The Land Before Time - Store Manager Bluemercury Employee Review

This company recently celebrated 20 years. Before I saw the job posting and applied, I had never heard of this company and I have been working in retail with Makeup/skincare/fragrance for about 10+ years. I was hired as a store maanger and this was one of the worst jobs I have ever had. I titled this "The Land Before Time" because everything about this company is ancient. Stepping into a Bluemercury, even the newly renovated ones, is like taking a step back in time.The computer system is old and outdated, managers don't even get their own email. EVERYTHING is done by hand and recorded on paper for which you are only allowed to use pencil. There are binders, upon binders with sheets that need to be updated daily. The music they select is circa 1999, and on loop all the time. They consider themsleves to be an upscale Sephora, however not one location has given me that feeling. Every store is falling apart. There is little to no communication except via email and usually its urgent because the emails do not come through fast enough. On top of all that, the business relies heavily on cold-calling customers. EVERYDAY. Everyday there is a list of customers to call for one reason or another and most of the time people don't answer and when they do they get angry and yell at you. This company doesn't care. If it worked in their Princeton location 20 years ago, it will work in every location today and tomorrow too. There is no relationship with upper management. their time spent in store is reorganizing the shelves and the layout of product that is packed so tightly on the shleves it's often overwhelming to the customer, and for much product there is not even enough room. You will be threatened with being fired for not making your numbers or your store not making it's sales goal. You are encouraged to come up with business plans and be creative but only within the confines of what the compnay will allow, which is also very limiting. Often times as a store manager, you will not even get to hire your own team, your District Manager will and people will just show up at your store with no heads up for their first day. I was employed by Bluemercury during the Covid-19 pandemic and we were the last ones to shut down as well as being the first ones to reopen about 3 weeks before Cuomo said NYC could, health and safety was an issue for which we were only provided custom face sheilds and about a weeks worth of cleaning supplies. As if that wasn't the icing on the cake, if you work in these stores in any capacity, be prepared and dress in layers as the front doors are ALWAYS open weather its 90 degrees or 28 degrees. The product often spoils due to the eratic temperatures both outside as well as inside between the heating and air-conditioning. most of our returns were becuase customers felt pressured to purchase (Trish McAvoy) or the product was spoilt. But the company only cares about the bottom line. They don't even care about theft, which occurs often and very easily. If you are a young woman, I would not suggest working here, in case you ever have to work alone. The amount of times drunk/crazy/homeless people come in and cause trouble is unimaginable and theft happens regualrly. But all of that doesn't matter. You need to make your sales goal to keep your job. The benefits are terrible, the pay is just above minimum wage, which the CEO pats herself on the back for and can't understand why New Yorkers would complain. Perhaps she would be able to maintain 2 houses on a $25 managers salary but most people couldn't. In short, this is great if you love makeup and skincare and need something part time to get you though but it is not a long term job with any growth, actually the growth within the company is null. you can move from Full Time assocate to a store manager and that's it. It's just not worth it. And you can foget gratis, that happens only every so often or as a sales incentive to get the store numbers up. I can fully see why the original owners jumped ship, Bluemercury is now owned by Macy's and for who knows how much longer they will be able to supprt the freestanding stores.