Employees at stores in the same district help one another.

The company keeps the number of store employees very low, so every day someone has to go support another branch in the same district. This means that practically every store employee has to be familiar with all the stores and counters in the district. Also, many things that could be resolved quickly are made unnecessarily complicated. In addition, during employees’ meal breaks, they have to watch the surveillance monitors while eating and help retrieve clothes requested by customers, so it is basically impossible to take a proper break.

Later, when I took bereavement leave because a family member passed away, the store manager asked me to take a photo of the obituary. I happened to have an electronic image file, so I sent it directly. However, the manager insisted that I provide a photo taken of the physical obituary. After taking the photo, I was also required to bring the physical obituary to the company—I initially thought it was only needed for the leave request. After I brought it in, the district manager immediately told me that because I had not yet been evaluated, I was not eligible for the bereavement allowance, and that I could take it home. It was not about the money, but traveling between cities during the funeral period was already exhausting, and I still had to deal with this. At the time, there were also other family-related factors, so I resigned after working there for nearly two months. The district manager kept trying to emotionally blackmail me, saying that two other stores in the same district had also had employees resign that month and that my resignation would leave two stores understaffed. When that emotional pressure did not work, the manager started making sarcastic remarks.