A Dollar General employee has continued her online diatribes against the retailer for what she refers to as exploitative labor practices in a TikTok video penned as a response to the comments made in a previous viral clip that she shared to the popular social media application.
Dani (@danisdope) said that store management expected her to essentially run an entire Dollar General location by herself for minimal pay.
In a follow-up video, she shared a litany of additional gripes with the business, calling out district managers who tried to lie to her by saying that due to their tax burdens, they probably make less than hourly workers at the budget chain. According to PayScale, Dollar General pays its workers an average of $8.31 to $14.47 per hour.
Dani speaks into the camera during her video, which was penned as a response to a comment from another TikTok user who said, “They do not care! Then tell you if you shut down the store you’re gone.”
The prospect of having her position terminated with Dollar General didn’t seem to be too concerning to Dani, however: “To be honest they can do me the favor because again, this is everything that they keep screaming at us about. ‘Get all those roll carts out! Y’all need to clear that backroom out! Screaming and yelling from corporate.”
@danisodope Replying to @blakleyannette its a wrap for me baby! #fyp #fypシ #danirants #isaidwhatisaid #danisodope #stickitwherethesundontshine ♬ original sound – Dani ✨🪐🤎
Budget retail chains, due to the massive influx of volume orders in order to turn a profit, often have backrooms that rapidly fill with product if they aren’t immediately brought out onto the floor, which has been documented at Dollar Tree stores in the past.
Dani continued her video against Dollar General: “What made it even worse was the store manager had the audacity to say to me and the assistant manager yesterday, who happens to be my friend: ‘Oh well you know after taxes and everything like that I barely make as much as you guys. You guys probably make more than me!’ The strength that it took for me to not snap my head around and say have you lost your goddamned [mind] to her. Because again, why are you trying to feed likes to somebody who’s smart enough to see past that shit? You’re on salary. There’s no way in hell that you make close to what the fuck I make. On salary. So whether you show up thirty hours, or fifty hours, you make your money regardless. You’re making bands a month.”
She then goes on to state that there are a number of Dollar General workers who would be ecstatic to earn even just $1,000 a month: “While everybody else under you would be happy to just see one. You heard me correctly, would be happy to even see one.”
Dani added that she hopes corporate Dollar General employees see her videos: “At this point I want somebody from corporate to see this TikTok. These multiple TikToks I’m making because this is unacceptable. And this is why I’m piggybacking off of when I said earlier in a couple of posts that I made it’s not that people don’t want to work, we are not finna be slave workers for these big capitalistic companies who don’t give a fuck. If they can close down this store for an entire month and not sweat, they don’t give a fuck. Everybody’s replaceable. Everybody’s disposable. So why the fuck would I walk around on pins and needles when they could easily, I could breath wrong, and they could let me go and they’re gonna be justified in it?”
She even said that it would be more financially viable for her to be earning unemployment pay than it would be for her to continue working at Dollar General: “Again this is why I work for myself I have a career running two businesses. I only did this as a stepping stone. And it’s barely that. So honestly at this point they could do me the pleasure, they could do me the favor, go ahead and write up them papers. Because at the end of the day, I make more on unemployment. Yeah the pandemic fucked up a lot of people, fucked up a lot of companies with that shit.”
Dani went on to generalize that many folks would rather not work because they earn more money by simply staying at home with the added benefit of spending time with those they love: “People are making more on unemployment that is why people are sitting at home. That is why people are spending time with their families rather than going to work because they make more. And considering the fact that here in the state that I’m in, I definitely would make more on unemployment than I do at this f*ck-ass job every week. So they can do me the favor.”
Throughout the video, Dani also highlights several other difficulties of working in the store, like an alleged lack of air conditioning, along with a dearth of receipt paper to properly process transactions.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Dani via TikTok comment and Dollar General via email for further information.
One TikToker who saw her post agreed with Dani, expressing that the comparative wage argument she highlighted that district managers made was bunk: “Why do people always assume them comparing their low wages to yours makes any of it OK?!”
Another commenter mentioned that a Dollar General store they lived by also closed its doors because management couldn’t find enough people to properly staff it: “My local dollar general closed for 2 days because no one showed up. Managers came to stock the shelves but closed the stores. I said you Have your employees stock shelves and have to take care of customers but you can’t. That manager looked me in the eye and said we do what we want.”
One TikToker shared a shocking figure of what a friend of theirs who worked at a Dollar General earned per paycheck: “I had a friend who used to work at DG and she told me her paycheck was somewhere between $75-$110”
While another remarked that they’ve noticed Dollar General stores are understaffed as well: “it’s crazy that they only let 2 employees work at a time and them expect them to do it all.”