-Poor pay
-Poor upper management
-Poor treatment
I worked for Circle K for just under a year. Though I can't argue much for other shifts, third shift was particularly bad compared to other jobs and the occasional second shift I might have picked up. I was trained for four days before being put on third shift by myself. Without a coworker to ask, I was left to fend for myself on any new tasks, customer questions and register making many customers angry. For instance, I wasn't shown how to complete a refund until I'd been working there for about a month.
Aside from the substandard training, there were many safety concerns. BGSU is a heavy drinking college and my store was just around the corner from all of the bars. I felt more comfortable than most girls feel working alone, but even I felt uncomfortable with the large amount of drunk students yelling at me, trying to touch me, flirting with me or damaging property within the store. While I never expected that to change (there's only so much you can do being so close to a college and many bars), I never felt it would have been a problem to have someone stay until the bars closed every night or some kind of minor security. After the bars closed, I was fine because the students went home, but except for Friday and Saturday, I was on my own to deal with many drunk students who often started fights in the store or the parking lot, who shoplifted or, again, damaged property.
I never received breaks because they never let me work with anyone. If I wanted to eat, I had to do so between customers. I wasn't allowed to sit down at all even if the store was empty. One co-worker, who was 7-8 months pregnant was told to stop sitting down between customers though her doctor told her she wasn't to stand for long periods of time.
If I didn't finish all of my work by the time I was supposed to leave, I had to stay over and finish while getting yelled at. I was capable of doing the work on any night except for Friday and Saturday due to the huge influx of customers from the bars. Eventually I learned that the only way for me to go home on time was to skimp on my duties and try to finish them on other nights because I couldn't get all of it done.
If people shoplifted in the store, I got in trouble for not noticing them even if I was at the counter helping someone else. There's only so much one person can do.
If you were sick and no one was available to cover your shift, you either had to suck it up and work or (if you worked with someone else that day) your coworker worked alone. For a time, I had one second shift every week. Once, my coworker was sick and had to leave customers frequently to vomit and I sent him home because the managers wouldn't and I was on my own during my day shift.
Other times, when they sell the balloons or pumpkins for charity, if you didn't sell enough each shift (usually around 30) you got in trouble.
