Sabon Reviews

Owner is a liar and a crook! He manipulates the employees into thinking he has gifted them this great opportunity and then doesn't allow them breaks. You WILL work 10 - 11 hour shifts without a break. You will NOT be paid overtime. If you are hourly, you will be asked to work at a different location so he can claim that it is a different company and won't have to pay you overtime. If you are salary, you will be made to feel that if you are not there 6 days a week you are not doing your job. If you work here, you will be made to feel like this should be your life for little pay. On your days off, expect to get phone calls from the owner. You are made to feel bad for asking for time off. The conditions of working there are terrible! The rule for stores not in a mall are that you MUST have the doors open if it's 35 degrees of above. So if it's 35 outside, expect that you will be working in the freezing cold, wearing a jacket, expected to pass out soap samples. He will place a small heater by the door which is suppose to keep you warm. Not only that, it's not safe to leave young cute college students working a large store by themselves at 9:00 at night. Some of the employees have had to deal with many homeless people coming into the store and others being sexually harassed by people walking in the store. Customers would comment, "Is it safe here this late at night for you?" When this was brought to the attention of the owner, he told the employees to stand behind the counter and ask them to leave. REALLY???? Thanks for caring about the wellbeing of your employees. He will blame everyone around him for the failure of his company except him. He is rude and overall a bad person. He will promise you raises, more opportunity, promotions, and NEVER follow through. He will give people promotion "trials" and see if they can handle it. After giving them the title, he leaves town for 3 weeks and then asks you why everything went wrong. He will come to the conclusion that just couldn't do it when in reality, you can't expect to thrown someone into a position with no training, encouragement, performance reviews, communication, etc. If you are a manager here, that means nothing! You are not given any time with any of your employees to train because you can't afford the payroll. So everyone works by themselves everyday of the week except Saturdays. That's right, you are left alone, in a store to fend for yourself with insufficient training and then blamed for when things go wrong. You are completely set up to fail here. The stores were NEVER fully stocked, even after a shipment came in. People would come in on a daily basis and leave because we didn't have the product or scent they were looking for. Customers would ask if we were closing because the shelves would be so empty. It got so bad that we would start tallying every time a customer asked for something we didn't have, and sometimes in a day it would add up to over 20 (which is a lot if you knew the lack of traffic these stores see). People would come in wanting $200-$300 gift sets with a list of things they wanted and we wouldn't have over half of what they wanted so they would leave. We were consistently told that we should have sold them what we did have. Really?!?! That's a great idea for a first time customer who has never seen our products before, but for repeat customers who have their favorite things, they don't want different ones. When it came time for a shipment, we wouldn't get everything in stock and he would blame the warehouse, however, if you ever were to go into a store in NYC or even the one in Minneapolis, their shelves were always FULL. He only owns the ones in the Chicago area so it makes sense that our stores would always have the bare minimum because he is cheap. What he doesn't realize, is that when people come in to your store and you don't have what they are looking for, they leave upset and go somewhere else. You just lost a loyal customer! With all of this happening and sales down, it was, according to him, the fault of the employees who couldn't sell. Well, if you gave us product to sell and filled your shelves with the products your customers want, then maybe you would make some sales!

1) VERY unethical towards customers: a) You are expected to lie to customers all of the time. Dead Sea salt scrubs are marketed as good for psoriasis, eczema, and acne, but as soon as you meet someone who actually suffers from the former two, you back off and say that they should stick to something gentle or check out the organic line. b) Products might not be tested on animals, but that doesn't mean the ingredients haven't been. c) We lie to customers and send their receipts to their emails so they get a free gift because we are "going green" but the receipt gets printed anyway. Also we waste a LOT of water and paper towels every day washing people's hands. It's disgusting. We also keep our doors open in the summer and winter so we waste a ton of energy. 2) awful ethics regarding employees: a) doors open with the heat on in the winter means we can see our breath indoors and have to work in many layers and wear gloves inside. it's hard to talk to customers when your teeth are chattering. b) managers micro-manage. you are often interrupted and told that the store is not making big enough sales and managers breathe down your neck and make you too uncomfortable to be the best salesperson you can be. The best sales I have made (upwards of $600) have been in the absence of a manager. c) corporate makes your managers stressed out, so they end up pressuring you constantly even though there is nothing to be done. d) soap sampling is pathetic e) you get a 30 minute break for a 8-9 hour day f) you are treated like a machine by employers g) upper management can be extremely patronising when they visit your store h) no commission even though you are expected to shove products in people's baskets like your life is on the line i) customers can be very disrespectful, especially because of the sales tactics we are pressured to use. No customer/associate relationship is developed. j) ******IMPORTANT***** it is very hard to reach target, it's just a tactic used by corporate to get you to make more sales without ever reaching the incentive (why would they pay you a bonus of $300 if they can get away with putting it just out of your reach? they get away with not even paying commission because of this bonus. The only store that makes the target is Prince street.). k) even if you work part time, you are expected to have no social life. managers have told me to "never make plans". I work full time and don't really feel like I have a life right now. I'm just working. I was pretty fine with this job for the first few weeks I was working here. Today, I wore an apron over multiple layers of sweaters and a poofy winter coat to stay warm at work and an assistant manager told me that I looked pregnant. I have an eating disorder and this made me have a panic attack at work. Even if I didn't have a problem, management should know better than to joke about something like that. This job is very stressful for $9.00/hr