Thin staffing, broad neglect and exploitative practices at Dollar General and other dollar store chains, such as Dollar Tree and Family Dollar, make working in one of their 37,000 U.S. stores the worst job in retail, according to Bloomberg News.
How ubiquitous are these stores? Those 37,000 locations are more than Walmart, Starbucks and McDonald's combined.
How bad is life inside those stores?
- The average full-time dollar-store worker earns about $18,000 a year.
- Many stores only have one staffer on duty at a time.
- Stock piles up in the aisles and the backroom, making the stores dangerous for customers and employees.
- Managers plea for help on TikTok because corporate won't listen.
- Stores are overrun with rats and birds.
HBO's "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" aired a hilariously scathing takedown of dollar stores on Nov. 20, 2023.
In one store, customers felt so sorry for the lone clerk on duty they volunteered to put milk into the coolers before it spoiled.
“It sure seems like these companies do not care at all. It is hard to overstate the indifference these chains can show to their employees’ working conditions,” Oliver said. “Imagine how monumentally shitty a store would have to be for you ― a customer ― to walk in and say, ‘Oh fuck, they need me!’”
Dollar General, the biggest dollar store chain in the United States, has raked in almost $39 billion in sales this year, an 11 percent increase over 2022's total sales. Dollar Tree, which owns the Family Dollar chain, is reporting $28 billion in sales this year, an 8 percent increase from 2022.
A few years ago, while the COVID-19 pandemic was kicking America in the lungs and putting a lot of people out of work, Dollar General CEO Todd Vasos giddily reveled in how "fabulous" the times were for his stores.
"We do very good in good times and fabulous in — in bad times," Vasos proudly told investors on the May 2020 earnings call. Obviously, in times of trouble shoppers looking to save a buck go where the prices are most affordable. Your pain is their gain.
TikTok is full of dollar store hot takes.
Business Insider is reporting that Dollar General is facing lawsuits, investigations and fines in several states for overcharging customers, which happens mostly because the stores often have just one employee on duty who cannot keep up with price changes.
Bloomberg News, in a report titled Why Dollar General Might Just Be the Worst Retail Job in America, makes the case that the situation is far worse, even dangerous, with expired children's food, blocked fire exits and violent customers.
David Williams was in his first months working at a Dollar General in New Orleans when a manager ordered him to block the fire exits. While he was unloading sausages and soup cans, the manager called him over to a fire door and showed him how to build a pyramid of water cases that would obstruct it. The idea was to deter shoplifting. Williams, who was a Hurricane Katrina refugee in his teens, says he knew this was dangerous, and he felt guilty—especially when customers asked about it. But it seemed clear that, if he wanted to keep his job, he had to do it, so he did. A couple of years later, a week before Christmas 2021, the store caught fire.
Hear more dollar-store horror stories directly from Brendan Case, U.S. retail reporter for Bloomberg News, in this Bloomberg Television piece:
