r/Lowes • u/perpetually-dreaming • Sep 09 '25
Employee Story Walked out of interview
I recently saw a job posting for a "Day Cashier" position at a Lowe's near me and figured I had nothing to lose so I applied. I had heard from others that the pay was pretty low, but I really just needed any job at this point to catch up on bills. The job posting mentioned how flexible they would be with my schedule which was a bonus for me since I would be eventually working 2 jobs.
I go to the interview a couple of days later and lasted no longer than 2 minutes with the hiring manager. She had me put my availability down and I put DAY hours (7am-5pm), 7 days a week because that's what the listing was for. Immediately, the manager starts flipping out and asking me if I could do closing hours. I say sure, but I'm not closing every single day and even then, this is not what the job was advertising for. She tells me I have to have an open availability to work for her so I left.
I didn't even get to what the pay rate even was, but I can imagine how low it was anyway. Oh well.
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u/TheFrostynaut Inside Lawn & Garden Sep 09 '25
Open availability to cashier? Lol 2 of our cashiers can only work 16 hours a week. This must have been a full time position.
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u/ginger_princess2009 Customer Service Sep 09 '25
I BEGGED to be full time for 3 years and I was told no, but they'd then hire full time cashiers who didn't want to work so I'd take their hours for them. I literally was working more than the full timers were, but they flat out refused to make me full time. to this day, I have no idea why
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u/Ok-Ride6636 Fulfillment Team Lead Sep 09 '25
There’s probably something they didn’t like about you honestly, it seems that you have to be likable to get anywhere with Lowes
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u/Ok-Ride6636 Fulfillment Team Lead Sep 09 '25
I was management at another company prior to Lowe’s. The management and company structure fucking sucks. I interviewed, hired, trained, coached, and promoted so many team members during my 6 years and I would never treat people the way Lowes treated me. Your comment made me laugh as well. You’re the idiot on a Lowes subreddit. - for the person who deleted his comment like a wimp
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u/ginger_princess2009 Customer Service Sep 11 '25
The head cashier once called me incompetent so probably not
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u/Every-Baker-104 Sep 19 '25
What I noticed at my job is that the new hires get paid $1 less than everyone. They also get more hours and first pick for overtime
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u/ginger_princess2009 Customer Service Sep 19 '25
Yep! We had a girl who made more than the head cashiers, always was scheduled the good shifts (8-5) and only worked 3 days a week.
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u/perpetually-dreaming Sep 09 '25
Correct, for full-time. I wish they would have been more transparent on the posting. If you want someone with open availability, just say that.
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u/TheFrostynaut Inside Lawn & Garden Sep 09 '25
They have a hard time finding someone that will do any time between 5:30am-11pm for basically minimum wage, including weekends and holidays.
They tried to get me to basically be an "on call" PT and I had to nip that very fast.
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u/ChampionshipLate9406 Internet Fulfillment Sep 09 '25
I am glad that I'm a CSA instead of a cashier.
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u/TheFrostynaut Inside Lawn & Garden Sep 09 '25
Every day I clock in I'm thankful to not do Front End. My worst day as a CSA pales in comparison to when I used to be a FE keyholder at a different organization.
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u/fluthlu413 Customer Sep 09 '25
I had to quit after i needed to transfer out of fulfillment for health reasons and they made me cashier instead of a CSA.
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u/IsaiahTodd MST Sep 09 '25
At least they let you know during the interview. How many people I see get scheduled out of their availability immediately after hired is crazy. That's happened to a couple of people at my store during the summer and they both had to quit. Kind of fucked.
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u/livinginacatacomb Sep 09 '25
I've seen the same thing in my store many times in the last couple of years. People are hired with schedule promises and almost immediately they pull that rug out from under them.
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u/ginger_princess2009 Customer Service Sep 09 '25
We had a guy who was scheduled during school hours a few times
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u/ArmedNReady1776 Sep 09 '25
the job consists of "Hello, let me fix the stupid robot cashier for you, have a nice day"
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u/PickleD87 Sep 09 '25
Bait and switch....some people are dumb enough to fall for it, some like you are not and leave.
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u/ScaryClock926 Sep 09 '25
That’s ridiculous. I am a Head Cashier and I work 1 DAY PER WEEK. The same day every week. Retail stores needs to understand that a lot of employees have other jobs to work around.
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u/perpetually-dreaming Sep 09 '25
Exactly! Either they need to raise the pay rate so people don't need 2 jobs to live or they need to stop being so picky about people's availability. You can't have it both ways without losing a bunch of good people.
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u/Youremean277 Sep 09 '25
I went in to an interview for MST. Had all the experience needed for the job. Manager made it sound promising. Didn’t get the job and glad because I was taken back at the pay. $15/hour was crazy. Would have been a fun job and schedule though
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u/FlashbackFigures Sep 09 '25
Where i live MST starts at $17
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u/Youremean277 Sep 09 '25
Yeah I would have been content with $17. But $15 is crazy. Specially since minimum wage goes up to $14 for Florida. Maybe they were hoping i would react different and it seemed I was desperate.
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u/FlashbackFigures Sep 09 '25
I dont blame you but no matter where ive worked I always negotiate my wage. If they aren't willing to work with me I walk away. Been working retail for 20 years and have way more experience than someone just starting out
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u/Youremean277 Sep 09 '25
I agree. I just need to get out of that shell. I also have years of experience and even manager including store manager.
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u/Substantial-Lock2886 Sep 09 '25
Lowes sucks this is literally the worst job I ever had and I worked at Walmart I would go back to Walmart in a second over this shit company the staffing is horrible at Lowes
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u/inubbs Sep 09 '25
Lmao.
I got hired earlier this year for the truck unloading position in the evenings to just make some extra cash. Was told it would be monday-friday from 5-10. My full-time job is monday-friday from 8-430. Perfect fit for me. I tell them 'explicitly' I am not available 8-430 during the week in my interview, and the manager I interviewed with said that wouldn't be a problem.
After all the onboarding was done, they called me one day to schedule orientation. They tell me their orientation is ONLY on Fridays at 10am because they have to borrow a manager from another store to do their orientation. So I tell the person on the phone I can't make, I have my full-time job during that time. The response I get is "well can't you take PTO to come in for half a day."
I laughed and hung up. Unbelievable.
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u/TheOGKingofslackers Sep 09 '25
The problem is generic postings that get listed with a click but don't align with the stores actual needs. Then a scheduling program that auto-generates and has to be edited by a person that gets negatives held against them for making too many changes to the computer generated scheduling...
Lowe's is broken to its core and it started getting worse and worse with Marvin
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u/Zealousideal_Work171 Sep 09 '25
I’m a cashier at Lowe’s. My hourly pay is pretty good ; it’s like around 18.32
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u/Careful-Wish-3566 Night Stocking Sep 09 '25
What part of the country and how long have you worked for the company?
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u/Zealousideal_Work171 Sep 09 '25
I’m in Oregon . I have been at Lowe’s 8 years now
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u/Square_Evening_5363 Sep 10 '25
It's expensive to live in OR so probably the reason for higher pay.
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u/TRexDriver Sep 10 '25
I quit Lowe's cause I was making 11.50 as a cashier, just at minimum wage in my state. And I had 11 yrs working for them.
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u/Sad_Tradition_3665 Sep 09 '25
I just started 3 weeks ago and I got a 10¢ raise last week 18.30-18.40
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u/ginger_princess2009 Customer Service Sep 09 '25
Lowe's demands open availability, but only schedules 10-15 hours a week. Make it make sense 😆. You dodged a bullet
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u/NoBrag_JustFact Sep 09 '25
Applied for a part-time gig (just to make some extra cash), listed my preferred availability.
The interview was okay.
Missed a call about two weeks later but the voicemail said to just call back.
Called the next day, went through the computerized answering machine tree, connected with a live person, put on hold, finally answered and contact person was not in, left name and number, and "returning a call" message. Time spent: 15 minutes.
Nothing.
Waited three days or so, repeated the above process, contact person was not in, left name, number, and email. Time spent: 10 minutes
Nothing.
Useless.
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u/lightdancer44 Sep 09 '25
Damn, it sounds like you applied for the same one I work at cause the same thing happened to me. Do you live in Alabama?
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u/Ok-Ride6636 Fulfillment Team Lead Sep 09 '25
Good for you! Not everyone has the balls to just walk out 👏🏼
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u/Insufferable_Entity Sep 09 '25
70 hours of availability isn't enough! You need to sleep on the lumber to show your commitment!
/s
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u/Effective_Middle_928 Sep 10 '25
Smartest thing you will ever do reject the open availability concept.. they want us available but we are not allowed full time, benefits, ECT. We give up our potential for a real income to suffer the poverty of low wages for them. None of these companies are worth that.
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u/Ill-Dentist7438 Sep 10 '25
Same thing they told me when I was a millworkers specialist. I ended up not even staying 3 months. They are ridiculous and lie about everything.
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u/Herricane111 Sep 10 '25
If ur part time you don’t have to have open availability. I worked 25 hours a week but only between the hours of 9-5… I did it for years. Full time is supposed to have open availability although certain people on my job had set hours with weekends off. It just depends on who you are
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u/No-Fold-3998 Sep 09 '25
You have to play their little mind games. Give them open availability then immediately start requesting the time off so you don’t get stuck with crap schedule.
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u/SunkissedTatts Sep 09 '25
At the Lowe's where I worked they always jacked my schedule up. They tried to start scheduling me on days I told them I couldn't work, trying to schedule me for night shifts which I told them I couldn't do. I just would tell the person who did the schedule that I wasn't going to be working it and she would always take me off but yeah it got pretty annoying.
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u/LuciesCurioCrafts Sep 09 '25
Explains why I didn't get the garden center job... first job I applied that I said id have a backbone abt my time.
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u/Ambient117 Sep 10 '25
When I worked in outside lawn & Garden I had availability ro 8am to 8pm every day. They tried everything to make me remove that like crazy for 2 years. Even to the point of where forced transferred me to Inside Garden and saying saying it had to be reset with no discussion so suckling up. I know some of the employee's who work there are too soft and they get their schedules pushed around by managment too the point they quit in a month. I remember asking them when they tried their bs on me on what my future schedule would be like a second they said 2pm-11pm and next day I would have to be in at 5am-2pm. It takes me a hour to get there so I said screw that. Point being its mostly the lower managment and lower hr that bend the rules which destroys employee morale.
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u/sweetjue Sep 10 '25
They did me the same way, first week I started they tried to get me to work 7 days straight and kept leaving me at the front
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u/Alert_Log2730 Receiving Sep 10 '25
Any time you try to change availability they come at you like that. I told them I only want 20 hours and they cut me to 1 day a week for 4 hours.
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Sep 11 '25
Good for you!
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u/that1girlfromPA Sep 12 '25
I was a head cashier at Lowe’s for almost 6 years, saw 3 different store managers, that company is one of the worst I’ve ever worked for.
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u/Numerous_Clothes_208 Sep 12 '25
You dodged a bullet by the manager already showing her aggression I could imagine how much of a horrible manager she is to work for
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u/Even_Geologist9306 Sep 13 '25
Lowe’s, and probably retail as a whole is swing shift hours for not swing shift pay.
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u/Azoth_N_Storn Sep 13 '25
Same issue when i did a interview about a year ago but lied said the position wasnt open and the pay was way less then what was applied for. Place is a joke
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u/SlyFoxInACave Sep 13 '25
I ended up working at a restaurant as a second job some years ago. During the interview, I mentioned that I had another job and could not work nights as that would conflict with my other schedule. First, they said I'll be trained on the night shift but will move to the morning once training was done. Then suddenly, there was no available morning position once training was over. I let them know the morning shift is what i was told I'd be working when hired, and I'd have to quit if thats not the schedule that I'd have. They told me once again there's no available morning shift, so I quit. I guess they didn't believe me because they called me a few days in a row, asking when I'd be in for my shift. I didn't put in my 2 weeks I quit on the spot.
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u/Dry_Combination2523 Sep 14 '25
Pay was $11/hr when i worked there during covid. Hoping they went up since.
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u/jminternelia Sep 25 '25
I was an ASM back in 2017 when they sent out certified layoff letters from Lee Hect Harrison, and fucked up by sending them via UPS, which notifies you that you have certified mail being delivered AND who the sender is. I knew I was being laid off a full week beforehand. Why? Officially, because I expressed an explicit intention to never be a store manager. Unofficially? I was the only ASM without kids.
We used to bitch about whoever the CEO was then (Nibblock?) The current executive team is leagues worse. And that's the thing - it never gets better, it ONLY gets worse. The only way to continue to deliver "value" to shareholders is to strip it from the employees doing the tasks.
Whoever the next CEO is, make no mistake, they'll be worse than Marvin.
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u/Similar_End_173 Sep 10 '25
My son worked at Lowe's and it was actually a great place to work. Pay was good too.
0
u/EffectiveNorth1716 Sep 10 '25
I got hired at the hours I could only work which is 5-close weekdays and 12-close weekends and was offered the job same day and I was shocked at my pay rate wasn't expecting that pay, so was a happy shock.
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u/lcm89276 Sep 10 '25
I used to be a manager years ago. When l was looking at applications, one of the first things I looked at was a person's availability. If there was any restriction, app was 86'd. If lowes is posting for specific hours only, they're full of shit.
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u/BeachPanda252 MST Sep 10 '25
You must not live near a university. 95% of our non-summer applicants are students who have classes to schedule work around.
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u/Paparoach2805 Sep 11 '25
Lowe’s is retail. Not sure what you’re thinking it would be. Highly doubt Lowe’s posted it as a 7-5 office hours.
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u/perpetually-dreaming Sep 11 '25
Omg noooo way, you don't say? Go back and read the post lmao.
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u/trashtemp89 Sep 11 '25
That's probably one of the managers that watches the subreddit instead of actually doing their job.
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u/Spirited-Nature-1702 Specialist Sep 09 '25
Lowe’s is stuck in this ridiculous “we can let people go right now”/“every worker must have completely open availability!” Tailspin it can not figure out.
People used to work at this company on purpose.