Complaint Review: Olan Mills - Jacksonville Florida

I know this is an old post, but I saw the rebuttal from another newer employee that had some things that were incorrect.Typically, ASRs (those that work the coupon sales outside of the studio) know nothing about what really goes on inside the studio and the rules and procedures that we have to follow. Their job is not in the studio. It is true that we can only clock in at a certain time. It used to be right on the dot...Now we have to clock in 10 minutes before the studio is to be open. If we clock in any sooner and our programs do not show that it was necessary then we can get into trouble. The same goes with our lunches..we are required to take at least a 30 but they prefer an hour and if you take less then your computer better show that a 30 minute was all you could take. It is incorrect when the previous person said that no one checks times that are clocked in and out. Oh yes they do...they check everything you do. To the original poster, sorry about your experience at Olan Mills when you went to pick your portraits up. I'm not sure what is going on in the district you went to but that behavior is unacceptable and would not be tolerated with my district. To me it seems like in your situation the person who treated you that way forgot to leave their attitude and problems at the door. That person took their bad day out on you and that was uncalled for. What you should have done was stayed there and demanded that she look for your portraits. Chances are the portraits were in the drawer but because she was running behind she didn't want to get them. You should have been called if it was the case that they were not in because YES we do call! It's not true that we don't answer calls during business hours. No, we will not stop a session to answer a call, but if we can then we do answer. 

I recently joined the Olan Mills team as an "ASR" aka the person that stands in front of K-mart/Belk/etc trying to sell portrait packages. I just wanted to add that even as an employee, it is impossible to get any kind of information from the higher-up management. Even my direct manager cannot tell me the correct hours I am supposed to work more than one day in advance (and she is still wrong most of the time). The only phone number I was given (besides the regular studio numbers that you can find in the phone book) was her cell phone number. ALL information I get is filtered through her. On my first pay check (which was supposed to be direct-deposited, but showed up in the mail), I made 198 dollars worth of "spiff" for 8 hours of training and 8 hours of actual working. You know as much as I do as to how that happened or how "spiff" bonuses are calculated. I have asked and no one seems to be able to explain how I made 22 dollars an hour. There was also MUCH confusion the first couple of days I worked as to where I was supposed to be and what hours I was supposed to work. My "trainer" didn't do anything the whole time she was training me except sit and chat, shop at K-Mart, and play the "drop-down-crane" machine game. As far as April from Florida's experience goes, I will say this: there is a VERY large turnover rate in employees at Olan Mills (even in lower level management). So, one experience doesn't indicate how the next will be because it's VERY likely that someone else is managing how things are done. And as far as having to wait for the girl to clock-in, that IS NOT the case. Clock In/Clock Out is done via their computer system, and you get paid for however long you are there. As far as I know, it is all done through the computer and no human checks to see how many hours anyone actually works. So you didn't have to wait for that, April. Also, all the portraits are shipped from Tennessee. They are SUPPOSED to be ready EXACTLY two weeks from the date you took them. I have never seen any problems with arrival, but I live closer to Tennessee. To address the answering the phone business: it's true. If the photographer is with a customer taking photos, he/she won't answer the phone. And, though it depends studio to studio, some photographers (like mine) won't let us ASRs answer the phone. All of that being said, most of the long-time photographers really know their stuff. So, if you can find that certain person, and stick with them, they WILL give you really good deals. The photographer I work with has been with the company for over 20 years and her customers all have plans which get them really great values.