Starship Enterprises review: Dishonest, horrible company to work for. 5

I was employed at a Starship store a couple of years ago. My employment term with them lasted a year. In that time, I went from a sales associate to store manager.

My complaint stems from Starship's seemingly random pattern of firing employees with no warning at any time. Georgia is a "right to work" state, which means that you can quit or be fired at any time for any reason at the discretion of your employer with no legal recourse and believe me, this company takes full advantage of it.

Anyone seeking employment with this company should understand that they WILL fire you, no matter your position for any reason they deem fit without warning or recourse.

Here's my story. My employment with Starship lasted a year, as I said. Most of it was really great. I loved my job, I was knowledgeable about what we sold, and I had an excellent rapport with customers and the other staff members. A large portion of my time there, I was an Assistant Manager. At one point during my time with the company they shuffled the management structure around and added a third District Manager position to the two they already had. Our usual DM was transferred to another district and we got a new DM named Karen. As luck would have it, Karen was the president of the company's sister-in-law. She came from the accounting department and had absolutely no experience working in a retail store. She didn't even know how to operate the cash register! Unlike our previous DM who would drop in once a month or so to check on us or light a fire under us when we needed it, Karen would drive nearly two hours from her home every day to come to the store. It was like having a new employee that we had to train, yet was also our boss. It was very strange.

I got a phone call from my manager one day telling me she had just been fired and she thought I should know that I may be next. I was kind of surprised. My store manager, though an awesome person, was prone to being late and had a couple of other issues that could have been legitimate reasons for her termination. I, on the other hand, had no such issues and had never even been written up for any infraction during my employment. However, that very day I showed up for work and was summarily dismissed. I asked Karen why I was being terminated and she said that I was shown on camera selling tobacco to a minor. I asked her how that could have happened considering that I had worked there a year and knew full well that not carding for a tobacco sale is a HUGE no-no. When I asked her when it happened, she would not tell me. She said one of the surveillance people (they have a huge security department that monitors every store's cameras from one central location) saw me do it. I asked her to see the video. She replied "I don't have to let you see it", and handed me my termination slip.

My next action was to call the vice president of the company and ask her directly what happened. When I called her, she honestly did not know that either I or my manager had been fired. Keep in mind, this woman's signature was on my termination form! So this company vice president had no idea that her signature was on a document used to fire two employees that she thought were good workers. How strange!
The VP told me she'd look into it and get back to me, which she did. She called me and asked me if I would like to go back to work and I told her that I did and thanked her profusely. I was to report back to work the next week and that Karen would call to let me know when. When Karen did call me, she told me I was to report back to work that Friday and that when I came back to work I would be the new store manager. I was kind of shocked. I wanted my job back, but didn't really think I'd be promoted. I asked Karen what would happen to the current store manager (who was also an assistant manager while I was there and was a great worker) when I returned and Karen said "We'll worry about that when you come back".
Friday morning, I opened my door to leave for work and saw the girl that I had asked Karen about approaching my house in tears. I asked her what the problem was and she said Karen had fired her. That really sucked. This girl was an awesome employee and she had just been cast aside. I really could have used her around that place to make everything run smoothly, but now could not. Needless to say, I felt awkward even walking in the door that morning. Karen never apologized for firing me, and everything just kind of moved along. My two new assistant managers were two of our newer employees and not really prepared for managerial duties, but I just played the cards I was dealt.
Soon after my return, Karen held what she called a "job fair" for the company. She took lots of applications, which I assumed she was sending to the home office for review. Imagine my surprise when I started receiving phone calls from strangers telling me they wanted to know what time to come in the next Monday to start work. I was the store manager and had no idea what these people were talking about.
One Sunday, my girlfriend and I were out of town and I got a phone call from one of my assistants telling me that Karen called a store meeting for the next morning at 8, which was an hour earlier than our normal time for a store meeting.
The next day, I woke up a little earlier and dressed for work and went on my merry way to the store. When I arrived, Karen was standing at the front of the store with a big smile on her face handing all the employees that came inside a termination slip. When I got mine, I said a few choice four letter words to her and left. After comparing notes with the other employees we discovered that Karen had hired an ENTIRE STAFF of people behind our backs to replace everyone working at that store. She had actually used us to train her to do things she had no clue about, then replaced every last one of us with a hand picked staff.
What's even more insulting about this is that every employee fired that day was given the same reason on our pink slips. We were all fired for "lack of customer service". Can you imagine keeping an employee for a year and promoting them if they lacked customer service skills?
Even more ridiculous was the fact that the same vice president whose name appeared at the bottom of the firing slips would not return my calls after this heinous act of mean spirited manipulation.
For what it's worth, I have been to Starship's home office and have personally seen a large stack of blank termination papers with the vice president's signature rubber stamped on them. It may be the case that one hand really doesn't know what the other is doing, which is no way to run a company.

I was fired, re-hired, promoted and re-fired all in the space of three weeks! Isn't that crazy?

After talking to some other people that have since stopped working there, I have learned that the average employee turnover rate at that store is one to two weeks! Insane!

DON'T WORK FOR STARSHIP.

In summation: