walmart is you can be rude to customers if they're rude to you cause nobody can find a manager
My local Wmrt had three people die, within the past year, to causes often linked to high stress,
Well, there are more empty, so people tend to be more bold about stealing or straight up. Trying to fight the employees and I'm not talking about some s*** I've seen online. I'm talking about some shit I see when I go to the fucking dollar store.
As a former dollar tree employee... 100% accurate. Even the parts you were joking about. I really can't stress this enough.
We were told to stack helium containers in front of the fire exit.
I threatened to call the fire marshal.
They ignored me.
I called.
They threatened to have me fired.
I got my boss investigated by OSHA, made them into a liability for the company, got them fired, then quit.
Good for you!
Do managers get paid significantly more (or district/area managers if looking for a promotion)? I can't imagine the pay is a high enough incentive to treat their fellow employees like this. And good for you!
Not all heros wear a cape... or do you? As someone who takes violations like these as serious, my store was doing a remodel (big ass box store) and a pallet of hardware was left in the fire isle. it was overnight but we had so many workers working in the store. After assessing it was abandoned I moved it off stage. A lead said it was OK because the store was in remodel, I flat up told him that fire exits are not something you keep clear at your discretion, and we have nearly as many workers as we have customers in the day. If anything, all the tools (linoleum tile work also uses a blow torch) ment there was even a hire risk of fire.
Good for you! I was just thinking, what can people do to protest, and was thinking ...what if everyone went and like, filed OSHA or safety violations...
like a boss
Love that companies always say, "A union only gets between us and our employees". I am sorry but if I am alone in the room with my abuser, I want someone to jump in between us.
There isn’t slavery anymore. You can always find another job.
Agreed. Third parties are wonderful at work places. Email verification of what was said at meetings with the bosses. Cameras should be everywhere. I also want permission to record. I’m gonna do it anyway but permission is nice.
Or, you know, put together a union. @@maliant16
@@maliant16 Thats a pretty fucking privileged thing to say.
@@maliant16 Can you though? With the way companies are ghosting people I would say not really.
As a former Dollar Tree employee, 100% true, I remember vividly being told that not only were all the security cameras in our store fakes to ward off potential robbers, but we literally sold those exact same fake cameras in the same store, same model and everything. Kinda breaks the illusion when you look up from the box that says “realistic fake cameras” and see the same ones hanging from the ceiling, that is if you could see it above the towers of boxes in front of you
They're so cheap they don't bother to have different models
Yup
that reminds me of this time i was sponsored by gucci. they sent me the wrong size shirt! they fixed it real quick but man oh man was i worried i wouldnt have a new gucci shirt to wear out! how embarrassing would that have been!!!!! any way, i never had to try to get money, it was just handed to me. life is EZ mode!!!!
@@itchiegameswat
This!
Speaking as somebody who literally just quit their job at DG, this feels like the ending cutscene in a video game.
I'm happy you got out. I worked there for a year back in 2010, and it was as god awful then as it is now from the looks of it.
Crazy I worked there for 2 weeks and was like yeah no...
Congratulations comrade, you can rest now
I agree my last day was Friday wake up Monday morning with a letter and a John Oliver video
🤪 L I T E R A L L Y 🤪
When I got my OSHA 10 certification, my teacher told me that the one group of stores that get more OSHA fines then anywhere else is dollar stores. When asked why, she said it's because they get fined and just find it cheaper to pay the increase in fines then actually work to make their stores safe for the employees.
Maybe the only answer is for OSHA to stay on them with fines weekly, daily until they change their business model.
This is it right here. Right on the money. They don't want to pay extra to be safer.
Close the store until violations are resolved!
@@jaym7369but they won't
@@kaivickers166OSHA doesn't have the resources. That isn't an accident.
Time to eat breakfast and learn about another existential problem, have a great week everybody!
you have a great day! what a bittersweet way to start one’s day
Us.
If you're in America, have a good Thanksgiving. Right?
What was for breakfast?
Facts
One of my students worked at a DG and he couldn’t organize a union but he got the employees together and they got management to sign an agreement regarding pay and hours. I was so proud of him.
Aren't there federal laws protecting the right to unionize or is that something just left up to the states?
@@Vandicoupkind of making offing oneself illegal. Difficult to implement.
Technically that is just what a union is, really- good on him
@@tairneanaich "We're not a union, we're a group of like-minded employees who just have a few complaints"
What a badass. You're right to be proud.
Hey! As a former Amazon employee, I can say that Amazon also has similar anti-union training videos, and makes every new employee sit through them as a part of the multi-hour training video gauntlet they put you through before you start.
It sure does give you the sense that the thing these companies desperately need are, in fact, unions!
Same for Rubbermaid. Former employee
If you haven’t seen LWTs segment on union busting, I recommend it!One of Amazons anti-union videos come up in that one.
ua-cam.com/video/Gk8dUXRpoy8/v-deo.htmlsi=eq7BPUzGcJbqGjFT
CVS and Macy's both had them too when I worked at them. I think most retail workers see them.
I worked at a Brookdale assisted living facility and encountered the same thing.
i worked at walmart fomr 2014-2016/2017 and we were told the same/saw a video on the "evils" of unions. knew it was complete bullshit even at 18 fresh out of hs.
My mom just quit Dollar General (in Florida) and I practically did a happy dance when she told me she was finally done working there! She’s over 70 and was working there to make ends meet and was always being called in! We finally got her and my stepdad into some decent income adjusted housing (far away from Florida) so now she won’t have to work at all. My mom’s mood has improved 1000% since leaving DG.
Vote to keep income-based housing for seniors and needy. VOTE 2024😮😮😮😮
Anyone who leaves Florida should be 1000% happier.
You are awesome for helping them do that. What a relief it must be for them!
Our government needs to build way more housing. Housing should be cheap.
Die mad about it, landlords.
Happy for your parents!
As someone who worked at a dollar tree right after quarantine, thank you for covering this 😭😭😭
I think one of the best parts of LWT is how so many people get to feel heard
I hope it was a genuinely cathartic experience for you
Similar story bud, I'm glad that he's talking about the nightmare that is scheduling and how much they want done in 0 time.
I'm glad you are talking about it in the past tense. More people need to stop working at these companies who treat their employees like crap.
@@dancahill9585
Some don’t really have a choice. But it would be cool.
How long did you last?
Y’all, it isn’t just the dollar stores.
The seemingly higher end retail establishments are often facing the same things; it’s a joke how accurate this video was.
No one gets paid nearly enough, tasks keep getting piled onto them while man-hours keep diminishing. I loved that he threw in cleaning the bathrooms.
Not a single thing in the store is going as well as it should and everyone hates it, but we’re still showing up doing our best.
Be kind to retail workers.
Most def. But no one pays attention to the DOLLAR STORES because “low income” people are the main consumer. America focuses on the rich. That’s it. That’s all. If the rich aren’t complaining. What we say doesn’t matter.
For real. I have a friend who works at Pandora, and she doesn't get commission. For how much that stuff costs, the least you can do is give credit where credit is due
As a Dane I usually find American stores shocking and kinda offputting with just the insane laundry list of bullshit expected of the employees. Like the only thing I expect them to do is scan my items, generally run the store (stock items, clean etc.), and answer my questions about where stuff is if they have time. I do not expect them to bag my items like I'm a grown ass adult and I'd feel kinda insulted if someone started doing that. I also don't expect them to stand up, which for some reason is a thing in the US, like why the fuck would I care about when it's obviously impractical not to mention uncomfortable. And I do not give a shit if they smile or are cheery or say a nice goodbye, I wear headphones almost all the time when I'm outside and I'm only here to get the stuff I need and then leave. I don't buy food for the experience of it, I buy it because I need it to survive.
Like I'm not about to claim that working in retail is particularly nice in Denmark either, it's still some of the lowest paid labor here and you still have to deal with customers. But at least retail workers here aren't expected to do random pointless bullshit that contributes nothing to the functioning of the store. And I think it's at least a broadly acknowledged truth here that work sucks and no one really wants to do it so we might as well be nice to each, and also no one likes to shop for groceries so we all just want to leave as quickly as possible.
I heard most of this from an online friend in Florida and I think if I ever visit I'll just like hang around him working for one day and mock all the customers for being little babies.
you're a joke. read the title of the stink'n video, it's a segment on dollar stores, and it's supposed to be a comedic segment... Y'allA_Amazi being hyper critical where it doesn't count.
The customer is always right.
If the boss is giving you a bad employee experience, that doesnt permit you to take it out on customers.
Be kind to customers. If theyre employee is frustrated, believe me, the customers are too.
I've worked for dollar general and dollar tree. I also live in a rural area where they're the only place that sells food and goods. This is INSANELY ACCURATE and I'm honestly in disbelief someone is FINALLY calling them out.
I get the feeling that it depends a bit on where the store is located. The only ones that I've been to are in areas with competition and they haven't looked much different from other retailers. I've been working next door to one for the last nearly 4 years and they've still got some of the same employees as when I was hired and even though we've got a ton of positions open, I haven't seen any of them coming to join us.
Then again, that Dollartree looks nothing like the ones in this video and I always see multiple employees there.
Wendover productions did a video about dollar general as well and covered a lot of these topics, but focused more on the stores, their impact on the community, and how they have slowly taken over retail in rural markets
Yup! Did you work there when their "motto" (hung up in our break room) explicitly said making money for shareholders was the #1 priority? I forget the exact wording.
I *like* retail, but DG was awful. I left for another retail job for reduced pay and it was a huge improvement. The schedule stayed the same (except vacations and people getting sick), which meant I could actually make plans and rest.
At my DG, the coworkers and customers were awesome but the corporation treated workers like less than shit.
Lots of stories out there of people winning suits when those crowded isles created by poor corporate wage management has a box fall on you. Just saying, guys
I worked for DG for 4 years and it was hell. Corporate gives the stores barely enough hours to allow for one employee to work at a time. Its the only retail store that I know where cashiers are required to stock shelves. My DM would complain if he saw the cashiers behind the counter.
I got a feeling this show can last forever, because I bet you there is no corporation that will not make you nauseous.
You meant "nauseated"
@@gw6667 Omg thank you so much
At what point will people understand that **CAPITALISM IS THE PROBLEM**?
Well my company: They have huge amount of grocery stores, hotels, restaurants etc. During the worst lockdown phases restaurants were closed and nobody was staying in hotels. This company didn't lay off anyone. Instead they offered an option for restaurant and hotel workers: They could work in grocery stores with their original hours, but with grocery store wages. Grocery store wages are higher than restaurant or hotel wages here. Many of those workers earned a lot more during lockdown..and when lockdown was over they returned to their original jobs. My employer also have paid Christmas-bonus during last years. During Covid-shutdown-years it was about 100-150€ (about the same in dollars), but last year it was 300-500€. We have our own social media channel.. and base level worker can say there that CEO's ideas suck..as long as you remember to stay "matter-of-fact".
Would this multi-billion corporation make John nauseous?
Welcome to Corporate Tree General.
I had a job like this. They made people work alone on the night shift. I was one of them. I said it wasn't safe and we should at least have 2 people. Management laughed in my face. Not a couple months later, I was robbed at g*n point. I was lucky as a young woman in her 20s, all he wanted was money. I didn't have a panic button. I was traumatized and had to start therapy that the company didn't pay for. Another job I had this year showed the same anti-union propaganda video almost word for word. These companies do not care what you have to say. They'd pay you less and treat you worse if it weren't for the work unions did.
I'm glad you are OK. I hope you have moved on to better things and recovered from the trauma.
Best to sue the company. Document everything you can. Because this is the only way our country will give you recompense.
I'm so sorry that happened to you.
Im not from the US. Why do people work for these companies? Are jobs so scarse that you cannot find a better employer?
There are entire businesses that specialize in union busting.
My mom was manager at Dollar General when I was 6 years old. As a 6 year old spending long nights in a closed DG, I helped her stock shelves, take trash out, and collect shopping carts so we could leave hopefully before 1 a.m. I don't know when we got home, I always fell asleep on the way home.
I'm sorry dude :(
Wow
That is just disgusting company
my mom was a high powered exec at an advertising firm when i was 6. both my parents retired by 40. i never had to do any kind of physical work, we've always had helpers, maids, laborers, etc to do the stuff we're above doing. we got a lot of good nights of rest considering all our time was free. when you have $$$ life is EZ mode!!!!!
@@itchiegames Evidently that "EZ mode" doesn't include your grammar.
Worked at a Dollar tree as a manager for 2 years. Had to call OSHA multiple times because our ceiling was falling down and leaking and black mold was all over the walls. Wasn't offered any benefits other than one week vacation. Would have to literally break up physical fights between customers. The second i got my college degree i was out. Working retail full time and still needing food stamps should be illegal.
Food stamps are a handout to billionaires, on the front end and the back end. Food stamps subsidize wages supposedly paid by billionaires, while the stamps end up in a billionaire's pocket. You were just used as a vehicle to transfer a handout. 🤢🤮
Did OSHA follow through? I had to call them once and I heard back from them once and that was it
I’m so sorry you had to go through that
I was kept part-time to avoid being eligible for benefits.
Wow, I'm fascinated how in the US you view 1 week vacation as a "benefit". Here in Europe, in most countries, having 4 weeks of paid vacation is a right. The benefit is whatever your employer gives you on top of that, in my company's case 38 days of paid vacation in total.
I used to work for a company that processed Dollar General's worker's comp claims. The most common injuries there were gunshot wounds, spider bites, human bites, and one in particular was listed as "trauma to the right side of the head with toaster oven"
The hell????? DG is sickening - I had no f'in idea.
Wtf??!!
Human bites?
WTF?
Hol up HUMAN bites?
My wife works at Dollar General, everything in this report is completely true. She's working on becoming the new GM for her store just so she can attempt to improve her store. We've had stores here call the fire chief to have them come, declare the store must be closed due to being a fire hazard just so they could stay closed long enough to stock.
That is low key clever though
That's brilliant. I hope your wife becomes GM and then can use that experience to get into a job where they pay better though.
Be careful. A few GMs had to cover multiple districts bc there weren’t enough GMs in the region. The regional managers are a new level of hell and incompetence. I did corporate IT for Family Dollar and I will always feel for the store employees. These companies know what they are doing. The documents they use are often not locked and anyone on the network can read their dirty work.
Forex trading has left me no choice but to for me with the help of Expert Molly Jane Manderfield.
Wait, how did the investment scam bots get into this thread? 🤔
Those customers putting food away aren't helping the store, they're helping the community members they know need those things.
No no, they ARE helping the store and the store ONLY. The store, who is SUPPOSED to help provide the community who needs the items in the store. The store in this case is taking ADVANTAGE of the people helping and the worker because the more people help and provide free labor the less the store is incentivized to pay to provide the service themself. The worker in the store is being helped but will not gain more money for it and was put in that situation BY the store. The helpers are being used for their labor, it does not benefit them either. The customers pay a markup on the items, which is supposed to be for the service the store provides. but since the store is not providing it and abusing good Samaritans and worker alike to work more than one could, the mark up is not justified enough. This ONLY benefits the store owner who is not doing anything and yet getting all the fruits. Everyone but the store owner is getting fleeced. This is called "rent seeking" behavior. Which means: getting money without producing anything of value for said money. In this case, the amount they mark up does not reflect the value of the service the capital owner provided. Overworking and underpaying workers while charging as much as if they did not overwork and underpay them and pocketing the difference: Rent seeking.
The problem is that despite what their intent is they end up doing both, and the higher ups know this and abuse it.
Except corporate took the signed paper, laughed at it and threw it in the trash.
“I would tell you we do very good in good times and we do fabulous in bad times.”
The most accurate description of the American power structure.
"We are the Royal family and we aproove this message"
I think that's just called capitalism
War? Stonks. Bank collapse? Bailout. Then stonks. Housing crisis? Stonks. Global pandemic? Stonks. Inflation? Stonks. Gas prices? Stonks. Most people don’t have access to stonks? Stonks.
And the rest of the world ends up copying them.
Even if they weren't the first to do that shit, they perfected it.
Man. Shit womps.
@brandonayong5823 They don't even have that in the US.
...
And yet, the US acts just like the Royal family.
Canada, I understand. Australia, Kenya, Uganda, Jamaica, or anyone else who still has the royals as their figure head "head of state," I understand.
But the US? The fug is there excuse?
Capitalism. Of course it is. What else could it be? lol.
"If you're convinced these are a terrible place to work, I'm not NEARLY done yet". Thanks John, you never disappoint.
Feeding the warehouse rat a Pringle is somehow a wholesome vibe
Kinda like a little pet. ❤️
Well, at least the rat is helping make room for more stock.
@@theodorebear6714like prisoners get?
@@theodorebear6714those rats been there for generation on generation. The humans are the rats' pets at this point. The rats been there longer than most of the employees probably.
@@trevaenglish1542 the rats family has been living in that neighborhood for thousands upon thousands of years, likely before humans were even on the continent
I worked for Dollar General for almost 2 years, and this lines up exactly with my experience working there. Our store manager survived on 5 hour energy, diet coke, and cigarettes, and she was about as strung out as you'd imagine. I hope she's doing well
Right?? One of my managers was all about throwing back those Monster energy drinks. Only way she could get through her day.
That dollar general commercial at the start is the highest number of dollar general employees I've ever seen in a store at once
I've been in quite a few dollar stores over the years, but I've never seen one as clean, spacious, well-lit, and organized as the one in that commercial.... usually they look like some kind of dimly-lit post-apocalyptic warzone with that low-key "eau de garbage dump" kinda smell o.O
I always laugh at the back of their trucks on the highway with the oh so properly dressed mother daughter duo doing their shopping. No tats, no hair colors, no pajama bottoms 😂😂
My wife is a former manager at a DG and this is 100% accurate. The only reason her store was clean was because was constantly working 60+ hours.
Every day manager that gets to plan their termination tapers off their hours to something reasonable before they go. I had 2 months of 40 hours before I quit. The back warehouse was full and we had an entire truck just stocked in the rolltainers on the floor. For the entire last week my orders to staff were 'do stuff?' And I told the customers we were remodeling.
here 30 hours a week is considered part time. 40 hour weeks are normal and 80 hour weeks are what you need to survive at $16/ hour. Mostly cuz you would get 36 hours of overtime. Now how would one achieve this? You don't, the company doesn't wanna pay that o.t. ( or a real wage!) so just higher a manager on salary and abuse the rules. They make x amount a year without over time pay. dollar general just min/maxed it that's all....
A couple of my local DG stores were forced to close by the fire marshal because there was so much product in the aisles it was a safety hazard! 🤯🤦🏻♂️
@@maxwellt.wiseman8570 A couple of my local DG stores were forced to close by the fire marshal because there was so much product in the aisles it was a safety hazard! 🤯🤦🏻♂️
Going to hope she found a job where they at least tried to cut staff turnover.
“We can pay you in rat babies.”
“How many?“
And the way it’s delivered on both sides is the hardest I’ve laughed at anything on TV in a long time 😂
Omg me too! That "how many" did me in!
All the actors in the end sketch were great. And I'm not just saying that. Freakout lady, rat baby wagey, and the indifferent to mortal suffering corporate man, all nailed their roles. Like they were born to play them. I would love to see them get on SNL or something. I'm not their agent or anything, I was just really surprised with how funny and impressively well acted that was.
What's he gonna do with them?! 😮
I thought he said "I'm ready." Because DG employees are clearly willing to work for however many or few rat babies the company is willing to pay.
Lmao
My great-grandfather turned down a 33% share in what would become Dollar General in the 40s. He owned another general store in Scottsville, KY and was content with just sticking with his single store. He never once expressed any regret or bitterness about it and he and my great-grandmother were some of the happiest, kindest people I ever met and both lived into their 90s. I wish more people were like them and were just content with their little slice of the pie. (Also I probably wouldn't exist had he said yes)
Dog, you'd be so rich! Heard that the old founder wasn't nearly as bad.
I worked for DG for 6 months in 2013. By the end of my time there, I was the longest tenured employee in the store.
I love your vibe
Wow
The actors in the dollar bucket killed it, they were too funny!
That manager guy plays bad managers of stores quite well and convincingly. He was the manager in that Dane Cook movie "Employee of the Month", which was actually pretty good for a silly, slapstick and adolescent humour comedy. If people liked the TV comedy Superstore, I would say they would also like Employee of the Month.
the really funny thing with the dollar bucket sketch is I bet they paid a dollar general to film in one of their locations, looks like real windows and the exterior is on point
Real tho
I worked at a Dollar Tree back in college so that I had money for food (God forbid I needed the job for more), and I was robbed with a knife to my back a week before graduation. The most I got was a phone call from my district manager asking if I was ok, and I still had to finish my shift that night. I have so much sympathy for the people that need those jobs. I normally was one of two or three people that covered an entire store for a shift. It was hell.
holy shit lol, the audacity of that manager 😶
Wt!?, tramatic !!,
Please tell me you quit on the spot when they told you you had to finish the shift
@@idontwantahandlethoughThe audacity of the guy wielding the knife.
Did they rob the store, or did they rob YOU?
Cause it seems to me that people could just load up a cart and walk it out the door and the employees would not give a shit
Former FD ASM. This is accurate. The expectation was to assist customers, restock shelves and clean with one person for 8.50 an hour. Our store became infested with rats multiple times, finally, it got so bad some fell from the ceiling on a customer and her son which is when the health people were called and we were shut down multiple times. Also, the DM expected us to chase people who were stealing. When I quit, I lied about where I was going because I was afraid they would try to sabotage my new job.
Wait, people TELL their bosses where they're going to be working next. I just told mine "I've found a place with better hours," or "I'm leaving the field to do something with my degree," and didn't think I had to explain any more than that.
This is why America does not want universal healthcare or better worker rights. if you have the ability to leave a job that is abusive, you would. IF someone paid me 8.50 and told me to do all that, when I lived in Belgium, I would not rush, I would very casually go about doing the things and when things are in disarray at the end of the day, let it be. It's not my problem to make sure the company functions and if they fire me... ohwel, who is going to run the store then? But that is because I have the means to get fired, enough funds to survive, my healthcare is not effected and the worker protections from the gov, means I will get a nice stipend for them unjustly firing me. So eventually a business like that would just go under. Now that I work and live in America... I will be a lot more hesitant to do this, because if I am desperate enough to take an 8.50 job I probably do not have enough to cover my basic needs and I would lose health insurance or have to go on an expensive private plan. So if i lost my job I would be WORSE off. This is how and why America operates. To keep a boot on the neck of hard working people to force them to do things against their best interest because they HAVE TO. Unionize and organize! (also I would work hard if and WHEN my compensation matches my effort and if I would be valued instead of treated like cattle)
That is strange. Why would they even ask? That's none of their business and not even a law. You should've just told them "I don't know, but I'll figure it out." or better yet, "MYOB!" if you don't need them as a reference! Ha. Besides, most of the time, employers never really call the workplace, just your specific references that you give out. And if they do call the workplace, they normally have policies that can't say anything more than that you simply worked there since this date up until this date for fear of being sued for defamation/libel haha.
@@metademetraAlso in the US, you can just leave without ever even notifying anyone and just let them figure it out. If you already have another job lined up or if all your references are trusted co-worker friends of yours, then it doesn't really matter if you let them know or not at all. Long as you weren't doing a contract job, then it's all fair game. Companies can fire at will, you can quit at will! Plus, most of the time, employers never really call the workplace directly, just your specific references that you give out. And if they do call the workplace, they normally have policies that can't say anything more than that you simply worked there since this date up until this date for fear of being sued for defamation/libel haha.
About 25 years ago I worked for a company that merchandised cards. My job was to go in and reset the card displays. I was sent into a Family Dollar that was changing some of it's layout. I noticed the employees taking laundry soap off the shelves and tossing it into bins. I asked one of them if they weren't afraid they were going to damage the product. They told me it was all going into the trash and that they had just restocked it YESTERDAY!!!! Even though they knew they were going to be moving where it went, over a month earlier. I asked about them donating it or taking it home to use since they were throwing it into the trash. They said they put a camera on the trash bins to keep the employees from doing this (even though they didn't even have a camera watching the registers!) and the trash was kept inside to keep people from taking it out of the trash to use. Now this wasn't a few things of soap. This was an ENTIRE AISLE, JUST STOCKED. When I asked why they didn't donate it the employee said she had asked corporate the same when she first started working there. The response "those people are our base customers and if we donate it, they wont come buy it".
I've never purchased anything there since.
The waste at Dollar General is mind boggling. (Former employee)
One of the most despicable acts of capitalism, throwing out perfectly good products and food because giving it away would rightfully put them out of business. The measures taken to prevent "theft" are stronger than anything else in the company. It's inhumane, they actually just hate people, and nobody should accept these practices.
Truly disgusting. So many food pantries could really use personal items like laundry detergent and toiletries etc. So many desperate people out there.
@mlr4524 and a number of people will pick it up
Where is the FIRE DEPARTMENT? Dept of Health?
Oh yeah. Bad neighborhood or money in palm😮
I've been an Assistant Manager for Family Dollar for 7 years and I've never felt so heard. Everything in here is 100% accurate. Our store looks great but its not easy to keep it this way.
No most dollar stores ive walked into look like hurricane Katrina
I stopped at a Family Dollar a couple months ago. The store was pretty decent as far as most items on the shelves in good order, with not much in the aisles. But while I was waiting in line to pay a couple men did a snatch-and-run shoplifting. One distracted the cashier and us customers by talking loudly and throwing products in the trash can by the door, while his friend filled his arms with clothing then they both ran. A few customers in line dropped their merchandise and ran into the parking lot after the men, which seemed pretty risky to me, but they came back empty-handed. The cashier checked us all out while trying to call her manager. No weapons shown but it still must have been scary for her.
Most likely your store looks good as a result of one of those rare occasions where there is a manager who puts in the effort and further inspires a few employees to be the same. Again, this is an uncommon scenario...but it happens. Typically those types of workers are worth way more than what Dollar stores are willing to pay and never stick around for the long haul.
No. Every family dollar I've been to has been nice. They have more hours to allocate to employees versus dollar general.
Just know you're doing a thankless job.
Years ago, I was in a Goodwill...they get most of their merchandise for free, the CEOs are millionaires/billionaires, mark up some products more than what the same thing at the dollar stores cost yet a friendly employee told me she hadn't had a raise in 8 years. Insane. The corporate greed in out of control. I now call them GREEDYWILL.
A lot of supposedly "non profit" orgs are like that too. Basically as long as the company spends all the money it's taken in it's "non profit." Sure in reality there are very specific ways they are expected to do and then verify this but the result is still the same where CEOs get outrageous salaries voted in by trustees who just happen to own the real estate the nonprofit pays tippy top dollar for or better or same with whatever companies supply the organization with whichever consumables they go through or just massively overcharge for cleaning the floors at night, etc, etc.
Many years ago there was a 92% tax on incomes greater than twenty times the average wage. This tax wasn't so much meant to be paid but rather to act as a barrier and deterrent to companies pulling exactly these kinds of shenanigans to peel off every spare cent for the managers and owners alone. Naturally this kept average CEO pay to less than 20 times the average income and by so doing it removed the incentives for these CEOs to empower the greed of any corrupt trustees or to funnel profits to shareholders (though since stock buy backs were essentially illegal back then anyway this was hard to do.)
Back then the One Percent could only get richer by letting the rest of us get richer too while today they not only take it all for themselves but they also actively look for new ways to claw back what little we've saved. But for twenty years after WW2 this nation payed off that war debt and drove the biggest increase in economic activity and wealth in human history and it was ALL because that old top marginal tax rate made it impossible for the billionaires to take everything for themselves alone, allowing that money to fall to workers as living wages but also low prices with high quality as there was much less incentive to gouge and little profit in it.
As a result this money actually being spent and circulated _literally was the postwar boom_ that made everyone richer and saw the Middle Class grow like crazy. And it was all because of that tax which ideally never needed to be paid just avoided the legal way. Unfortunately the One Percent managed to undermine and skirt it getting tax breaks to donate that money to causes that only benighted them ultimately seeing lower taxes that allowed greater greed.
By 1980 they'd funded BS rightwing colleges to sell their propaganda and invent Trickldown and even before Reagan sold this magic beans to the boomers the top rate was reduced to 70% on paper and really less than half after tax breaks and much worse was set only on incomes above $10 million which was well above twenty times the average, decoupling that rate from a set multiple of that average being the biggest difference removing the need for us all to share in the good fortune rather than see it all go to the top.
So CEO pay went from 20 times the average in the 1950s and 1960's to 60 times average in 1980 and over 400 to one today. That old very high top rate with very few loopholes fixed to a multiple of the average made all the difference, literally every issue we face from corporate resistance to progressive policies on climate, living wages and democracy itself would all be so much easier to tackle it was essentially only worth 8% of what it is now to fight us. Even Citizens United would hardly matter if there was 92% less of that cash to taint politics and if anyone it would taint would only ever see 8% of it after that.
That old top rate is the real secret ingredient to duplicating the widespread prosperity the boomers took for granted.
I stopped shopping at the Goodwill as soon as they became a retail store of used items.
@@karlwithak. I'm sorry if that's your suicide note, it's lame. You probably even missed the fact that Corporate Rule and the Status Quo of the last forty years was completely built on dragging the fiscal narrative rightward by leveraging the eternal yet empty threat of the GOP going after abortion. Fear of losing seats to classic "anti abortion" Republicans too smart to draw the inevitable blowback of actually going after it allowed the relatively few corporate Dems to make you (apparently) happy with choosing only between socially progressive but supposedly electable fiscal conservative candidates instead of getting risky on all around progressives not to the right of Nixon.
The fact that evangelical billionaires lobbying the SCOTUS and MAGA hordes jumping into politics undercut the old GOP threat of threatening reproductive rights has *completely shattered the control that the One Percent once had.* The literal reason we've seen so much positive momentum in organized labor is that there is NO unified or organized control for the first time in a generation. The lights are on but nobody is home.
Institutional inertia coasting along is all there is delaying us from accomplishing _anything we want_ over the next two or three election cycles. So buck up already, Mopey.
I literally saw an empty plastic mixed greens container for $5. It was one of the exact containers you see in grocery stores with various types of greens for ~$1.99-3.99 WITH the greens inside.
The label was still on it, too!
@@i_choose_kindness it makes you wonder who prices those items.
This cant be more accurate. As a ex dollar general assistant manager everyth3he said is correct. I worked 6 weeks...one day after xmas my girlfriend had an emergency and had to go to hospital...they wanted me to just drop her off and get to work...after some back and forth with my manager...i just never picked up my phone again and never returned. Never turmed in my keys, just acted like they never existed. Some may say i was wrong but this place was horrible...i made $13hr in 2021...let that sink in...$13hr to run a store...if you have ever been in a dollar store and boxes are everywhere and cant find any help....thats whyim glad im in a better position in life but some people have no other choice and i feel bad for them
That that lady knew exactly how to pronounce ‘filet mignon’ & ‘escargot’ then pointed out people like her have to eat ‘raymun noodles’ is absolutely my favorite thing for today.😂
as a southern, there is a huge comfort whenever i heard raymun noodles instead of ramen,
Raymond noofles
That lady doesn't understand that there's a huge spectrum between those.
Maybe not a mistake. Maybe they are paid so bad that they have to get the generic noodle brand.
@@samiraperi467seems like she does... it's kinda the point she was making
As a former employee of one of the three named companies, the worst part is that I'm left sitting here thinking, "yeah, all that is true and there's honestly even more that the show didn't have time to cover."
Golly, I bet there wasn't any unpaid labor with having employees clock in early and clock out late, but intentionally within rounding distance to round down!
It doesn't sound like much, but it added up to 1 to 1.5 hours a week per employee on average (5 minutes early, 7 minutes late, and if you had lunch, 5 minutes short). With 4 employees at 12.5k stores ("back in my day"), that's at least 50k unpaid hours per week. At minimum wage of $7.25, that's over $360k taken from workers and fed back to CEOs and shareholders.
*edit:* I am underestimating the number of workers, and using the low end of 1hr unpaid per week. I am also using the lowest minimum wage in the country (my state was higher).
This amounts to just under $19 million a year as a conservative estimate.
*edit2:* this doesn't even count what they did to managers at the time. Obligated to work 54 hours a week, and when a law was being passed that would require compensation for >40 hours, I got to sit in on a call that explained they'd be reporting 40 hours, but the 54 hours was still mandatory
@@ZedaZ80 so how much are these shareholders earning in dividents, and how much are the top people earning in wages.
And would a decision to cut down dividents be able enough to make a drastic change here?
@@nielskorpel8860 Not that much, dividend yield is at 2% and the stock price went down from 259 to 121 in 1 year, so this is an all around shitty company.
Right. The one I worked for staffed the areas that had executives living in that area.
And because the public knows it is understaffed several stores are regularly robbed.
Time to start a Co-op.
As a former Dollar General Manager of 2 years, I cannot agree with the feel of this video more! My front doors were shot out at 8am and my DM made me reopen by 9:30. We still had police there!! These companies are killing small communities.
correction: did you mean communities are killed inside the stores? ;-)
Did you maybe ask yourself why you live in a neighborhood where it‘s apparently no big deal if A SHOP WINDOW GETS SHOT OUT???
That never happened in my west-european country.
Maybe you guys shouldn‘t focus so much on greedy corporations and instead ask yourself why poor people (especially negros) cannot behave?
That is insane.
You know what's really bad and true, at least in my area, is that many of these stores are located in bad areas where crime exists and crazies hang out. Sad but true. Damn shame.
Home Depot aggressively don't want Union's.
Oh, we need a Last Week investigation on Goodwill Stores.
Goodwill in general. I worked in the corporate offices of one of their highest grossing chapters for 5 years. The things I saw and experienced. They love showing off people with physical disabilities for clout but the amount of fighting I had to do against my boss to attend my doctor and therapy appointments for my mental illness, which still counts as a disability, was ridiculous. Somebody used the company facebook account to spy on me and they fired me over a post I made. I had to take them to court to get my unemployment. They kept changing their story but in the end I learned they broke 3 laws when they fired me. My lawyer told me this wasn't his rodeo against Goodwill. I've had two former Goodwill employees ask me for his number.
Or disability pay
yes
As a store manager of Dollar General I feel this so much. My first month at my store I was robbed at gunpoint and saw my coworker get shot. Two months later I got four trucks in six days and no one to this day knows why. I currently haven't had a day off since November 5th. And no one at any level in store makes enough money to do this job.
Homie you gotta get outta there!! 😭
Is it possible to just hire enough crew and to hell with corporate? Be a rebel by showing corporate more sales would pay for the staff and cover the added costs.
the Biden Administration has proposed a new rule that would require employers compensate full-time workers in management, administrative, or other professional roles for any overtime worked if they make less than $55,068 annually.
If you have a UPS warehouse near by try to work there. It's the holiday season and they are usually hiring.
As a former assistant manager for dollar general in Tulsa, I can verify that they don't give a hoot what we go through for them. You work and slave away, you get no time with your kids, and when you ask for more help, the answer is always a resounding no. I make more now in 3 hours than I made for an entire week working for them...
There was a mom and pop that had been around since the depression in my community.
They survived Walmart
They survived 2008
They could not survive dollar general.
This is the part I don't get. How are these dysfunctional assholes able to outcompete anyone?
:(
That’s so sad
This is now not relevant anymore but, there used to be saying "when you see a Dollar General as you come into town you know this place is an economical failure" and the dollar stores just pile it on.
Former dolled tree store employee. Thank you for doing this story. It was the worst job i have ever had
As a former assistant manager I can confirm that every single bit of this is 100% accurate. Single coverage, unrealistic expectations on work load, no real security measures, unbearable heat, low pay, no help, and the company could fuckin care less. They punish employees for trying to stop shoplifting (shrink) by making it against policy to stop a shoplifter but also if store shrink is to high the employees can't receive annual raises. This whole episode is spot on.
That sketch at the end was BRILLIANT. Brenda and the narrator are unbelievable actors! Absolutely hilarious.
If they are unbelievable actors, doesn't that mean they are not very good?
Sorry, I'll let myself out...
Tim Bagley and Da'Vine Joy Randolph
Tim Bagley is absolute legend. That guy is always hilarious.@@TheSongwritingCat
Everything Oliver does is “brilliant “ 🤣🤣🤣
Brenda seemed more like a former dollar general employee than an actor. That anger was too real 😂
Used to work for Dollar General. Was one of the worst places I have ever worked. The quote by the CEO at the beginning was at a shareholder meeting bragging about how good the pandemic was for business while all us store workers worked without little to no protection and shit pay. I am so glad that you covered this. Thank you for bringing attention these stores and how they profit and run their businesses on the back of underpaid and over worked employees.
Worked at the dollar store and it was horrible, made 7.25 an hour and then keyholder got me to 7.50 an hour. Covid came, I quit and then got unemployment. My 2 kids and I could actually save and allowed me to find a better paying job. I now work from home and make 19 an hour. I tell every dg employee of my job and how they can do it to. Fu-k dg the worst company in the whole world
7.50 in 2019 Is ridiculous
That's every single company lmao
“Heyy, you want a job?? We can pay you in rat babiesz.” 🤣😂🤣😂
The skits are classic
You are worried too much! Even #GOD Himself couldn't anything about stock prices rising in triple digits... #Dollarama💰 Inc. is a #Canada-based🇨🇦💘🇺🇸 company, which offers various assortment of general merchandise, consumable products, & seasonal items. The Company conducts its business through its subsidiaries, including Dollarama💰 L.P. & Dollarama International Inc. (Dollarama International). Dollarama L.P. operates the chain of stores in #Canada & performs related logistical & administrative support activities. Dollarama💰 International has retail operations in Latin America through Dollarcity, a value retailer that offers an assortment of general merchandise, consumable products & seasonal items in stores located in El Salvador & Guatemala & stores located in Colombia & Peru. Dollarama International also sells merchandise & renders services to Dollarcity. The Company, through Dollarama💰 International, acts as the primary product vendor of Dollarcity. The Company operates approximately 1,507 stores across Canada. TSX DOL 🌎💘💰
I can't believe over 400 violations amounted to only a $13.1 million fine. If you want to know why the system doesn't work, it's because the punishment for unlawful behavior is not a deterrent, it's just a tax.
The fines don't matter unless they are actually paid.
I can't believe they're allowed to stack violations like that. There's got to be a point a company gets put under mandatory management if not outright shut down.
@@TooLoozethe fines don't matter unless they actually impact the business consequentially
$13.1 million in fines over the course of years to a company making $1.6 billion in *profits* per year is a fuckin' joke. At this point those fines are just the cost of doing business.
In any other situation the american carceral system would say incarceration and torture is the solution. But if youre a corporation its just cost of doing business
I worked at a dollar general for six years. Night shift for 80% of it, everyday I would go in hoping I didn’t get yelled at by my boss, cussed out by a customer, or robbed. Some days I would daydream about wrapping my car around a tree instead of going into work. My boss was extremely verbally abusive to the point I spent four years on autopilot and I would often break down in the break room just wishing I was dead. After six years the most I made was $10.25 an hour, I felt trapped. The day my boss got fired, the assistant manager quit also. I hit my breaking point that day because I knew if I didn’t quit too I would be there from opening to closing everyday until they found some new people or I finally went to sleep forever. I quit that day and it was the best day of my life. I learned to not take shit from anyone, the next time a boss popped an attitude with me over something that was out of my control, I wrote them a two week notice that day.
The old manager I had at dollar general even had the audacity to ask if I wanted to come work for her at Family Dollar. Hell would freeze over and the sun would die before I even considered working for her or any dollar store again.
I know it's hard to get money to pay for rent and such, but please don't let yourself be abused just for a paycheck. Honestly, I've been homeless, and it's way better than voluntarily going to a screwed up employer.
I am glad you learned to stand up for yourself. I hope you also learned other real skills, both "human" skills and *human skills.* The difference being, "human" skills are used working _with_ and _for_ and _over_ other people, and *human* skills are using what you were *born* with: moving quickly with high endurance, whether stacking bricks, tieing knots, or distance running; learning to actually _use_ your senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, and memory, math, logics that define us as *sapient.* ( _homo sapiens sapiens,_ you may have _heard_ of it but, probably never had it defined to you) Then there are _civilizational_ skills, like fixing a car or toaster or soldering a pipe and doing plumbing repairs or fixing a roof or planting food and creating fertilizer and choosing the _right_ fertilizer, or researching how something like a vaccine or insulin or an antibiotic was discovered, what problems and steps were made at refining it, and _make it yourself._ It is shocking how _easy_ any of those things _are,_ and how hard it _was_ to get there; starting with _how hard it is to notice things for the first time!_
@@davidgoodnow269WTF?
Care of yourself 😢😢 Thinking about selfharm is a HUGE mark of depression. Pls don't let yourself unsave❤❤
Well done! I doubt you'll ever find yourself putting up with abuse again.
The man in the suit snapping his fingers and telling the volunteer to hurry up is the most realistic thing about corporations ive ever seen 😂😂😂😂
Seriously - corporate fuckers just want slavery back.
In nursing you'll be putting an IV in somebody's arm and a nurse manager will walk by with their hands in their pockets saying room 202 needs a bedpan.... So give it to her!!!!!!
This show was all skit and less intel. I feel bad for dollar general but like what are people doing about it?
@@carolyniorio4476I walked away from my RN license after 5 years. Things were bad in the 90s, I can only imagine how bad it is now.
Hmm, maybe unfettered capitalism was not the right way to go? Except for the rich, they obviously love it.
Thanks. I own shares in Both Dollar General and Dollar Tree. I just placed an order to sell my shares in both when the market opens in the AM
Thank you for doing this, it's the type of change that needs to happen, because it's the only change that will matter to corporations like this. In the new hire packet for dollar general it states that DG's mission is to provide a good return for shareholders, value for customers and a chance at employment for store associates, in that order. I read between the lines that the actual objective is to please shareholders, the rest is just a means to an end. I've been working for dollar general for 5 months now. 85 percent of my wages immediately go into a savings account so i can pay my bills. The remaining percentage barely covers thr most basic of living expenses (sometimes I'm left washing my hair with bars of soap or things like that). I'm on food stamps, cant afford a car and despite saving the majority of my paycheck each week, all it took was a couple of somewhat higher utility bills to wipe out every dime I'd saved from then to now. Im getting out of here ASAP and have an interview this week. I pray that im leaving dolllar general soon so i may have some quality of life again.
@@memyselfi2005I really hope you get a better job soon. Best wishes to you.
🎉
Many people in this country are working in situations that treat workers like slave labor. Meanwhile the corporations are raking in the dollars. Thanks for shining a light on one of many awful situations.
It's just capitalo-liberalism... the thing westerners have been brainwashed to believe is the best solution by the US of A for a long time now.
Most us are - I'm 34, I've worked in 10 different industries for 14 different companies. Anywhere you're not extremely white collar or have a union, you're a wage slave, and treated as such.
Corporations are little more than feudal lords and we are the serfs who work their "land". Their whims determine whether we can put food on our table, have power in our home, or have a roof over our head.
@michaellew2029 quit your job and the landleech whose work you are being forced to do puts you on the street. What you're saying would be true in a voluntary system of labor, but not under a rentier capitalist system.
@michaellew2029 but, to your point, they can also "not" quit and fix the problem with a union, rather than running from it - and I'm not really a fan of running from the people causing your problems.
I worked at a local Dollar General, and as a former employee, I approve this message.
I am an atheist. I don't believe in God. There is no proof that God exists. I use logic and evidence to form my opinions about the world. I don't find any convincing arguments for the existence of God.
Dam n straight.
Same. I've been bitching about these same things to anyone who would listen for the past 10 to 15 years. These companies are horrible to work for.
Socialism.
You know people that WE have the power ?
My sister used to work for Dollar General and was pretty badly injured by falling freight. It took *forever* and a intense lawsuit to get any sort of compensation. All she was asking for was for them to cover her medical bills.
I feel bad that you Americans have to endure this kind of dystopia! I got this rare leg injury and had to see doctor for five times..and get this rare medicine. It cost me about 50 dollars..since parking wasn't free! Obviously I got full pay from all those days I couldn't work.
Our society would have had me covered..by my employer offered a more expensive, but faster and efficient option
IMPORTANT EDIT:
For my sick days employer only has to pay for BASE hours. No weekend, evening or night extras etc. ... BUT MY EMPLOYER DECIDED THAT IT PAYS FOR EVERYTHING EVEN WHEN THEY DON'T ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO.
Imagine how reliable and faithfull workers in my country are?
Dude they genuinely would rather fight a $500,000 lawsuit than pay you a penny to get better. They wanna make it as unattractive as possible to ask for care. I'm glad you got the compensation, but as someone who fought that fight, I'm guessing that you guys missed out on a lot of life and opportunity while you were stuck banging your heads against that wall.
@@dome2919
Look.. America is Fucked UP. This is general idea with your newest ally.
I mean your $500000 lawsuits are a complete joke. They would never happen anywhere else.
I heard about a case where this lady received $700000 from McDonalds since a hot nugget landed on her daughter.
In Europe.. there would have been a case..where they would have seeked mothers role in this injury. Mother would have been trialed and had a conviction for failing to control her kid.
They would have seeked if that mother is truly capable to have control of that kid..after the fine that mother receives from that McDonalds incident.
The idea of the family receiving any money from this is insanely stupid.
@@kimniceomg you are living in a socialist-communist dystopia -Is what an american would say.
@@winzyl9546
Exactly!! Instead according to studies my country has been the happiest for 6 years straight.
..if only Americans would really understand how much taxes they pay..and how little they receive back..maybe that could open few eyes?
"This bag of Skittle."
"You mean Skittles?"
"Nope."
My company got called to a Dollar General to board up the storefront after a break-in. The manager signed off on the work, and we were told us how to contact their corporate office for payment. We called and mailed them for three years trying get our invoice paid. They didn't bothered to call us back once. I guess vendors aren't the only ones expected to work for free.
That's insane, literal Trump levels of corruption
Legal action?
contact a lawyer, that's likely collectable with interest
Absolutely file a lawsuit.
They can ignore it. It cost more for the person to file the suit than to get paid for the job.@@jessebarlow1277
"The company wants you to know" always leads to my thinking "we are saddened about the public finding this out about us but don't worry you'll forget about it later today"
"We are committed to this" = "We are definitely not going to do anything about this but we hope that by promising it will seem like we have faced the issue"
Don't you just love Corporate Speak? You just know their lawyers are telling them: Deflect Avoid Ignore.
As a former dollar store employee I approve this message.
I love how a place becomes a mess, the higher ups say "we're going to take measures on training so they can handle this" - said training is making the bottom line sign some paper saying "yes I got the training that did not actually exist" and that's the end
I worked at Dollar General for 4 years. This is 100% accurate. DG is terrible to employees.
Me too, and I was happy to walk away when I did
Took you four years to figure it out??
That's not the point of minimum wage@@karlwithak. Besides, I'd take a Dollar General employee any day over some stuffed shirt who sends emails from bed all day.
So why you guys protect it like it is your daddy store.
@@karlwithak. We all just gonna pass how you gotta be incompetent 27 times over or..... Was that you saying the quiet part out loud? Lulz
I used to be a regional and corporate employee at one of these companies. I could tell you some stories. This segment was brilliant and deserved. The major issue I always saw was how divorced from reality the executives were. They are paid extremely high salaries and given lucrative stock options. They establish an insane standard for stores to maintain but then provide no resources to help them attain it. I could go on and on….
do go on, get the information out to local news if you can
@karlwithak. Lol. How can you say that when you don’t know me or my experiences? I was in the meetings and heard the decisions as they were made or had them communicated to me later.
You don’t have to believe me. Just go into a few of these stores and let me know if you think they seem like well run businesses.
@karlwithak. Aight mr 40 subscriber think tank go off king. Show us what that business school education can teach someone and actually explain why someone is wrong.
@karlwithak. So basically you've got nothing and are just flexing your credentials instead of explaining. Thanks for clearing that up.
These dollar stores really are the laughable, predictable outcome of late stage capitalism. Out of touch super rich executives, ever increasing exploitation of workers and waste of resources as they want to churn out as much crap as possible, killing the town's local mom and pop shops in the process. Yep, Capitalism will kill us all if we don't start shifting to a better system.
Reminds me of that New Yorker cartoon, with a tattered suit former executive sitting around a fire with some kids and a burning world behind them, saying: "Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders."
Let's not actually GET to that cartoon's conclusion. We don't have to let it happen. We can choose to cooperate, collaborate and co-own our way, in our communities, to a brighter, sustainable future of abundance and prosperity for all.
Knowing is half the battle, so that is where we are now: Send out information, share and discuss.
Good sources to check out: One Small Town Contributionism, The Zeitgeist Movement and Peter Joseph, Moneyless Society, Democracy at Work, Second Thought, Our Changing Climate and World Beyond Capitalism channels on UA-cam.
The old Dollar General CEO, Rick Dreiling, used to quip that he was the most requested CEO to appear on “Undercover Boss”. He thought it meant because he and DG were popular.
If any company needs an Undercover Boss episode, it's Dollar General!
I lost my sight and had major mental health issues happen while working at dollar general and couldn’t get unemployment benefits when they fired me… this story hit different 😢
I’m glad you covered the twisted world of Dollar stores. In our town, the fire department actually forces Dollar General to close AT LEAST once a week due to the fire hazard created by the bursting freight trolleys and cases of merchandise shoved down the aisles.
I’m not American, I’m not familiar with these shops, but the FIRST thing I thought about when the over-full aisles and store rooms was shown was “that’s a fire hazard waiting to happen” 😱
Good on your local FD. I wonder if the store pays the workers when that day of catch up comes around. Can't believe DS hasn't said screw it and shut down the store themselves.
@@rosey_ie Biggest thing really to blame is the warehouse. They send us way to much. There are items that we havent recieved in months to a year while they give us same items over and over again. Our new Ceo which he came back from retirement is going to fix things.
You live in Western NY? Our fire department does the same thing. Just wondering if it's the same store of if this is a regular occurrence
@@rosey_ie What is the retail shopping experience like where you live ? And where is it ?
But I've been thinking the American indulgent addiction to brick and motar "Lets go Shopping" needs to go the way of the dodo .
While the traditional stock the shelves and let people peruse them will still be needed for some things. Many things could move to a virtual shopping experience , and then pick up your packaged order at locations , if not using delivery systems.
Also communities should start setting up library type systems for many items we only need on a temporary basis.
Ultimately consumerism as is ... is caused by the consumers habits . So the retailer side is merely exploiting a weakness of choice people make .
I worked for a dollar general. I was fired because I was forced to close the store since I was literally still dealing with covid symptoms and nobody would cover the 3 hrs of the shift. The management in that company care about as much as the rat being offered a Pringle.
I had to quit for similar lack-of-concern. My manager and the boss of the location refused to follow the COVID safety protocols and when I called up the chain in concern I got shrugged away. My coworker with asthma passed away from COVID later on after I quit. 🙃
@@gaycryptidhoursthat's messed up.
Working at Dollar Tree during covid was terrifying, my manager, a couple co-workers, and a lot of customers actively refusing to wear masks, and when they did wear them, they wore them wrong. Tried taking it to OSHA, but they closed my case without properly following up on it, just took my manager's word and some staged photos at face value. Store got temporarily shut down due to multiple employees getting sick a couple months after I quit. The cherry on top was putting up with all that bullshit while being called an "essential worker" and making less money than people on unemployment.
I am SO glad I got out of DG before covid. It was a hellhole before, so I can only imagine how bad it was during lockdown.
As someone who started in retail in the 80s, these conditions have been problematic for the last 40 years in corporate owned 'convenience' stores.
It's also why welfare isn't robust: because poor people won't work for slave wages if they have government benefits.
I'm a current DG SM with 25+ years of retail management experience. I can attest to this story. I've seen sh!t that I didn't think a company was capable of inflicting on their associates. The freight flow is so ridiculous and it's nothing that sells. Yet they keep sending it. I've been there a month and probably thrown a whole store's worth of stock in the trash.
In addition to the solid range of topics covered by Last Week Tonight, I'm also impressed by the talented actors hired for the sketches. Everyone swings for the fences every single time. So good.
+
The writers and researchers on this show do an excellent job. I would love to be in the room when they're pitching their ideas for show topics!
The woman who played Brenda must've had fun, especially getting to toss that shelf like that. I bet that was therapeutic ❤
As a current Dollar General employee my favorite part of the training videos I had to watch was the one about reducing shrink (basically loss prevention) The whole point was that most of the loss that the store suffers is from employees stealing from the company. But the way they chose to frame it was so funny to me. Because the video shows an employee stealing from the register while the voice over says "She was tempted to steal thanks to mounting bills that she was falling behind on" and I'm just like "Okay, cool so you admit you don't pay your employees a living wage then?"
You can just tell it was written by a bunch of assholes in suits who assumed that everyone would take pity on the multi billion dollar company and not the person who was working for scraps to support herself and her family.
I'll also add that the short clip they show of that anti union video was just a tiny sliver. That video title said it was about communication and tolerance in the work place if memory serves. The video was 10 minutes long. The first minute was about how "Hey, don't be racist" and then the rest was bullshit lies about evil unions were going to take your paycheck.
I worked briefly at a DG last year, and that anti-union video was hilarious to me for all the scare tactics it used. "Did you know that unions ask for a FEE to be a part of them?! You wouldn't want THAT, would you?!"
Utter ghouls.
Businesses aren't charities
as a current DG employee i literally screamed when that fucking guy from the union busting CBL popped up. i have a video of that same one on my phone too lol. i was like "gotta film this shit" as it went on for fucking ever saying over and over and over how a union would make it harder to have our voices heard (even about schedule changes, which like, is that even true?). they claim unions "have become like multi-million dollar corporations" off of dues taking from your (already too small) paycheck.... standing in front of a truck with the giant dollar general logo in the side like do you fucking hear yourselves?? god re-watching that CBL again is making me angry
Yes, your recelection is correct. They also just kept repeating that they wanted to keep good relations with management.
@@authenticallysuperficial9874 No one I know has a problem with companies making a profit. But ignoring basic human rights is not the way to do it. A couple of percentage points less profit can change a horror story into a community asset.
The real scummy thing about DG is that when they open a new store they are fully staffed, they do a great job pushing every other small mom and pop out of business, then once they are the only show in town they cut their staff and let the store go to hell like what you see here.
Almost like mini-Walmarts...that is their playbook for larger and more desirable markets 😢
Yes, the Wal Mart playbook...
I hate shopping at Wmart
Yeah! The family owned grocery in our small town of 2000 closed and literally there was nowhere to buy food then the squalid DG , Casey’s or another gas station. DG built a new DG Market and it is immaculate and well staffed. Of course the fresh food is pricy even by todays standards. I guess it’s better than nothing. We have a lot of elderly people who would struggle to get to the surrounding towns 15-25 miles away. Let’s see how fast it deteriorates.
You hit the nail on the head.,
As a former dollar general worker I feel validated.
Same and apparently the store I worked in was one of the better ones since we didn't get robbed and the air conditioning sort of worked. I did leave the store several times mid shift to go to the bathroom at the store next door because the one at our store didn't work.
I love Last Week tonight and appreciate this story. As a teacher, I really hope that John Oliver covers teaching conditions in schools, it's getting pretty bad and some of these aspects are disgustingly similar to teaching.
In certain areas of LA teachers do ok, it's the teachers aid who get screwed, especially the ones who work with special needs kids.
Indeed. I would be surprised it it isn't already on his list.
A friend of mine had an incident where a student had a mental breakdown and started threatening everyone in the classroom. They tried controlling the situation but clearly needed some help. Called the front office and the office told them they needed to handle it themselves.
That school not only failed that teacher but every student in that room who was terrified.
@@hardcoremagicalgirli work in physical therapy and the majority of teachers come in due to being injured by students and the board not taking them seriously. a lady i was working on got kicked by a 4 year old having a tantrum years ago and has nerve damage from it.
edited to add: same woman tells me stories of how disruptive and flat out murderous kids get sent to the principal's office to "cool down" for like 10 mins at most and then get sent back to class where they continue their antics
Get a different job
One big problem is that the penalties for union busting are still cheaper than letting a union form
I would tax corporations 2x-5x the amount their employees used in welfare benefits.
I work at Kroger as a union employee and make 13.75 an hour.
We have people who have been employed here since the 80s making 14.75
@@mylifesucksabit poverty is a policy choice.
@@scifirealism5943 Absolute TRUTH!
@@msolomonii9825 yes.
That "How many?" at the end was Oscar-quality delivery. I'm dying. Thank you all at LWT for everything you do.
yeah i wanna see that guy in a movie or tv show haha
@@grimaffiliations3671 you likely have, he's one of those actors that is everywhere but you don't know his name
@@IjeomaThePlantMama know his name?
@@grimaffiliations3671 found him! Adrian Martinez
Worked at DG twice. Six months the first time in 2016, quit in the middle of my shift because I could not take another second. Lasted one year the second time in 2021-2022. That second time, by the time I left I had been there longer than any other employee at that store. During that year I went through 5 store managers, even more assistant store managers and countless other store employees over that year. At one point I ran the store by myself for a week. I was a part time employee with zero training past the register & stocking lol. Actually they never trained me on those either, you just figure it out.
I lost count of how many times we were shut down by the fire marshall due to the aisles being so cluttered with stock that we could not get up in time before the next truck would come.
One time a tractor trailer hit the front of our building, partially ripping our store front sign down. So it was dangling over everyone's heads as they walked in/out of the store. We repeatedly asked to close as it was unsafe and they refused. They kept saying they were sending someone out to deal with the sign but no one ever showed up. A customer finally called the city to complain. The fire marshall and someone from the city came out and shut us down. Put a sign on the door that said the building was condemned lol. We had been open like that for a full week. That sign could have EASILY fallen and hurt or killed someone. They do not care. Amazingly once they had been shut down they had someone out the next day to deal with the sign...which just consisted of cleaning up the debris because the firemen used their equipment to rip the full sign down when they showed up as it was unsafe to leave it dangling for even a second longer.
I spent my birthday stocking alone inside the locked store while my assistant manager slept off a hangover in her car after staying out all night drinking with my store manager the night before. That was actually a great day. I don't mind stocking, I didn't have to deal with customers and I love being alone. Couldn't even be mad at the managers bc they were SEVERELY overworked and burned out. They literally never had time off and still had shit pay even at their positions.
At one point we had no store manager so they had the assistant store manager work from 7am-6pm, 7 days a week for MONTHS!!!!! She asked if she could have one day off and they said they'd get back to her and of course never did. That poor girl was in a very, very tough spot in life, needed that job and couldn't just quit so she was trapped there just dealing with that. To this day she is the coworker I feel the worst about and I truly hope life is better for her right now.
I will just say that no matter how awful the job itself was, NOTHING was worse than the customers. The customers are straight up dehumanizing towards dollar store workers. I've worked in other retail stores and it doesn't come even remotely close to comparing.
Corporate greed in this country is absolutely out of control.
You mean government greed.
@@michelleplombe7019Who controls the government?
Precisely .. which is why the Founders of this nation was so determined to decentralize it and structurally pit it against itself. (Took a bit of trial and error, their first attempt at a Constitution resulted in some of the States printing their own coins, but they were VERY clear-eyed - the Revolution era history is dumbed down to colonists vs tyrant King .. but in reality King George was more along the lines of a Gorbachev who himself was hapless before the blurred corporate/government State .. the fact that the civilian fleet of slave-trader could overnight unfurl the Union Jack as part of the willing British Merchant Marines says it all in a nutshell - and part of why those who did not go along with that idea (ie "pirates") fought on the side of the Colonies. The Founders knew that in the long run the only solution was to create inherently competing (and not in a sporting manner) centers of power that could not be consolidated .. but it was of course, most insidiously by the 17th Amendment .. but I digress. I will say that aspects of many early Hollywood swashbuckler films go uncomprehended by modern audiences due to this oversimplification of our history (another fun fact .. one of the biggest seeds of the Revolution is no longer taught, because we have surpassed the original grievance: that Britain controlled commerce by requiring and limiting licenses for every trade - the reason Lincoln practiced Law without a License wasn't because he couldn't afford law school .. not requiring a license was SO ingrained in our solicitor system for the same reason the colonists chose to ride horses on the "wrong" side of the road - and also because our idea of freedom included the idea that anyone could change their mind about what they wanted to do for a living any time they wanted to .. with no one's approval but their potential clients and customers. It is part of why so many medicines were developed here .. because no one required a special license to access the drugs required to create them. Again I digress. And don't get me started on why it took hillbilly Americans to actually "invent" such as airplanes that first rose in the minds of Europeans trained from birth to stay in their lane... @@gnomatic
Caso no las dos means why not both maybe I don't speak Spanish
@@gnomaticthe stock market. They shouldn’t be allowed to own stock.but then would we have any senators etc?
The employees are so depressed at our DG. Sometimes the store is closed because no one showed up. As a former dollar store employee, I can never blame them.
Also, if you only put one employee in your store, it only takes one person to be fed up with it to have the store close down.
As a current Dollar Store employee, my immediate bosses are pretty great but this is pretty spot on as a whole.
@@cowmath77what point are you trying to make with this comment??
@@cowmath77 Cultural how? Come on, say it
@@lessgoofyone That people with a cultural head scarf are more likely to get caught doing that I guess 😅
John Oliver is an international treasure.
Considering the guy who made Five Nights At Freddy's used to work at a Dollar General, I can now see where his inspiration came from
did not expect someone to mention fnaf under a John Oliver video
that comment is gold
Didn't he base it off chuckie cheese though?
@@Perkele_foxtrot_oscar_bravo you can have multiple inspirations
That and Stephanie Sterling
@@alecmullaney7957 what about that person? No idea who that is sorry
I love the stuff John covers. Labor has been a nightmare for years and becoming conscious of that is a duty for all of us. If we stay complacent and compliant, they stay rich.
IF?!
It’s call voting 🗳️ if you vote R to own the libs you’re voting against yourself & your family! Remember Republicans want to get rid of Social Security & Medicare 😳 then people will be living on the streets with the working homeless!🥲
And we stay broke.
I got news for you kid: the bad guys win in this story. The rich will continue to get richer and the poor will continue to get poorer.
@@ryanistooconceitedthat’s a pretty cynical viewpoint
You gotta love John Oliver. He highlights things you never think about with truth and humor. He definitely makes you think.
conservatives have an allergic reaction to him. their pink shades world is crumbling before their eyes.
How could you never think about this? Have you even been to a dollar general?
Those executives would bawl their eyes out with 1/100th the stress they’re putting on their employees
1/100th seems generous. I doubt they could handle a cash register at a fully staffed store, so at the conditions they leave their employees at they'd have a mental breakdown within a minute. Two tops.
Have you guys ever met execs? They’re typically not in charge of shit unless their competent enough to work their way up there. The two richest people I know also happen to be the two hardest working people I know. One is bringing in 2mil and the other over 5 mil a year. They handle extremely stressful situations that are a lot more difficult than a cash register.
@@dasonmusicyour friends are small potatoes compared to these people. We’re talking BILLIONS, not just single digit millions.
@@dasonmusic keep licking that boot.
And? You don't have to work at dollar tree. You don't have to work any job you don't like. This is the United States. You can move up. You can educate yourself.
This is so true.
I worked at Dollar General about 10 years ago, and for 3 years, it was a nightmare. Starting pay was $7.25 an hour with a quarter raise each year after that, so when I quit, I was making $7.75.
I was a cashier and stocker, so I couldn't use the restroom when I needed to, but the shift leaders and the manager got to take as many bathroom breaks and smoke breaks at they wanted. I was expected to unload dozens and dozens of boxes up and down the store while also keeping an eye on the register at all times to ring up customers. The shelves were a mess or empty. The aisles were crowded with boxes and carts, so customers couldn't get what they needed. Only 2 people would work at a time. One of my shift leaders even told me my husband wasn't allowed in the store because "he would distract me from working". But of course, HER fiance could come in whenever he wanted, and they would talk and talk and talk.
I would be screamed at by customers because what they wanted wasn't on the shelf or because I wasn't at the register waiting on them to come up (so they had to wait while I raced from the back of the store to the front to reach the register). Customers expected me to know details about certain foods and drinks, like health benefits, and then would try to shame me for not being a good employee because I couldn't answer their questions.
For about a month, we ran out of bags. NO BAGS. The customers had to carry stuff out in their cart and load it into their cars. My boss eventually went to Sams' Club and bought bags with his own money (never got a refund from the company). He kept telling the warehouse we needed bags, and they refused to send them.
One night, there was a blizzard, and I wasn't allowed to leave the store until closing at 10pm. I damaged my car in a snow bank on the way home.
Another night, the DG a few minutes away from the store I worked in was robbed, and even though my fellow employees and I were scared, we weren't allowed to close the store. We had so few customers that night because they were too afraid to come in.
I could go on and on about how horrible this job was, but I believe this comment is long enough.
Glad you survived THAT
Q_Q
@@Ramsey276one Thank you!! After three years there, my sanity was about to snap. :(
Wait wasn't federal minimum $7.25 even back then? Were they paying you illegally low wages?
omg why the fuk would you stay or work there all that time
@@graceamelia4840 2013 minimum wage was $7.25, but it's not surprising they were underpaying her. Wage theft actually dwarfs all other forms of theft combined.
Man, the anti-union orientation/training videos brings me back to my time working at Lowe's. I laughed pretty hard at the BS scenarios. What's sad though is that a lot of people don't realize that that's propaganda. I had coworkers who genuinely believed the nonsense. Also, any time a company tells you that you're not allowed to talk about your wages with your coworkers, that means you should ABSOLUTELY talk about your wages with your coworkers.
Oh, yeah, anyone telling you not to talk freely about your job and the details of it is totalitarian, and not someone you want to work for. I mean, obviously some things need to be secret as far as what you might be working on (police investigation, doctors working with patients, etc.) but your salary? That's public information. I once was casually talking to a brand new employee in the same position I'd been in for years, and found out he was making like 20% more than me or something. Turns out the woman in HR had a crush on him. I spoke up and we all started getting paid the same (higher) amount. There's no excuse for unequal pay, regardless of gender.
I worked retail for 30+ years in some pretty crappy places, and am thankful I never had it as bad as this, but that being said, that still leaves a lot of room for a few tons of crap. So amen brother. "Essential workers" my ass. What made us "essential" was wage slavery, which is what allows those in better circumstances to afford to buy their big flat-screen TVs.
It is! Call the Labor Board and report them. Never mind.. @@user-ye4bu6xh4c
Yep I have the same memories from Home Depot.
Workers should absolutely have the right to collective bargain with their employer, over wages, working conditions, staff numbers etc.
That said, unions have a nasty habit of becoming institutions in themselves, corrupt, ossified and rigid. Teachers unions are a major reason the US public education system is so terrible and has undergone administrative bloat and auto-workers unions were a major contributor to the fall of Detroit's auto-industry, are two examples.
Collective bargaining between the workers and the employers is a good thing, but unions just tend to become corrupt institutions in themselves.
I worked for one of their maintenance management companies, and when I tell you they cut corners at every single chance they could, I mean to the point of not hiring sanitation crews to clean after their sewage backed up and filled the store in a layer of raw human excrement. They would hire the plumber to jet the line to clear enough blockage that sewage would drain again, and expect the one or two employees in the store to clean it all up. Our maintenance workers would show up to stores that were closed during business hours because there were no employees, or they wouldn't be able to get to the issue because the back room was floor to ceiling boxes. The corporate office would deny door replacements, referencing that the lease was almost up and so they were just going to close the store and open a new one down the street instead, leaving this one not secured in the mean time. They were truly a nightmare to work with.
I think the enormous success of these chains is that they've figured out where the food deserts are and provide the only source of goods in the community.
More than 35000 dollar stores only in the US. Is this country a huge food desert?
This! I live in West Virginia and there is a Dollar General in every small town and holler in this state. Gee, I wonder why? 🤔
@@jeece711sadly yes, people may also live in “food swamps” where there is access to fast food but very few or no grocery stores
@@jeece711I think a lot of folks would be surprised how many food deserts there are in the states.
They covered this before. These are not food deserts, they push out local stores. They push out because they are cheaper, which seems to be positive. But they take all the profit away, unlike the local store. So the community becomes poorer.
speaking as a person who has pet rats they have different personalities and john absolutely nailed that ones
However, that pregnant rat isn't a two-fer, more like an eleven-fer, right?
The rats were adorable! 🙂
@rebeccaelliot6586 not really? 11 pups would be a lot I think the average is like 3-5
@@gamerguy191313 One of mine had 11 once, its not an unusual number at all and some can have even more than that.
@@rebeccaelliot6586yeah you're right! a nine-er, most likely lol
I really appreciated this episode as someone from an incredibly rural state there are whole communities that rely on dollar stores to get by. Even in the more populated areas they tend to be the only store that is close by. The one by my house is constantly struggling with keeping the shelves stocked. It’s gotten a little bit better in the past month because they just hired a few people but I know it’s going to get bad again soon. People never work there for long. They don’t even bother taking down the now hiring sign. It’s been up for years now. Also that skit at the end was amazing lol 😂 I think it might be the best you’ve done so far
I was really expecting a section where dollar stores are likely a front for money laundering. It would go a long way to explaining their practices.
Am I the only one who couldn't stop hearing the guy call it "Dollar F&%@ It!" at the end?
My friend, Brian Eurie, died in Indianapolis while working at Dollar General. He was shot and killed during a robbery. It happened all the time. No one at corporate listened.
I'm so sorry for your loss RIP Brian
Shame on this company. I hate DG so much.
May your friend Rest In Peace ❤😢😢😢😢
Sorry for your loss! Was this somewhere on (or near) Washington Street?
@@trentpettit6336 On Shadeland.
🫂
I work at a Dollar Tree. My training day was on memorial day and I was the only person on the cash register with a line that went down two aisles. Customers were yelling at me and I literally couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
You absolutely did NOT deserve that. (Also, A+ for the Ichabod Crane profile pic. 🤣)
John is really good at the self-depreciating humor, i hope he knows how much we appreciate him
His paycheck lets him know.
Getting my application rejected twice might be a blessing in disguise
It is trust me don’t work at dollar stores
This is a more accurate reflection of actual economic conditions in this country than anything I've seen on the news in a good long while.
The truth that's almost political suicide: We need regulations. Regulations for minimum pay, for overtime pay, for staffing levels, perhaps even for CEO salary limits in relation to workers.
When some talking head starts talking about how well the economy is going this video should be shown. This is the reality for over half of America. A small group at the top siphoning billions from millions of people who barely clear $20K in a year working full time in shit conditions. But the economy is going great. 🙄
Sadly, folks have been told that this is the sacred way how America should work: on the lottery system where a few lucky ones cash out. And because I could be that lucky person I won't allow the lottery system to be changed. If I ever get rich I don't want to pay taxes. @@mostunclean6619
Exactly
to every worker: if an employer says you don't need an union, you definetly *_N E E D_* an union
In an ideal world labour unions would not be necessary b/c companies and management would just treat workers decently b/c it's the right thing to do. Unless and until this world springs fully formed into existence, Trade Unionism is a necessary check on the power of capital and every worker should be represented by a union.
I worked at dollar general while I was in university. It was the worst job I’ve ever had. My managers stole stuff out the back which I didn’t care about. But then one manager framed another manager of stealing over $200 and got her fired. Then upper management came in and hired a new manager who told me “I shouldn’t have been promised time off for school and needed to work on school days” 🙃 then followed up with “dollar general cares about education because they have a scholarship fund” 😂😂😂 scholarship won’t mean shit if I can’t attend my classes
My elderly mother got a job at one because my parents were really desperate for money. The DG was so bad. My mom was never actually alone, but she was the only one who worked. The manager and her buddy just hung out and watched UA-cam in the office. Manager bragged about how much money she made, and would loudly tell the employees and all customers about her VERY far right views (we’re in MA, so not quite as common as other places). Absolutely atrocious person.
My mom was scheduled over times she couldn’t come in either, and would get in trouble for it.
My mom quit, she decided she’d rather be dead poor than work for that atrocious organization.
My supermarket offered "tuition assistance for college," making being a cashier a "great investment."
They fail to tell you it's $2,500/yr, capped at $20,000, requires a full year of near full time employment, and is only paid to you after you pay for classes on your own up front.
@@ChristinaR404 YES the scheduling is wild. I would have to go into work on my days off to learn my new schedule and sometimes I was scheduled for that evening and the manager wouldn't even tell anyone. Or they would do the schedule at the last minute, cal and say "hey you're working tomorrow morning". A total nightmare company!
@@scifirealism5943 I love that they expect us to work full time and somehow make time for our classes... And absolutely garbage amount of money considering how wildly expensive college fees are! $2000 covers the cost of some books
@@scifirealism5943The resturant I served at until recently always promoted their scholarship program. I complained when I read the fine print when there was an age cap and it was only for undergrad. I was like "Hey you guys all know I'm getting my masters online! Why can't I get $1200 too?"
OMG! I applied last week as an alternative to Walmart as a Senior 😮! Pulling application immediately! Thank you for your humorous journalism and support for DG workers! Wow! So sad for the employees dealing with this crisis.😢
Yea don't do it. I'm 50 and on my 4th week, it's kicking my butt all over.
The Dollar Tree stores in Canada aren't allowed to behave as badly as this because we have a bit better labor laws. There are always several staff members on duty at the stores near me, the stock is put away and they're clean. I've also seen the same sort of thing just south of the border in Washington state where they have stronger labor laws too. I'm sure working conditions could always be better but the first step is strengthening labor laws everywhere.
Unfortunately, the shithole south of your borders is actively destroying labor laws so this becomes even more pronounced and normalized. And the people cheer it. As an American I can confidently say we are the dumbest, most self centered and egotistical people on the planet.
Imagine having basic protections for retail workers and not calling it woke, communism, or whatever they have in France. Baguette.
Labor laws work until you have some clown like tRump come in and remove any sort of protective laws.
Well, bless your heart. The only thing happening here in the USA is the loosening of labor laws
As long as America has Republicans, the corporations have someone fighting for their rights. Because corporations are considered freaking PEOPLE here in the US due to Reagan-era Republicans who worshipped the fallacy that is Trickle Down Economics.
I love the people who would pitch in and help just because they can.
I'm shocked but impressed.
I would have been at my local Walmart helping out after a tornado.
@@MrBigrobmjca3 In dollar stores it looks like there have been a tornado every day.
basically financing those rich gang-bosses running them.
Those bosses are abusing people who have no other options to earn a living and it is absolutely terrifying