- A Family Dollar in Lincoln, Nebraska, briefly closed after every worker quit, 10/11 NOW reported.
- Former staff told Insider they had low wages, high turnover, poor management, and long hours.
- The store had already reduced its hours of operation due to a staffing shortage.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
A Family Dollar store in Lincoln, Nebraska, had to temporarily shut its doors after all of its workers quit.
The last two employees holding down the fort quit Sunday, they told Insider. They say another employee quit the day before they did, and the general manager quit several days prior. Local news station 10/11 NOW was first to report the news.
-Jared Austin (@JaredAustin1011) August 8, 2021
Breanna Faeller was one of the store's last two employees. When she walked out on Sunday, she put an orange sign on the door that said, "We all quit! Sorry for the inconvenience!"
Faeller had worked as the store's assistant manager for almost a year. In that time, she increasingly found herself needing to take on responsibilities meant for other workers because the store was short-staffed.
"Once I had to take on all these other duties of essentially five other people that are supposed to be there, it wasn't worth it anymore," she told Insider.
The staffing crunch meant she was working long hours, sometimes from open to close.
"They weren't giving me employees or anything," she said. "I was working like 11-hour days and I have two children, so I was over it."
Faeller said the store also saw high turnover.
"Our cashiers are expected to do way too much for $10 an hour," she said. "Nobody can live off $10 an hour, and nobody wants to work doing what they force our cashiers to do at $10 an hour."
Former Family Dollar cashier Memarie Rankins would know. She quit alongside Faeller on Sunday. Rankins says one of the reasons she quit was mistreatment from the general manager. Another was short-staffing.
"You can't run a store with two people; there's no way," she told Insider. "We just couldn't keep anybody to help us."
Rankins says she often had to pull double-duty because limited staffing left the store behind on managing freight.
"We would have to either put away totes or put away freight while cashiering at the same time, so we didn't really get much done because there was always customers," she said.
The store had already reduced its hours because of limited staff, trimming two hours off of its schedule for each day.
A sign on the store's front door says Family Dollar is hiring and offers "rewarding" careers. Faeller hopes Family Dollar will improve working conditions soon to live up to this promise.
"Treat your employees better, or this is going to keep happening," she said.
The store has reopened as of Monday. In a statement to Insider, Family Dollar said, "Our Lincoln neighborhood store is open for business. We are not able to comment on the employment actions or status of individuals."
A tight labor market has emboldened many workers in low-wage jobs to seek better-paying work elsewhere. Earlier this year, employees working in Eliot, Maine, at another dollar store, Dollar General, quit over what they describe as understaffing, low wages, and poor communication from management. In July, all of the workers at a Burger King, also in Lincoln, Nebraska, resigned. They say they faced long hours, low pay, and sweltering kitchen temperatures.