Target — Local services in Tacoma

I don't think I've ever had a shopping experience that I could describe as 'soul-crushing' before, but I'm always open to new experiences and am glad that this location could provide it.

Security is atrocious, if not actively malicious. On March 27th, 2022, there was a woman of color shopping around who was very evidently having a mental health episode. She was mumbling to herself about a party she needed to get to, wandering around, and flipping-through empty notebooks as if looking for something before putting them into a highly overloaded shopping cart. A tall, jockish member of security would watch her, and wait for her to wander off before laughing to himself and pushing the cart away to hide it somewhere. The woman would return distressed and confused at the missing cart, before grabbing another one to repeat the process. This occurred four times. Halfway through, the member of security began jeering at the woman and harassing her, sarcastically asking what she was planning to do with all of those notebooks and calling her 'crazy' to coworkers just out of earshot. The final time, the woman was so distressed that she grabbed a pair of school scissors to threaten him to stay away. Now that store security wasn't having fun anymore, he called the police and proudly led about eight police officers - some with riot guns - to arrest the woman. She was arrested and taken out of the store. They left the scissors nestled into a bag of candy bars. I sincerely hope that a woman's life wasn't ruined because someone felt like harassing her to the point of a mental lapse.

The managers are similarly draining, but seem to be indifferent to the well-being of their staff rather than the customers. A few times while talking to a transgender floor worker, a manager would call for them over a walkie-talkie using the incorrect pronouns: misgendering them to the entire staff of the building. This usually resulted in a wince and a sigh. "Does your manager still not know your pronouns? How long have you been working here?" "Two years." The managers also seem entirely content to move employees around however they like, with one employee who helped me find a shirt later being called to work the electronics desk, and then the register within the span of under an hour.

In contrast are the blatantly hard-working floor staff. Every one looks tired and stressed, and it's easy to understand when you look around at the state the store is in, which seems like a classic "Twelve people could get this done in a week: we'll try to do it with six people at reduced hours" situation. Despite this, the majority perk up right away and are happy to help with anything you need to find, though that specific item has good odds of being out of stock, missing, or still there . . . but damaged. Despite having almost no control over the situation, they are quick to apologize and offer alternatives.

I strongly recommend that you consider shopping elsewhere. While staffing issues are everywhere nowadays, this location more than any other seems intent on trying to find exactly how far they can push employees and customers before...

I usually do my shopping on the app because I don't do well in crowds, but I was pleasantly surprised when it was not too busy, or didn't seem that way anyway. I recall going a few times in the past year or so and internally groaning because there were massive lines and two cashiers, begging the joke, "When did this turn into Walmart?" I'm glad that wasn't what my recent experience was like, which means the store was finally able to hire more people again, hopefully by making improvements to the employee experience so it lasts a while ;).

I am glad to see that things are mostly in stock again also as this seemed to be an issue for a while. Maybe my timing was just off, but there were a number of visits to Target where I saw a lot of empty shelves and this time it was mostly stocked except the store brand of water bottles, so that's another win :).

By the time we got done we had a cart full of groceries, but our checker was friendly and engaging, which is not that common anymore it seems, but a welcome change versus me making an awkward dad joke because I'm a mom ;).

Another employee jumped in line right behind us, and she clearly had her lunch in her hands that she still needed to purchase. It baffled me that she even chose this line because we had so much stuff, but it was even more baffling when she stood there for a while before making a not nice face and stomping off to the checkout next to us as our cashier loudly said, "Sorry!" while seeming amused.

I liked our cashier. She was cool and clearly nothing was going to alter her happy disposition, which is awesome. I hope that whatever was really bugging the other girl is something she can figure out and move through soon.

All in all? One of the first really good shopping experiences at Target in a long time. I hope the improvement continues, great job,...

I went to your location in North Tacoma, WA. The cashier was friendly and new and could not figure out why the coupon I was using would not ring up. She asked an associate and she suggested breaking them into smaller transactions when that didn't work a floor lead or manager was waved for help. Instead of helping us figure out what we were doing wrong he just stated he didn't feel comfortable with allowing me to apply the coupons to the product. I had asked to see the policy so I could try to figure out what was wrong, the manager said he would bring it and instead he called the security supervisor on me and a woman came out and rudely stated that their policy was whatever the coupon said. No help, no customer service just intimidation tactics to make sure that they would not be challenged with questions they did not want to take the time to figure out the answer to, by myself or the cashier. I hate to think that he called security on me since I happened to be biracial and so was the security admin but that is what actuality of the situation. He did not want to deal with me so he called someone not in customer service but in an intimidating role to take care of her own people and get me out the store. They also left their new cashier none the wiser when she reached out for help. All they had to do was take a minute and provide the policy which was what I had politely asked for or say Im not familiar with this but if you stop by tomorrow the lead on shift may be more knowledgeable to help you in this. This is terrible leadership for customers and staff. The following day I went to a different target where they were able to point out a new fine print which changed the size the coupon could be applied to and just like that I was helped and able to understand, it took seconds and it was a very...