Hell - Anonymous employee Space NK Employee Review

By far the worst place I've ever worked at. The pay is way under market for cosmetics and especially considering how high our goals and the price point of the product is. No commission but they try to tell you that you make it up in bonus. Bonus is $25-$50 and if you were working at a counter on commission and making the goals Space NK wants from you, you'd be making far more money. Sales goals are crazy and sometimes you make them and sometimes you don't but you only ever hear from corporate when you don't. This company is all about the people in stores giving and giving and you never get any recognition when you succeed or at the very least some understanding when you're struggling. The company as a whole is struggling in the US, compared to their much better run UK counterpart, and the structure is so messed up that instead of realizing that the real opportunity is with clearing house at the corporate level and hiring people who can motivate and develop others and promoting from within at the store level, their solution is to fire the people inside the stores. People who give way more to this company than it gives to them. The store is a complete revolving door of people getting fired for minuscule offenses like telling a corporate employee that a color in one of the Space NK in-house brands doesn't personally work for THEIR skin tone (borderline racist, might I add), to competent people realizing they could better use their skills elsewhere. Corporate management does nothing. They are clearly people who have never worked a day of retail in their lives. They overwhelm the store management with ridiculous tasks and reporting that they could do themselves from their offices. AND THE CALLS! So many calls when you're in management. Expect to spend at least 3/5 days you're working on the phone getting quizzed on numbers like you're a toddler. "Ok, Store XYZ, can you tell me what your sales were last week?" What is the PURPOSE of that? Upper management has the numbers right in front of them. They micromanage and talk down to their employees as if just because we work in retail it means we're not mentally capable. The company has no money to offer a competitive wage but they're constantly flying their corporate employees out to stores outside of NYC to do things that could easily be done over the phone. Like firing an employee or to tell us to clean a foundation tester. They try to hype up the job when you first get hired by sending you to their corporate offices in NYC for a training but in the grand scheme of things it's all a big waste of money since this training is just a power point presentation where they briefly show you skincare key words that anyone who's ever worked in cosmetics for even a day would already know. They'd be better off investing in in-store trainings and getting one or two people in each store who are extremely knowledgeable and can train new hires. These people would not only have the product knowledge and artistry skills, they would also have the sales experience with the clientele specific to each store that people in corporate wouldn't be able to train a new hire on. But of course, they'd have to actually be able to KEEP employees around for that. This should go without saying but there is absolutely zero room for growth within the company. The raises are a joke (a 20 cent joke) and they never promote from within and when a position opens up and you want to ask to be considered for it, forget it because if your district manager doesn't like you, they will come up with a flimsy excuse as to why you're not eligible to be considered. Then they hire new people who naturally take time to adjust to a new company and they wonder why stores are struggling so much. Their time and attendance policy is very nondescript in your initial contract which means that they can basically get you for anything. In all my time there, I called off a few times for legitimate medical reasons or where I was just down with a cold and probably contagious and shouldn't be touching people's faces, and although you're allotted sick days and you call off with plenty of notice and even find people to cover your shifts, everyone in corporate loses their minds and you get written up for it. You're made to feel like a horrible person who deliberately gets sick just to spite and inconvenience the company. For the record, I am not a scorned fired employee writing this. I quit after watching the way they treated my team (who have now all moved on to much happier and successful ventures) and the unfair way I was treated. I have never been happier to leave a place. But don't count your blessings if you quit or are fired, this company will try to get you even after you're long gone. Bad mouthing you off the record to other companies or even flat out lying to the US Dept of Labor to deny you unemployment. The nightmare never truly ends at Space NK. My condolences to the people who stayed on that sinking ship and are still working so hard to try and keep it afloat. It is truly a thankless job.