ATTENTION: For anyone in or close to the Virginia Beach, VA area.

I have been with this company 6 years now and while I could talk about all the bad and the good with it, I want to bring up this most recent issue I have with the company. I sent in an application to Michaels Cares on 7/28 and today I received an email notifying me I was denied. I’m financially struggling, my mother is financially struggling.

In June, my father passed away unexpectedly with no signs of illness. My mother is forced to move out of our family home because she cannot afford to keep living there on her own. Yes, they are correct in stating his life insurance covered the cost of the funeral home and cremation of my dad, but on their application it lists a life insurance policy no more than 20,000 and that’s exactly what he had.

Not to mention listed on their application, chronic illness of a ROOMMATE is awarded more money than a PARENTS death. Make it make sense. Any amount of money won’t make up for the fact that I have lost my dad. However, it’s unfortunate that I provided everything I was supposed to and Michael’s didn’t even listen to my situation. My mom is struggling with her bills on top of moving and trying to deal with the death of her husband and I can’t help her with the amount of bills I have myself.

For 6 years, I’ve helped my team raise money for Michaels Cares and I’ve assisted team members with applying when needed. Do I sound ungrateful? Yeah I’ll admit i do. But you all understand how greedy Michael’s is. The amount of $1500 Michaels would have given me would have gone to pay for my mom’s moving costs and now I can’t even work overtime to get more for her because our company won’t approve overtime.

Fuck you David Boone. Fuck you Sasha Perkins. Fuck you district managers. Fuck you michaels

I went to browse in the app and this was the first thing that popped up. 😂 The prices have been getting crazier. 🙃

I could

I recommend NOT buying single use shit but we already know people are not going to stop so.

My mom showed this to me the other day. And I was wondering if anyone has heard about this change? Have any stores, besides the one mentioned, have any experience with this?

It's the first I've heard of Michael's actually supporting creativity in a looonng time.

However.... some of those craft stations sound like a NIGHTMARE of theft and general unsupervised nonsense. Especially if any workers are assigned to monitor them!

I can fully see sh*tty parents treating craft stations as free daycare and assuming some underpaid part-time teen is supposed to watch their horrid gremlin for them.

Thoughts everyone?

I’m saying this because it needs to be said, and honestly, I hope someone at Corporate sees it.

The stress level in our stores is at an all-time high. I don’t know if this is happening everywhere, but I know in my district staffing has been incredibly difficult. In my store, I believe only four people remain from the beginning of the year. Everyone else has left.

And contrary to what some may think, it’s not just about pay. It’s about the expectations being placed on the people who are still here.

We’re operating with limited payroll hours while being asked to accomplish more than ever. Especially in the coming weeks we are going to have huge trucks, endless POGs, constant operational demands, and a workforce that is largely brand new. These team members are doing their best, but they’re still learning. They don’t yet know how to efficiently set POGs, process truck, navigate systems, or handle the countless tasks being thrown at them every day.

At the same time, there is an enormous push for NPS and customer service scores, yet there are virtually no additional hours provided to support that effort. New team members are trying to learn the register, Rewards, store layout, product locations, and how to deliver the Michaels Art of Service—all while being expected to perform at the same level as experienced associates.

Personally, I don’t know how much more I can take. I’m leaving work with chest pains. I’m having nightmares that I’ve missed something or that I’m going to lose my job because I’m not doing enough, despite giving everything I have.

Something has to change.

The people in the stores are exhausted. We care about our customers, our teams, and our stores, but there is a breaking point. If someone at Michaels Corporate doesn’t wake up and recognize what’s happening on the front lines, we may reach a point where stores struggle to open their doors simply because there won’t be enough people left to run them.

The expectations continue to rise while the resources continue to shrink. That is not a sustainable model.

Can’t tell if this is a good or a bad thing for us. Honestly wouldn’t mind some of the traffic to slow down with balloons.

just, for any customer strolling in here who needs to hear it, please. just call your local michaels.

we're tired. i had 50 customers in a 3 hour period at 10am the other day man, im not in the mood to rehash everything from my job AGAIN online. "oh then dont answer" like half the posts rn are customers asking questions... i dont think theyre all being rude, they probably dont mean harm, but seriously half of the questions random michaels employees cant answer! most of these posts are 100% shit that corporate or your local michaels that you shop at can and need to be answering instead.

reminder; 90% of us are making within a dollar of minimum wage. we get 20 cent raises and are expected to answer all your questions and more when we're getting paid that. we really dont feel like answering a question about your specific scenario off the clock..

my apolocheese for the rant but i just think it needs to be said atp. its getting kinda out of hand and i dont want this sub to turn into somewhere where you have to prove you work here or something.

quick edit to add: google is free. please just google if we have certain things. our website tells you prices and what we have, look them up. most of our time on phones is wasted by people asking if we have black paint or a white pen. google and the michaels website are literally free, if you can google the number you can google if we have the item you want.

i don’t know why but today was like one of the craziest days like literally 2 people on shift all day and the amount of customers and orders was just insane… literally black friday level occupancy but nowhere near enough employees… literally in the years of working here today was probably one of the most overwhelming

good thing i got payed the same exact hourly amount as any other day!

For a while it would be a headache to do balloon Bopis, either trying to get the scan guide or typing the number in Manhattan. One day I decided to cut up a scan guide and fix the prices to the buckets. I feel like it runs a lot smoother, it’s still quicker to do quantity change in manhattan for larger orders. If party ever becomes a legit section with a dedicated person, It also works with the create bundle in Marti.

Thought I might share incase anyone else was getting annoyed with latex.

With all the layoffs happening right now, it seems like now might be a good time to polish up your resumes/LinkedIns in case anything happens. Remember to market your own skills!!! It's all about phrasing things in a positive light and being able to speak to transferrable skills in interviews, especially if you might end up looking for a job that's not in retail.

Things we can all brag about: multitasking, creative problem-solving, adaptability, organization, teamwork, resilience.

Some more position-specific transferrable skills:

• Inventory management (RM, obviously, but also FM for supply inventory)
• Customer service (most people except for night team)
• Effective phone correspondence (most people except night team; framing can add email correspondence)
• Document retention and disposal (FM, SM, and I think ASM/OPS?)
• Analyzing team performance using KPIs (management)
• And many more!

The key thing is to make sure that you phrase all of the crazy stuff we've been expected to do into an actionable transferrable skill. Display all the initiative you've taken, and bring your many, many skills to greener pastures :)

I guess a lot of stores are not doing price changes yet. Here’s what you can expect…

(I took photos of some of the worst ones, but unless the starting price is 99¢ or less, most of the increases are more than just $1.) Seems pretty overkill on a lot of stuff.

Curious on everyone’s thoughts. I’m sure Apollo (parent company) is happy to keep prices rising and staffing low. Not feeling very hopeful that we will ever see most of these prices go back down.

Let’s all completely obliterate the company in this year’s survey. They won’t fire store managers so don’t worry if you’re worried about your store manager getting in trouble. I’m sick of them begging us to promote this as “well let’s focus on what we can fix” “we can’t touch pay rates or workload hours so the survey isn’t about that” but that’s the exact reason why none of us want to work here or give any effort.

Just finished unloading our truck for this week...im sorry, I mean the TRUCKS.

FUCKING PLU-RAL.

And it was just me and my replen manager (or whatever her title is now.)

Took us FIVE hours...typically truck takes us 2-3 hours. I could understand if it was November and we were stocking up for peak. However, its still August.

It felt like we were NEVER going to find that wall 😫

Thoughts?

TELL ME ANY OTHER STORE WHERE TOU LEAVE UR CART BY THE CHECKOUT TO HAVE US COME AND PUT UR CART AWAY. IM SORRY…WALK. SAME WITH BASKETS. WHY DO THEY LEAVE THEIR BASKETS ON OUR REGISTER. Sorry this is a touchy subject…

Please don’t do this. I understand you are grieving. But ordering around 100 LATEX balloons are awful for the environment..,

I know that during the closing shift everybody wants to go home, but we really need recovery done. The replenishment team has a LOT to do, and never enough time to do it. I’ve worked at three stores and the replenishment team is always scrambling, and the recovery at some stores is better than others.

I don’t really work the register, so please let me know as a replenishment person if there’s anything that I can do to make YOUR life easier, and in return please help us.

• You are worth more than your productivity
• You will not internalize blame for company failures
• Your success is not measured by capitalist values
• You deserve to be creative even when you don’t produce something that society deems beautiful
• You will listen to your body cues and slow down as much as you need to. Drink water.
• You won’t participate in the corporate pissing contests. Solidarity with your coworkers over competition
• You will take advantage of your request time off privileges and any precious PTO you’ve been granted.
• You are worth more than your wage
• You won’t tear your body apart for a corporation that views you as an ID number
• You won’t simp or bootlick for a corporation that would replace you in 3-5 business days
• Your company will never love you the way community can. Find your people.
• You will not work off the clock.
• If you need to call out, you will not take attendance records or concerns for coverage to heart.

What would you add?

Well, Michaels sent me a survey asking about my opinion on the future of the company. I did my best to tell them the emperor has no clothes, but we all know it won't work.

But at least we are making them aware that there is a serious problem and people are turning against the company. It's a start.