PictureME Photography review: unfair treatment of employees 52

Seems you all had terrible districts. I was a studio manager. I was paid well, given raises nicely as I moved forward in the company. You have a designated break time. If no you take it when you can and if not designated the same scenario. I know for a fact picture me had a time clock to do accordingly with. I worked in every studio branch of the company. I kept my sales up and worked past closing time. Get over it, every retail and photography job you work is that way. You leave when the final customer is satisfied. You were treated this way because you did it to yourselves. If you're all so bold to call managers on there empty threats why not do it at lunch time? And getting called in? Quit whining, I mean really. It is a constantly changing job with a flexible schedule. You're not flexible dont take it. On call is on call. When I had an associate working the studio. It's not posted on the schedule but if it got busy I was on call to come work. I just didn't need to be called because I checked in and was responsible for myself. Everyone on here is just lazy and lacks the work ethic for this kind of business. I've worked for other studios. They're ALL this way. It's a job not your hobby you do outside of here, and it must be treated accordingly. Go out, get your customers, and make your averages it's not a difficult concept. And if you ever want to manage any other work places the very first thing you'll be in charge of is driving salessss. All of you were just obviously put into a position you were most Deffinitly not qualified for.

ALL I WANT IS A NUMBER TO A CORPORATE OFFICE I HAD PICS OF MY FAMILY DONE THERE THEY CLOSED AND MY PICS ARE PAID FOR BUT YET I HAVE NO PICTURES NOT REALLY HAPPY...

I also experienced this same thing. I was hired very quickly in a studio in Waterloo, IA that had a horrible manager right before me that was rude to customers and caused all kinds of drama. So besides the disaster of a company it was alone, I also was dealing with aftermath of a horrible manager. I made it through holiday season 2011 matched what our profits were the year before by 2 dollars over and was wreaked havoc on by my DM for not doing better. Keep in mind I had zero photograpy experience, I had managed retail clothing stores, but nothing in a direct service field. My DM was an idiot and two faced up to high hell. She would make stuff up and then ask us to compensate for her stories. She coincidentally was also hired from another company that eventually went under "Sam Goody" should have known when they hired someone who had already gone down with one ship she would be of no use to the next. I walked out on a Saturday, right after they started closing on Tuesdays and requiring managers to work all other open days and keep employees on call only on the schedule. We never got our breaks and if we did take them we were in trouble for not being there when customers came in while we were gone. I have never felt so relieved to walk out of a job. I hope the class action goes through and us workers get what is deserved from the measly amount of money this company has left if any when this liquidation of assets is over.

WTF to the person who saying taking your LEGALLY PROTECTED break is selfish! Your are the ignorant one! When I first started at CPI my co-worker who was also a trainee FAINTED because we didnt get our break. I agree with almost everything said. Go into the studio & TAKE what is rightfully yours, those props you brought in are your property! I also am paying for studio supplies constantly, I became a studio manager after working for cpi for only 3 months, it is a very crooked place, not employee friendly at all. Its all money money money ! No customer or basic human decency what so ever.

i am writing this knowing that i could possibly lose my job over this which at this point in time i am not sure is a bad thing. now i will say this. i like my job i love working with the kids and babies but lets start the complaint list with the lies that they tell you to get you in the door in the first place. i was hired under the impression that i would be making over minimum wage in OK by a dollar or so well this was not the case i was hired at minimum wage and when i asked about it i was told that it was because i was in training and the pay would go up as soon as i reached a certain performance level. well i reached that performance level and was then told that the company did not give raises, needless to say i did make a fuss about this to corporate and they promised me the raise and to prorate my pay all the way back to my date of hire and that it would reflect on my next pay check...well surprise surprise neither of those reflected i am still waiting to hear about what happens now since i have e mailed my rm. parents can let their children run loose in our studios and we cant say a single word because then the parent can complain that we are being mean or rude to their children who are messing with our equipment or climbing all over things and throwing tantrums so bad that nothing is able to get done. we cant say anything to the parents about it and we cant say anything to the kids about it. now personally i am a mother and my children don't act that way. they can be a little rambunctious sure all kids can but i tell them to sit down or keep their voices down they listen . now naturally i am not trying to be mean to customers when their children are touching equipment or things like that and when i say "hey please don't do that sweetie" i am accused of being mean to peoples kids and my job is threatened because people complain because they want to get free stuff. or when i say things like i would rather not use a black background because i don't think that it will compliment your skin tone and i think it would wash you out when my opinion is asked for i am accused of making a racist slur and once again my job is threatened. i am called repeatedly on my days off to come in and work because my manager has something or another going on or just doesn't want to work that day. i am told that i am to constantly keep my phone on and with me at all times because i am to be on call and if she calls me in i need to be there. i was told that if i got a second job i would lose this job because i needed to be able to work any time that she called me. of course i got a second job anyway and have not been fired because that would be way illegal and i don't think that they could cover their tracks on that one. if i work past a scheduled close time because i was instructed to do so my hours are adjusted by management to reflect close time and not hours worked so even though i was there working those hours i am not getting paid for it. this has happened on two occasions. i am contacting the wage and labor board as i type this and i am seeking another job. i am tired of the abuse that happens in this company

I am also a former employee of CPI and couldnt agree more with most that has been said here.It was BY FAR the most unfair, degrading and caustic work enviornment i have ever had the pleasure of working in. I was hired in the fall of 2011 at a Sears Portrait Studio as a part time associate and lasted about 8 months befor i finally had it. I loved the job itelf and my manager was great but i could no longer reconcile lying to/taking advantage of the customer and was a basket case due to the emotional "abuse" from the corporate office.. With the exception of the holiday portrait season, most of our customers had those damn " 20 pictures for 7.99 ( or 9.99)" coupons, which are incredibly misleading. We were not allowed to ask the customer if they had any coupons when they came in for their appt. which resulted in most presenting the coupn after the session once we started the sales pitch..as most of u know those "one pose one subject" packages are not applicable to a "regular" session...i cannot tell you how many people cussed/cursed and actually cried when they were told they couldnt use it. ALL of these people were like " why didnt u tell me this before hand?" CPI dictates that it is the customers responsibility to read all that fine print and NOT cpi's resposibility to explain it to them. I have been yelled, called names and physically assaulted (slapped) by customers due to this policy. I was constantly threatened with termination when my sales goal slipped and was told zero sales days were not acceptable. there were times i paid out of my OWN pocket for a one pose package so i wouldnt have a zero day The final straw for me was when the new DM implemented a " 20% a Day or Pay" rule; if you made less than 20% of ur daily sales goal the difference would come out of ur paycheck. I KNOW this was just a scare tactic and there was no way he could actually/legally take it out of my paycheck...but it was the straw that brke the camels back. I could go on and on about the times i was screamed at in front of customers and other associates, berated and harrassed at home on my days off.but all of u know what its like already...sigh.

I have only worked at cpi for a little a month and have already been made a manager... not because of any skills I have. It was out of desperation. Their employees quit so fast because the way they are treated. I enjoyed working at the store I trained at. It is one of the really busy stores that makes a lot of money. However after a manager quit with no notice at another store I was placed over at that store. And it is one of the slowest stores and makes very little money. After a week there they promoted me because they really needed someone. I am the only employee at that store. I am getting called everyday by my dm and being yelled at for not making enough money. This store is REALLY bad and was very slow before I even got there yey my dm calls and yells at me like its my fault. I am doing everything possible to do a good job, yet they act like im not. Its rough being yelled at everyday for something out of your control. I thought this would be a fun job and I have always enjoyed photography. My family has always gone to sears for our photos and have always had great experiences. I never understood how poorly they were treated. Its very sad

Everyone complaining needs to ban together in a lawsuit because what CPI is doing in unlawful and not right at all.

I literally clocked out early from work today and quit from Sears Portrait Studio which was located at the once Sears Essentials store on Florida Avenue in Lakeland Florida, which is apparently changing over to Kmart. I walked off the job due to the ridiculous treatment I have had to deal with sense working with this company. The Sears Portrait Studio is going to become the first stand alone store inside a kmart.

Now to tell you what that means for our studio is that the store is going to be run to the ground because of a new manager being placed into the store when I have been working my butt off for almost a year and I actually have a college degree but no that doesn't matter. The current manager told me promises that she could not keep such as giving me more hours and that the manager was going to train me to become assistant manager. She told me this at the exact time she knew she was going to be leaving to be a manager for another studio. The new manager being placed into the studio is not going to help the studio because she has never been a manager before and she doesn't even have a college degree. The other major problem is that because of our studio going to a standalone studio all of our equipment is going to be from CPI and their equipment is CRAP it never works. This company doesn't provide any new equipment and does not provide people who actually know how to fix equipment to come out and fix our stuff. Us the employee has to call tech support and tell them about our problem and then stand on ladders and try not to get electricuted by faulty equipment.

I don't know how many times I have had to sit and wait on hold too with tech support while serving customers, taking pictures that come out like crap because of messed up equipment. Now our credit card system is going to all go through them which I can assure you will go down every day. Customers complain about the fact that we are not allowed to have more then one employee working at a time and therefore I am expected to do everything and run around like a chicken with my head cut off. I am tired of: apologizing for things that are not even my fault, having to work for crap pay, people yelling at me, going out in the store and being the companies advertiser when they have enough money to advertise they just bought out Bella Pictures, those dang coupons they send out for tons of free pictures and they wonder why our numbers are down (Mcdonalds doesn't give out free stuff all the time like this and they are fast food), tired of their constant changing outreach and collections and they wonder why their employees don't know how to get their customers into a collection it is because the prices keep increasing even though the economy is bad, and I am tired of working off clock to do the end of the night closing CRAP that takes forever, and I am tired of working through my lunch breaks when I need to eat right so that I can breast feed and pump milk.

I did not start off in this studio either I started in the Brandon studio which was by far the worst studio ever. The lady who hired me was the rudest lady I think I have ever met and she hired me telling me that I would get to work as a photographer. The whole time I worked for her she made me pass these tests that she setup for me such as taking photographs of a bear and it had to be in the exact order she wanted them in or she would get really angry with me. I only got to photograph maybe two times of real people once was of a family with a mother, father, and a one year old and the second time was of an infant. But, she said I did neither of them right and therefore I had to watch her everytime and let me remind you I have a college degree in photography. Most of the time she pushed me to the sales table when I was not comfortable in that position and I told her that at the time. I had no idea that I was supposed to do both photography and sales before I went into working for this company I really had no experience in sales. So, when I sold she would get real angry saying that I just lost a customer from coming back to the studio because of you. She would only let me sell to new customers and therefore she would say it every time you just lost another customer. Finally I had enough because I told her I wanted to be a photographer not just a sales associate and I did not appreciate the way she was treating me, so she pushed me off onto another studio the Lakeland Mall because she finally came out and said oh we really didn't need a photographer we just need a sales associate and also all the sales I made went under her personal number as if she just wanted to be a photographer and not a sales person so she could pretend that it was her sales. Of course at the time I did not know we had personal numbers for our sales. She did not even give me any of the information about how to recieve or where I could find my payment info, Associate tests on the cpi site, the discrimination or workers rights, or my job discription.

Once I transfered to the Lakeland Mall I was given more hours due to the holiday season but of course that fell once the season was over. The major issue I ran into was that I found out I was pregnant. This was the talk of the other employees when I wasn't around apparently because one of the employees who had a very big mouth and acted like she was an assistant manager came out and told me that "people are wondering if you drink a lot because you have a big belly hanging over your pants". Not only did she say this comment but before that she had asked me if I drink a lot of alcoholic drinks and she would constantly talk about her sex life saying things that shouldn't be said in a work environment I was very offended by her. The work environment was very disgusting due to not only the conversations but the dirtyness of the studio and the constant smoking breaks the employees including the manager would take even when there were customers going to come for their appointment in less then 5 minutes. I was able to sell and photograph at this studio but still was not given enough hours during the off season and therefore I was pushed to the Sears Essentials Portrait studio due to that fact that they actually needed someone because the manager was the only one working there at the time, which I just quit from now.

CPI CORP (Picture ME) is a freakin joke. I will never work for a company like this ever again. They could care less if you have a family or not. They could care less if you are lying in a hospital, they still want you to show up to work. They need to learn how to run a business!

cpi management are full of ###s. I work at home office and there are a bunch of monkeys running the place. Running the company into the ground. Renato and his understudy get a 1.2 million dollar raise but we can't send supplies to the field for weeks at a time to try and save money. Its a joke.

i 100% agree with this complant, i myself have had to deal with this with this company

No matter where CPI is--from Canada down to the States--they still suck. I've experienced EXACTLY the same foul treatment in my home studio in Canada. You can't say it's "just one or two bad DMs", it's the way the company works. They set up my studio in a WalMart that is in a lower income area and expect 400$+ sales out of us when our clients just can't afford it. We aren't in the richer part of town like the other studios in our city district so it's a big struggle to get them to buy the big collections. I KNOW my photography and my sales skill are very good. I came into this company keeping a 90$ MINIMUM prs average during Christmas season. I worked my ten hours a day shifts. I did my sales. I dressed appropriately. I had customers ASKING for my business cards. And what did I get for it? I got FIRED, right before Christmas Eve. Yeah, they terminated me before the end date on my contract without solid grounds to do so. What did they do when I asked them to show me the paperwork I had signed off on when I was trained in the studio I needed to take two and a half hours by bus to get to? They "couldn't find it". My former Studio Manager (with six months of experience) drove another associate (she worked for the company for two years and refused the manager position, knowing how bad it would get) to quit her job. Without her, the studio ran itself straight into the ground. She was a model employee. Not to mention that the SM was a complete idiot without photography experience and a complete lack of people skills.
If I hadn't been so desperate to pay my bills--and partly to shame them for what they've done--I wouldn't have taken back my "part time" job when they offered it back after Christmas season. I say part time in quotations because that same Studio Manager would purposely cut my hours and call in another girl from a different studio to take my hours when her sales average was lower than mine, her photography was below mine and the way she deals with customers is not very professional or friendly.
My DM is also a two-faced jerk who will act very sweet and friendly to your face and behind your back tell everyone else in the studio--while she's degrading them--that the reason we can't get high sales (keep in mind, we're in the lower income neighborhood) is because all our photography is complete garbage and only worth 7.99. Completely unfair to say when I've had AMAZING sessions with families who just can't afford the large packages.

@s12345: I did NOTHING wrong. I hadn't been written up once. I did everything that was required of me and even bought props for the studio (which I've yet to be reimbursed for). Don't tell me it's a great place to work for when obviously there is so much WRONG with it and their head office is impossible to contact. If it really is the "great" place you say that it is, they wouldn't have to hide and NONE of the same, reoccurring incidents would happen in studios located in different states and COUNTRIES.

in response to your poedass, If you paid 400 for 2 cd's and only 170 for a 16 x 20 then you shouldt have recieved them, As an employee, you dont get a discount on regular priced items without a 10 sheet MINUMUM purchase...and THEN the cd's are 75% off still paying about 165 PER CD. So you didnt pay the correct amount that was owed to the company. I love my Job @ Picture Me. I started as a part time seasonal help in october of 2009 and i am now a SMIT as of 6 months ago, I run a pretty large average and i believe if you go to work with the attitude that you all seem to show on here, you will run low averages as your heart is just not with the job!

Reading this almost makes me dizzy. I could respond all day about how half of the complaints made are on policies set by CPI to be a successful, profitable company so we can stay afloat and pay employees such as yourself in such difficult times. I understand there has been some upper management politics but let's get real here people, what company doesn't. and OF COURSE it is all about the money.. what business isn't is what I would like to know! No doubt this job takes a very self motivated, sales oriented type person.. and probably only 25% of our national workforce is cut out for this type of job.. so move on to better things before it makes you so bitter and vindictive over not being fond of business practices you never agreed with in the first place? I have heard people talk about how they were offended over miscumminication (confusing yes.. fixable definitely a yes) .. dressing professional (knew this when you signed your new hire paperwork yet you went against dress code regardless) .. having to do marketing/outreach, GETTING MORE CUSTOMERS WHEN ON AVERAGE A STUDIO DOESN'T SHOOT MORE THAN 3 ONE HOUR SESSIONS A DAY .. ! Come on, administratively it gets to bog you down at times but in reality I am suprised I even wasted this long rebuttle on people that simply went about all of this the wrong way, and with a piss poor work ethic.

All The BS with the company is true, because people cant afford a $400 dollar packages we are threatened to be replaced, because we can't pull customers in we are threatened write ups and potentially being terminated, not to mention that we are the companies only marketinf tool doing spin to wins, call list, own your own customer, constantly harrassing customers we have pushed them completely away we are drivin to PUSH sales and customers see that so it becomes a negative experience and people don't want to come back. Us as manager and Associates are what hold the company together, we are taught to lie to customers and basically steal their money, and if we dont we are replaced, the company dont care if you take amazing portraits all they care about is you taking the customers for eveything they have. I hate waking up everyday to know how many single moms and elderly people I have forced to pay insane amounts of money for portraits that they can get for alot cheaper someplace else.

I worked for Amercican Studios and PCI for 11 years back in the 1990's, and I can understand why everyone of these complaints were made. CPI and Picture Me were derived from the companies I used to worked for. You have to understand that senior management started out in this business working 10 to 12 hour days with no break and no lunch, so wmaking their employees work unreasonable hours is norm for them. I don't know how I lasted as long as I did, but when I finally got fired - which every former employee does - it was one of the happiest days of my life. For most of the time I worked there, I was either a DM or a RM, and backed them I thrived on firing people, writing them up for nothing that had to do with photography, and running my areas on the least amount of labor possible - that was the culture I had learned. That is the same culture the upper management of CPI use today. I took the job when I was young because I loved studio photography, but within the first week of the job I found out that it had almost nothing to do with photography. Bottom line it is about money and showing profit to WalMart for their survival.
When I worked there I drank a lot, sat at bars with other managers and we all knew we would eventually get fired once our numbers dropped.
I can just imagine with the state of the economy now and the increasing amount of jobless people, that this business has become even more ruthless than it was in my day.
For all you discount store portait employees, keep your sales average up, book those appointments and don't plan on retiring from there.

CPI corp is a great place to work and most of it's employees have been there for 10 or more years. Yes, you probably all did get wrote up for not performing and doing your job, dressing appropriately, following the rules, but it isn't for everyone and some people can't follow simple rule or instruction, so if you're not good at it then it's a good idea to move on.

I have been an employee of both Sears portrait studio and Picture Me! and I am in the process of filing a lawsuit against Picture Me! for several reasons I had to wait over a year to receive my mandatory managers raise. iI have had an associate, who is friends with my DM walk off the job on three different occasions during the middle of the day and be rehired at a higher rate. My DM diane Jackson Dist 382 is now trying to force me to quit my job after all the money i have made for this company I am so disgusted. My studio was the top in the district for almost the whole year and I was made to work without an associate every time the one I had would walk off the job. She has been rehired at a managers pay rate, Yes I checked it and now they want me to quit, well guess what I am going to wait and see what corporate has to say and if I dont like it I am on my way to court!

The worst place ever to work.. Bad attitudes, amateurs, no concept of costumer service, no knowledge of how to properly run a business, and all they care about is money, and selling bigger packages. If it's someone that's only coming in to get the one pose package and the know they can't upsell them, they wont even give them the time of day. Sad sad sad sad.. I will never work for another place like this again! and I feel really sorry for the people that get stuck with the crap overly priced prints they receive from them..

I have worked for and personally observed the complete abuse of hourly employees, and salaried employees for this company. There is a CLASS ACTION SUIT currently pending, and the higher ups are in a frenzy! Continual conf calls from upper management to cover up, lie, and get rid of anyone who might be a good witness. FRED WANISKA, THE REGIONAL DIRECTOR IN TEXAS, HAS A CRIMINAL RECORD IN COLLIN COUNTY FOR DISRUPTING A 911 CALL FROM HIS WIFE AS HE WAS ABUSING HER. THE COURT TRANSCRIPTS ARE PUBLIC RECORD. HE HAS HAD CHARGES FROM FORMER EMPLOYEES ABOUT SEXUAL HARRASSMENT, BUT THIS WAS ALL SWEPT UNDER THE RUG BY JIM MATTOX AND ADELLA IN HR.Hmmm...yet this is the type of person CPI choses to lead the LARGEST Region in the company. The Regional Director in Arizona also worked for Jim Mattox in the past at PCA, before he was fired for NUMEROUS SEXUAL HARRASSMENT COMPLAINTS. But when CPI purchased PCA out of a bankruptcy, Mattox brought his "good 'ole boy" back to run Arizona and Nevada. I've seen, heard, and witnessed calls, photos, and text messages exchanged between many of the upper management joking and teasing about the "larger women" working for the company. I have made complaints to Adella in HR, but everything gets lost, or overlooked, with the proof. The class action coming up is in numerous states, and more people need to jump on board in every state. I hope the people whom have been terminated will hear of it, they will make excellent witnesses, and CPI will be paying out BIG for the uncompensated work time. I also hope the corruption and cover-ups are seen by the Board and soon. RD, Fred Waniska talks about being a Team, then laughs and boasts about his wife who is terminally ill, and the life insurance he will be collecting. There are several of us who hear him talk to us or on the phone about how she is suffering, and deserves it. THAT IS PLAIN SICK. I hope he gets reported so the State or CPI can check and see if she is ok or being tended to. HE HAS BEEN OUT OF HIS MIND TO DISCUSS SUCH HORRIBLE CIRCUMSTANCES, AND IT IS CLEAR THIS SICKO SHOULDN'T BE MANAGING ANYONE. He takes pleasure in scareing people and degrading people. I AM GOING TO TRY AND FIND HIS WIFE AND 3YR OLD DAUGHTER AND SEE IF THEY ARE OK, BECAUSE THOSE OF US WHO WORK FOR HIM ARE NOT, AND THE COMPANY DOESNT CARE. Everything gets trashed and oredered to be covered up. This company is going to take some BIG financial hits, and many of us wont be keeping quiet about it any longer

CPI is laying off more people this week to ensure Managment bonuses.

David Meyers, Tom Gallahue, Renato Cataldo, and Dale Heins are all terrible people. Do yourself a favor and avoid the company both for employment and services.

They do not care about employees or customers...just the bottom line. Moral there is awful...

I am a manager without training and as made to work through my lunchs and when the other girl quit I as made to work open to close without any breaks and also have had someone else "fix" my time sheets, to show that I had taken a lunch. I also got forced to sign a document for owing the studio money for sheets I had ordered of my family, (at regular price no discount). I am looking forward to sueing them.

Ive been working for PictureMe! for 15 months. I went 3 months with out a day off. I havent had a single person working with me for over months at a time. I didnt get any lunches and worked over 10 hours a day. All this with out a complaint. I work in Alaska and the weather is freezing. My heater was broke all winter and I was wearing a jacket, gloves, and two pairs of socks and still was sick all winter. They gave me a little 1o$ heater a YEAR later. So all my devotion and sacrifice for this company and I go into work today, to find my ACTING DM sitting there and told me I was Terminated. After all ive been through and done. I am at lost now and need to find a job. I have never been written up or verbally disciplined.This came out of no where. When's enough, fair?! Never for CPI Corp. If you are desperate for a job dont even take this one. They treat you so bad, or just leave you high and dry. I have a 98$ prs which is good in the company and the best in my district. I was a great employee!

By the way, I was forced to step down after this trip to St. Louis Mo. This was the worst job I have ever had.

I worked for PCA/CPI for three years and went through hell for most of that time. I was promoted to Studio Manager within 6 months and in less than 6 months after that was promoted to District Manager. During the time I was District Manager, I was responsible for closing 3 out of 4 of the studios I ran and then was put in charge of another 4 studios that were at least three hours from my home town and base operation. I was expected to travel accross Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota in the middle of winter which was a feat of its own. While traveling to Wyoming I had to stop and get a room for the night and watched the 10:00 news which stated there was a huge winter storm moving in. I contacted my Regional Director to inform him of the storm, while informing him of this storm he decided to degrade me and tell me that I better get my but up and on the road home first thing in the morning. He also told me that I had wasted the companies time and money for a useless trip. Not more than an hour of crossing the Montana/Wyoming border all roads leading to and from Wyoming were closed and remain closed for 5 days. I would have been stranded in Wyoming for this time without the funds to survive. This is just one of the several situations I faced when dealing with higher management in this company. This also a man whom yelled at me infront of my peers for yawning in his meeting. I had just flown for the first time since I was 12 years old, was 30 at that time, and went accross time zones. My body didn't have time to adjust to the changes it had just been through. My Regional Director brought me to tears infront of everyone and expected me to just deal with it and later accussed me of walking out of his meeting when I had less than two hours to catch my flight home, and he had not offered any soulution if I had in fact missed my flight. Does this seem like a company that treats their employees fairly? I think not. This company needs a lesson in human relations!

I had the opposite problem! I had to take almost every session (on the half hour) while my manager did nothing!

CORPORATE SUCKS! My manager did the same thing to me when I started.

I wish I would have read this before I decided to take a job at a wal mart Picture me! I hate how i am treated and I'm tired of reading e-mails that threaten your job... I'm about to quit on the spot! And I just got told about a conference call that I have to be on today... I have another job and am unable to be at their beck and call all the time. I also never get off when I am supposed to and I get rude remarks about it from my manager. She thinks its funny!... I also barely get to take pictures when I am working with my manager because she takes my sessions and pretty much pushes me out of the way of the camera. Then gives it to me when she realizes that they are going to get the cheap package... That way her average is amazing and mine goes down the drain. Coorporate is even worse then she is. We get about 10 e-mails a week that tell us our jobs are in jeopardy... welll at this point I could care less if I was fired.!

To poedass! I'll call u on ur BS. First of all as an employee, you did NOT pay $400 for 2 CD's. Second of all, even at full price, a 16x20 is 99.99 framed and mounted! And, if ur the person talkin about teading CD's for tattoos on another post, then, yeah, you should have had to pay!

The saddest thing about reading all of this is knowing that CPI is still growing. They did buy out Kiddie Kandids, where I worked. Since we had just opened, we did not have appointments and were responsible for going out and finding our on business. But on our own time and dime. My manager was the sweetest person and I feel so bad that CPI turned her. She did not have reliable transportation and I lived the closest to the store, so I was always called in. I was called in so much, I was fired from my other job that was paying me more. Big mistake on my part to want to make our studio great and get kicked in the [censor] for it. My DM was the worst. Amber Allen would call my personal cell phone at 11:30 at night to ask a question the manager could have anwsered. She wrote me up for something she agreed I could do, but "forgot that she approved it". When I wanted to discuss talk about it, she decieded the right time would be while I was in the middle of a shoot with a 4 month old baby. I told her over and over again that I was in a shoot and needed to call her back. But no, she went on and on and cussed me out. (All while I'm with a customer). I finally left after I was put in a full leg cast due to a stress fracture in 3 different spots, which I got because I had to cover for my manager yet again on a sprianed ankle on my day off. i told my manager I was in a lot of pain and should not be working. She told me the bus ride was too long to get to work. I asked for her to call someone else in to cover her shift, without calling she said no one was available. And now after being gone over 2 months, a new employee (I dont even know her name) got my phone number. I was called over 200 times from a restricted number by her harrassing me and threatening my life. Her performance with a customer was horrible, I watched first hand. I still liked my manager and studio at that time and felt that I should let my manager know how her studio was being represented while she was not there. I wrote a confidental letter to the manager simply saying she was rude and lazy. And in return I get harrassed for 3 hours and have my life threatened. Sorry not for CPI. Are you freakin ridiculus, get a life. And of course as we have all stated her, there is no way to contact CPI to let them know. They dont care, but I thought they might want to know before their employee gets arrested out of their studio. So from Canada all the way down to Houston (where I am) CPI, Picture Me, Sears, Kiddie Kandids is a horrible place to work.

Glad to see that I am not the only one being subjected to poorly trained management. My manager at Sears Portrait left an email to the DM clearly taking me to be 'slow' when in actuality, it is her failure to properly train that has caused the issues. I am in the process of attempting to deal with the DM, will be sending a letter with a copy of the email to head office and am filing a complaint with Human Rights for discrimination (the manager was told about my panic disorder and blatantly told me it does not matter. She has hired three kids and is using one of them as a scapegoat to vouch for her poor management...this kid is of course going to back her...I don't get the privilege of having a 3rd party to vouch for me...why should she?

I also am a FORMER employee for CPI Corp. I paid them $400 for 2 cd's that I had burnt and took home. PLUS $170 for a 16x20 that I bought for a friend of mine, which I NEVER received due to the fact that my associate sent it back to corporate. My CROOKED DM refuses to give me back ANY OF THE PROPS that I paid for and brought in. Some of which, weren't even mine... They were borrowed by me from family members. WHAT CAN I DO TO RESOLVE THIS ISSUE? Please help.

class action lawsuit, represented by zimmerman reed
complaint filed in september

http://www.zimmreed.com/uploads/CPI-Complaint.pdf

also contact information for law firm at

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/cpi-portrait-studio-employees-represented-by-zimmerman-reed-pllp-file-class-action-against-cpi-corp-2010-07-27

www.zimmreed.com

Can not find lawsuit on browser. what do I need to put in?

I am working in Colorado. I have seen the horrible atmosphere. CPI had recently took over Kiddy Kandid. I have watched managers fight in front of new employees and bash each other in front of the trainees. They have fired people and are telling other employees why the other employee has been fired. They also force people to come in sick if they don't have coverage. Tell me if I am wrong but when people are working with infants should they be sick? I am pretty sure that infants don't develop an immune system until at least 3 months and even then it's not strong. I am sorry but I would not want a sick photographer handling my infant. In all reality CPI and CPI management don't really care about their employees. Really the only thing they care about is the money. I almost forgot. They try to make PART TIME employees work FULL TIME hours with out the full time benefits.

Look up lawsuit cpi sears portrait studio in your browser. If you have worked or are currently working for cpi you should get in on this lawsuit. its going big

I worked for Picture Me for 2 years and after being on several websites reading complaints by employees and former employees of CPI I don't think that it's just one or two bad DM's. It is way more than that. Reguardless of whether it's an entrylevel job or not no manager or company has the right to tell you that you can not take a lunch break. It is a federal law that each employee is required to have a lunch break and if they don't get one the government will place very heafty fines on a company upon their discovery. It is not selfish to want to eat as you need food to survive. I used to not label this company as a bad one however upon the research I've been doing lately I realize that they are a bad company as far as employees go. They are treated unfairly and asked/made to work hellish hours and not want to pay them for the dedication that they have to their job and customers. As far as customers only being available during your lunch time during christmas, it's NOT reasonable. We start doing christmas pics in October and you are saying that for two months the only time they have available is during you lunch time, give me a break! I have worked in all kinds of retail places during the holidays and I have never in my life been denied a break or lunch. There is definately a difference between being devoted and being a CPI slave!

I have been working with CPI for 3 Years (before they were PCA). But anyways, alot of yalls complaints are ignorant. Yeah there are some valid points but...ok- for instance. This is an entry level job which offers excellent advancement for people who will not go to college. AN ENTRY LEVEL JOB FOLKS...meaning associates are easily replaceable if their attitude or performance is not up to par. This is reasonable. Portrait buisnesses that have prices like Picture Me and Sears leave very little room for profit. They need the best out there, and it is hard to find. They have been through quite a few associates in my district since I have started. You have to be very responsible and value your job to make it with CPI. Yeah sometimes no lunch break, but you can either take your lunch break or make money for your studio, or take pictures for customers that were only available on your lunch time (which during christmas this is reasonable!). You must be devoted. Sometimes you can not eat, unless you have medical problems this should not be an issue if you ARENT SELFISH. Customers are more important than a lunch SOMETIMES. Also, with an entrylevel job it is hard for a company such as this to find enough good employees, so if your mad about the studio manager...please understand that if she is that bad you can probably replace her. Develop a good relationship with your dm and always talk to her about issues NOT THE STUDIO MANAGER. Really the manager is just an associate with no real authority that has to do more tasks than associates. I mean comeon you guys...if you can not talk to your dm because she is not doing right either talk to the regional director (this number should be easy to attain). Just build a solid logical case before calling so you dont sound dumb.
ANYWAYS- DO NOT label this company a bad company JUST BECAUSE your DM can not do a good job. I have been in 2 districts and both dms were great.
PLEASE do apply but do make firm guidelines about traveling and times available and do not travel once if you dont want to other wise you will have to alot.
I can say so much more...but CPI has been good to be because I care about my job and have good work ethic and am rewarded for it. If you think you can do the same then go for it.