#asistiant manager

[hinoko-takami]

I got fired yesterday, so that sucks. The benefits are that i can flip off the shitty assistant manager there, Mark Meling, as well as finally be open about why i hate him to the public. This is gonna be a long one.

If any of my previous coworkers see this, please go ahead and add your own stories to this.

TW: mentions of sexual harassment, predatory behavior, transphobia, racism, ableism, alcoholism, infidelity, and generally being a smelly garbage can of a person.

I'll try to keep this in chronological order, but that will be hard to do, as after certain events that i will mention, i stopped being the one fronting at work whenever mark was there. I am working with our primary protector to piece things together so im sorry if things arent perfectly chronological. All names but mine and marks are changed. One year ago, October 13th 2022, I started working at Kohl's as a seasonal employe, and was kept on after the season was over as a part time associate, eventually becoming a cashier mainly. I was 17 when i started there (this will become important later).

The first time i met mark was my first opening shift, maybe my 3rd or 4th shift there at all. I rang the bell to get in and was greeted by mark. He was rude and asked what i was doing. I stated i was there to work, to which he asked my name. I gave him the name they have in their system, Saturn, my work name, and he asked what me real name was with such attitude. I gave him the name "S", as that is what i use outside of work, and he doesnt need to know my legal name. He turned away and said "whatever", continuing to walk in and check me in, along with the other day crew. This was the first day of hell.

Throughout my time working at Kohl's, mark was consistently rude, controlling, disrespectful to all staff that werent also managers, and just an awful human being.

I often saw him engaging in predatory behavior towards minors, especially young customers, around the age of 16 or 17. He would flirt with them, even when they were obviously uncomfortable. This continued throughout my entire year of working there.

Now, here is where it gets particularly bad. November 26th 2022, Mark touched my thigh while putting a hanger into my hanger box. This was not a normal touch, this was a caress, very close to my butt. there were 3 other open registers he could have put the hanger into. This was intentional.

After this i grew a deep fear of mark, that would only get worse as time went on. You see, i was sexually abused twice between the ages of 15 and 16. I wont go into detail, but it fucked me up pretty bad, so having this happen nearly sent me into a panic attack, the only thing holding me together was the fact that i had a line of customers. I didn't know what to do or how to report it, so it just went unsaid, unseen, unpunished, until December 14th, in which i finally reported him online, thanks to a friend who no longer works there reporting him and telling me how.

I reported him, then a few days later the head manager, Cat, and another manager, Salmon, pulled me into their office, and took my account of what happened. They said it would be reported to HR and that i would be contacted within a week. They told me to keep quiet about it.

It's been almost a year. I have heard nothing. I refuse to be quiet.

I never received an update from HR. I never received anything. As far as i'm aware, neither did mark. His habits continued, but thankfully he never touched me again, likely because i became much more abrasive against him after that. After than nothing major happened as far as i am aware for a while, though this time is blurry, but i know he was still hitting on underage girls, making the female staff uncomfortable, and overall making everyone upset by generally being disrespectful.

To show the scope of what dealing with this man day in and day out for almost a year did to me, let me tell you this. On June 24th, mark had asked me to follow him into the stockroom to grab something, but once we got there, i was so frightened to be in an area alone with him with little to no cameras, that i switched out. Our primary protector took over work for me ever since then. Being around him made us on edge at all times. I could not work while he was there with me. They recently, on October 6th, had to switch out because of how much genuine stress they were under when around him.

Many times he would make inappropriate comments about the female staffs bodies, saying they were overweight when they were very much not. Allegedly, he commented on the weight of Poodle (a woman with a mom body), Bat (a very skinny and tall woman), Reindeer (an average skinny woman), and several underage employees, all of normal weight, calling them overweight to their faces, when they were never of the sort.

Not only did he comment about the associates weight and appearance, he would often make outright rude comments about the employees, especially the new hires. Any time someone would make a small mistake and he saw, he would outright berate them, often publicly. This was especially clear in the case with my good friend, Wombat, they were brand new to the store and they have a shoulder injury that limits their motion and causes them sevre pain. They were degraded by mark while they were there for not being able to do the tasks he deemed so simple instead of helping them.

One of my previous associates who no longer works there was studying to be a nurce, and had told me along with others in a group one night, that she suspects Mark would come to work intoxicated. His slurred speech, overly red face, frequent shifts in mood, frequent inability to pronounce common names correctly, apparent inability to stick to what he said, memory issues, as well as many frequent comments about alcohol, all lead to this being the truth. I do not know for sure, but i believe this personally. As of recent he seems to have stopped coming to work intoxicated, but this does not change the fact he likely did many times in the past.

Frequently, mark would do nothing helpful, simply sitting in his office doing nothing, only coming out when a manager was called to help. The same goes for telling associates to do things he was easily capable of doing in the moment, such as telling floor associates to pick up or move things that were right in front of him, sometimes literally just standing next to it, waiting for a floor associate to do what he could have done in one second. I dont even want to know how frequently this happened, but according to my friends who work on the floor regularly, it was quite often.

Over the year i spent at kohls, mark had never once used the correct pronouns for me, despite myself and many other amazing coworkers correcting him time and time again. He would always use she/her. When i or others would correct, he would deflect, saying he knows and he "just forgot". He never once apologized. When it was myself correcting him, he would always roll his eyes. He was once talking to “me” (our protector) about his son, who is transitioning, and he would only refer to him as his daughter and with she/her pronouns.

Over the year mark would talk about his failing relationships to anyone who would listen, including underage associates, often sharing personal details you should not talk about at work, especially without permission from the person you are talking to. He has an ex-wife, and at least 8 or 9 girlfriends over the course of the year i worked there, while still flirting and making unwanted advances towards seemingly any girl in the store as long as she was 25 or younger. I had overheard him talking to another manager, Hare, about how he was talking to two girls, one he stated was his girlfriend at the time, and when they learned of each other they both dumped him. Unfortunately for Hare, she seemed uncomfortable but couldnt find a way out of the situation.

Many times mark would have people do things that were not part of their job, including having regester associates go farther than we were supposed to go away from the register, having us do large floor projects on busy days, such as making me entirely redo a wall of product and getting angry when it didn't get done because of having customers, and having one of the people at customer service, Reindeer, unload the amazon boxes when she is not supposed to, we have an entire team dedicated to doing that from what im aware of. Heck, Poodle had even made a comment about how he was not supposed to make her do that and that it is not part of her job.

One of the policies he most frequently broke was that we are not allowed to accuse a customer of shoplifting. He did this numerous times. Once he had me ring up an employees partner because he thought they were letting them take stuff, when he had no evidence and it was obviously not the case. More recently, on october 7th, we had 2 customers who were made very uncomfortable by marks hunch that they were shoplifting, which they were not, as i rang them up. They both left reviews for the store, and i think i will let them speak for themselves.

Unfortunately, this is not the only time this scenario has happened, and i doubt it will be the last.

We had 2 new managers come to work at kohls over the year i was there, one being Sphinx and the other, who has not even been there for 2 months at the time of writing, Penguin. When Sphinx joined us he was immediately put down by mark, him being outright rude to Sphinx about trivial matters. According to Sphinx, he had finished cleaning his OMNI area, only to come back to it later so find it trashed and for mark to comment he should clean his area up. Several times mark has stated he does not trust Sphinx to close the store by himself, when he has shown time and time again he is just as capable as anyone else to close the store.

This is where Penguin comes in. She has been here for less than 2 months, and she is amazing. She is kind, smart, and genuinely helpful. A lovely person to have as a manager. She has been subject to marks unwanted advances since she started. She is now leaving at the end of the month, and i can only assume it is because of this.

Numerous people have reported his poor behavior, including other managers, like Sphinx, and another one i'll call Bear. All of us are sick of his disgusting behavior. I contacted my friends about this to get any stories they may have about mark, and one, potato (yes they asked me to call them that) had this to say;

I havent even covered everything he's done yet. Heck, yesterday, October 9th, one of my previous coworkers, Rat, had told me about how mark had made racist comments towards her husband, and i cant even say i'm suprised considering he often would pick out maxican and black people to follow around and harass, including the customers who left the review abovem the man of which i beleive was mexican (i could be wrong, I dont remember exactly). The following is a statement from Rat herself about mark.

I dont know how to end this, but this is really all i have right now. I'll reblog with anything i have to add. Just know, I wont be quiet about this anymore. I'm tired of him getting away with everything he's done. Mark Meling, know you are a piece of shit. You are disgusting. You are predatory, you are perverted, and god, you do not deserve to be a fucking asistiant manager. everyone there also thinks so. I wish i could have told more people about the atrocities you have done. Sorry about any bad grammar or structure, i wrote most of this between 12am-3am last night and finished it today. If any of my coworkers see this, please add your own stories to this.