Traumatizing - Anonymous employee Sephora Employee Review

Wow, where to begin. Work hours are terrible, store opens for employees 2 hours before shift and closes 1 hour after stores close. So if ur working a night shift, be prepared to leave a little past 10 and later during the holidays. Some days we're scheduled 1-10 and the day after we work a 8-5. They don't care about ur life outside of work and care even less if you have a family. their uniforms are cheap, uncomfortable and ugly and there is no way to make them ur own, wearing baggy trousers and ill fitted button shirts with a full face of dramatic makeup doesn't go well with working at a makeup store. There is no self expression at sephora, hair must be a natural colour. They want a cookie cutter employee. During staff meetings they constantly bash other cosmetics retailers and work to try to get them to go out of business. Mac is major competition for them, they try to be them and always puts them down during meetings and to customers as well. Growing within the company is stricky for the preferred employee, no merit to those that work hard and no recognition. Inferiority is put on a pedestal and celebrated. They say passion is important but if u have too much passion they put you down and try to break you only to rebuild u in their image. Management is manipulative, condescending and very "corporate" they won't just fire u, they will torment u till u quit. All the free products you get is mostly things u will never use. Pay is horrible!!!!! Hiring people who are qualified for lead (3rd key) positions as regular sales associates and hiring non experienced people as leads. They create a very competitive atmosphere among staff, not for sales, but for recognition and praise. Their biggest taboo is to talk about ur salary, and that's because they pay everyone differently, 1 lead can be paid 10$ an hour while another one gets 16$ an hour. working here has given me major anxiety and I haven't been able to work anywhere else since!