I have worked retail for many years and for a couple large retailers. I took a job with Dollar General Stores, Inc. as a SMC, store manager candidate. I was floored to find out that they allow only one employee to work by themselves for sometimes an entire shift. They call this single coverage. How can someone working take a break, eat or drink something, or even use the restroom? Is this even legal? Protection of assets? EVERYWHERE I have worked in the past requires that two people work together. Entering the store and leaving the store. It protects your most valuable assets, your employees and the company's assets. Impossible to do with single coverage. I can not believe that there is not yet another law suit against Dollar General on this matter. There is no way that this unethical treatment of the employees can be legal.

I have worked at the DG in my town for over a year now. I still work there, and I am in school at a local college full-time. I keep my job because around here especially, jobs are very hard to find. I have very few complaints with my job itself, I actually do not mind my job. I love to interact with people, and I just about know all of my customers by name. The pay really sucks, but other than that it is a job. My Store manager, though, seems very sexist. In the last year I have worked there, we have had at least 4 new people hire in, none of which are male. We have an all female staff except for my store manager who is a male. All of the girls that he hires are, well, young and pretty. Most of the time they do not even do their jobs. I do not mind working hard, but sometimes the trucks and lifting gets rough. We have girls who cannot lift due to pregnancy and others who just refuse. I know many men who need a job and would be more than happy to work. I just feel like he is being sexist in his hiring. Not only that, but our assistant manager is lazy. She does nothing when the SM is not around except for sit on her butt and talk to her friends and family on the phone. She has been suspected of taking money. When I say she does absolutely nothing, I am not exagerating one bit. The store manager has been informed and talked to about her behavior several times, but has never confronted her. WTF? I think our store is in desperate need of better management.

I went into the dollar general store on highland and sunset point!! I brought in a gift card to use to pay for my purchaces. The lady at the checkout was rude and then said that it wouldnt work repeatedly. I tried to tell her you might have to put in as 25 dollars instead of my amount which was 26 and change because thats how they work and she ignored me and continued to tell me how they couldnt take it. then the manager who was standing next to her the whole time said that it wouldnt take it and there was nothing they could do about it!! I had to leave all my purchaces in front of a group of people staring at me since they wouldnt take the card! My expierience was embarasing and I will not return to that store!! I called my card holder after that and they said if the lady would have just put in the amount I said it would of worked just fine and I wouldnt have wasted my time there!! Its not the first time someone has been rude and Im very discouraged that I have to go out of my way to find another store and purchace the things I had already found!! I hope you can make emends or straighten the store up!!
Sincerley Rachel Enix

Oh and by the way I was going to just call the store to let them know but I tried for an hour and it was busy the whole time!! the number is 727-442-1710 if you would like to give it a shot!!!

I recently was let go by this company. The RM has a history of pushing people out who all just happen to fall into the 45-65 years old category. They all seem to be getting replaced by others who are less than 40 years old. This is occurring at all levels, DM, SM and Associate. How do they continue to get away with this?

I've been working with the company for the past six months. Started off as a stocker with only two days a week, despite being in retail for the past five years. That manager got sick and had to quit. Our store was a mess, then an outside manager came in and managed the store for three months and completely had the store running the way it is supposed to. He and I got along great because we both had the exact same mind-set and both of us have high standards for how the store is supposed to be run. He saw that and I suddenly got bumped from two days with only 10 hours a week straight to five days with 32-40 hours a week.
My first complaint is our 3rd key, who doesn't do a thing. All she does is goes around and straightens the store, then she comes up with some BS excuse why she didn't do the planogram she was supposed to do that night. She was supposed to do the food planogram, she didn't do it until 3 weeks after the deadline. And even then, she didn't do it on her own. She had to have the assistant manager practically hold her hand while doing it. I really wish she would be demoted. Not fired because she is great with customers and doing basic stocking, but she is incompetent in her managerial duties. Her excuse for screwing up and not doing anything is always "I didn't know how to do it because I wasn't trained". She has been 3rd key for 8 MONTHS. She should have learned everything she needed to know on her own by now. I mean, I've even taught her how to do a few things that she didn't know how to do because of her supposed lack of training.
I do my job and I get nothing to show for it. The outside manager left and we now have a new permanent manager who claimed on his application to be a former K-Mart GM. Turns out its BS because he accidentally let it slip to me that he wasn't even a manager at K-Mart. They didn't even do a freaking background check. He's been here for since late August, was in training for a month before that, and he still doesn't know how to do the things a manager is supposed to do. I've even had to show him how to shut the store down and count the money! Seriously, why should a freakin' sales associate have to teach these two? It's literally me and the Assistant Manager taking care of the store. We are supposed to set up the store the way the company says to in the books with those pretty pictures, or (as the people who do their jobs like to call it) the planogram. Me and the Assistant Manager are always going back behind the 3rd key and GM, moving the holiday stuff to the isle it is supposed to be put in because they put it on the other side of the store.
Our Assistant Manager is a hard worker, but has a bad attitude problem. One of those people who "tells you like it is". Now, I don't mind that but it is not a good thing to be a blunt ass towards co-workers and customers you don't get along with and get an attitude with anyone who doesn't make you laugh.
Everyone that works in that store knows I take great pride in my work and show great dedication to my job. If I see a planogram that needs to be done, I do it rather than just loaf around because "there is nothing to do". A few days ago, my assistant manager called me into the office saying that they're thinking of getting rid of me if I don't "straighten up". I ask her what she means and she said that I don't wear my name tag every day (forget the damn thing once and they make a big deal about it).
1- Says that the GM is mad because I did a couple end-cap planograms that he didn't give me permission to do. Aparently it is a bad thing to put christmas candy on an endcap that the company says it's supposed to be on, even though he told me to get as much of the christmas candy up as possible. I did my job on top of doing two endcaps with everything exactly as it was supposed to be.
2- Said that the 3rd key is saying she tells me to do stuff and I refuse to do it. She never told me to do anything except that one time when she told me to straighten the store, which I had just finished doing and no customers had come in since two hours earlier (we're located in a very dead location). So, since I was cashier, I went through the impulse area and rooted out all of the expired candy. Wanna guess how much of that candy was expired? Not even an exaduration: at least 90%. We had barely any candy up in the impulse area because someone finally combed through it. I found 3 Kit-Kats that have been expired since 200-freakin-5. I almost staggered back when I saw that mixed in with Kit-Kats that we just got on truck two days before. I let that be known and I'm still hearing about it as a bad thing I did. And whenever I do have nothing to do, I ask the manager on duty. They always only tell me to "Just straighten". That is the only thing they tell me to do, then they (aside from the Assistant Manager) don't talk to me the rest of the day.
3- The Assistant Manager claims she over-heard me complaining to a customer that I hadn't taken a break yet. Why the hell would I complain about not taking a break during a 4-hour shift where I was covering for an injured co-worker? I have pulled a 13-hour shift with just a 15-minute break before without complaining to anyone, and it was my decision to stay. I didn't have to, but I wanted to because I didn't want to ditch my store with just one person working there. Especially since we are in a crap area with bad crime.
4- I came in sick earlier last week, but called in and asked if I could do stocking since that needed to be done so I can stay completely active and work myself out of being ill. My productivity didn't even waver, despite being sick. Now I'm getting criticized for coming in sick because of the fact that I didn't want to call off work at the last second when one associate was just fired for stealing and the other had already called in sick. (So it was just me and the 3 keys)
5- She says is also claiming she hears a lot of crap about the store, mostly about me. Our entire customer base is consisted of nothing but regulars. I know every customer by name and they know me by name. Many have said that they shop there because they know I will be working. They even know my car and some only show when my car is in that lot. So I know it can't be crap coming from customers, so it must be co-workers.

The assistant manager and I specifically stated that "I am not telling you as your boss, I'm telling you as your friend. If you don't straighten up, you they will get rid of you". Why the hell is it that they are wanting to get rid of me? It seems the only reason they're wanting to get rid of me is because I do my job and actually know what I'm doing, unlike the GM and especially the 3rd key. I seriously have to not do my job in order to keep my damn job?