Abercrombie & Fitch Reviews in Miami-Fort Lauderdale, FL Area

Pros

Good healthcare plan and benefits, good coworkers

Cons

The company is completely obsessed with how "great looking" you are, and Senior management promotes heavily (99%) based on looks. Prettiest girls always got promoted to SM the fastest. DM often threw temper tantrums. There were unrealistic expectations for store experience -- upper management demands perfectly board folded, size stickered stacks of clothes and yet we never have enough budget hours to accomplish everything. You will at times feel like a janitor, as we have to direct the usually teenage models to clean the store before open (1 model can't possibly clean a huge store in the 1 hour before open so the manager usually has to do half of it).

We lost over 200 units a week due to theft (we were a Target store) and yet company refused to give us LP agent to help. The handicap fitting room didn't even have a lock on it! People would sneak back there and pop sensors off the clothes and there was nothing we could do about it except give them "great customer service." What a joke! You would think they would at least lock up the fragrances but they are out everywhere in a dimly lit environment, ripe for the taking. Yet you will get yelled at for out of control shrink.

The people can be great, especially other managers, but the models and impacters are oftentimes spoiled high school/college kids who routinely forget to print their schedules and don't show up. Many of them try to do as little as possible, so it is a constant battle to make them do anything. Turnover is extremely high, managers quit all the time and so do part-timers. This is endlessly frustrating because by the time you are able to finally train someone they leave. And who can blame them -- the beautiful people we are supposed to employ usually can find jobs that pay more than 7.50 an hour. Managers are underpaid relative to other retail companies. Also, expect to be inundated with never ending gossip about who is hooking up with who, and endless rumours in general.

Work life balance can be difficult, especially if you are visual manager (and then expect to work 6-4am during floorsets and updates). I average about 9 hours a day (with 1 hour unpaid break that is mandatory). Expect to work all holidays and nights (night shift is from 2pm-11pm). Getting a full weekend off is rare. This job burns most people out fairly quickly. The one plus is Abercrombie is a good name on your resume and will open the door to many other retail jobs that pay more. My co-workers have left for Guess, Louis Vuitton, Henri Bendel, Armani etc.

Advice to Senior Management

District Managers need to be more accountable for their promotion decisions. Stop promoting girls just because they are hot and flirt with you. Give us more budget hours to get done what we need to.

Pros

Flexible hours good job if in school

Cons

No hair color
Nail color
No makeup
Min wage pay
Don't really care about the employee

Pros

*Skill building
*Become versatile in developing various areas of expertise, from back of house -> front of house
*Will build character and team skills

Cons

*Low pay
*Intense work environment due to large footfall of customers
*Areas for growth to cities you may not want to live in.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay more to retain great managers. Human resources are your best investment, invest in your staff.

Pros

Flexible schedule
Chance to work in fashion industry
Cash register is fast-paced and more fun than other parts of the store

Cons

The music is blasting and you have a headache by the end of every shift
you must keep all clothes perfectly folded at all times
you must say these terrible "tag lines" to every person that walks in (phrases like "have you checked out our sexy new jeans?")
the smell of cologne is way too strong - they make you spray more on mannequins every hour or so
never really praised for good work - more ridiculed for not having clothes folded properly or not saying the tag line to every customer
never really saw much opportunity for growth

Advice to Senior Management

Give chance to long time associates to move up to a better position.
Don't give more negative feedback than positive
Music and smell too overwhelming for a comfortable work environment

Pros

Abercrombie was an easy job to get. Managers were very easy to get along with. I made a lot of friends for life.

Cons

The dress code sucks. I would wear eyeliner and would be told to wash it off or go home, and even in the winter they expect you to wear flip flops. So wear regular shoes to work and change.

Advice to Senior Management

They made promises of raising the salary but never did. So I say to them: Don't make promises u can't make happen.

Pros

-Great Benefits packages
-You get to work with great looking people

Cons

- There is an innumerable amount of dust in that place, who knows what future causes this could bring
-you are almost forced to stay an hour after you are scheduled to leave but if you're a minute late, you will hear it from your boss.
- Everything you do, feels like busy work, your rain rots in that place, there is no real problem-solving or thinking involved, a ROBOT can do my job.
- The music is ANNOYING. Same songs play over and over 100 times a day. Just hearing the song you hate most come on the jukebox again makes you want to strangle the closest person to you.
- I could write so much more, but i've decided halfway through this cons list that i'm going to quit my job. I worked for the company for one year in 2005, when they had a large song selection play list, when all types of people would get hired, when it was actually a fun place to work. Thinks have changed for the worst.

Advice to Senior Management

Allow customers to select their music again and increase the variety. The music is too loud and you can't hear anything outside of a radius of 5 feet. The company is STINGY on hours and thus has one person doing the job of three. This leads to a bad store experience when the register associate has a line of 6 people and is also attending fitting rooms.

Pros

nice clothes and fun smelled good

Cons

not good hrs so i leftt

Advice to Senior Management

shouldnt hire on looks like they did with others

Pros

Great Benefits, not much else. Attire is casual. Great if you want to live in Ohio and/or value superficial appearances over comprehensive business knowledge.

Cons

No accountability of DM's. favoritism runs rampant. Increasing demands are met with decreasing resources. Upper management is out of touch with store level realities. Upper management does not promote critical thinking. Culture is fake. Promotions have little to do with the empirical business successes and directives.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't get sucked in, a successful career path with A&F forces a compromise of character. Don't trust your supervisors to have your best interests in mind.

Pros

5 hour shifts...but will ask you to stay later if need be.
Co-workers are sympathetic, will give or trade shifts.

Cons

Lack of hours, you have to be the favorite with managers to considered given a shift.
Have to buy the clothes within each season and follow the trend. Hard to do if you not there alot to know what clothing you have to wear and if you had a paycheck for it.
If you get sick on the job, can't go home and if you call in kind of hard trying to find ppl to cover for you.
Having to remember where to prep and place close all the time because the salesfloor and folding styles changes every other day.
Best work for Abercombie.

Advice to Senior Management

Need to give everybody a fair share of hours.

Pros

Uniform way of doing things throughout the company; transferring from one store to another is a pretty smooth transition. Tried & true methods of doing things. Easy work and flexible hours because there are so many employees. Most employees (and people in higher positions) are relatively young, which makes for a good social environment and a relaxed relationship with your boss.

Cons

Minimum wage. The uniformity of the company eventually begins to feel robotic. The discounts aren't as high as you would think, and they only apply to a few items in the store, and only certain colors of those items. Managers tend to move in and out in a revolving door kind of way, and the fact that they're so young can be a plus, but in some cases, you end up with a really immature, passive-aggressive, or arrogant-in-an-adolescent-way boss. You're supposed to do things that make you feel uncomfortable around the customers (use cheesy taglines like "Hey, we've got the coolest jeans! Check them out!" or explain to them that most of the items on display aren't actually carried by the store). The music is really annoying and loud and plays in a 10-15 song loop, which sounds insignificant, but listening to it for 6 hours on end at the absurd volume it plays genuinely sours your work experience.

Advice to Senior Management

I just wish we weren't always responsible for calling people to cover our shifts because it's much easier for other employees to turn us down than to turn down a request from the manager, so the process takes much longer. Other than that, you guys did pretty well.