A former Costco worker went viral on TikTok after blasting the company for being a terrible employer. She also issued a warning to anyone who plans to work there.
Corine (@coccainecate) recently posted a video explaining all of the reasons why she believes working at Costco is bad for a person’s mental health. As of Tuesday morning, her TikTok had over 502,800 views.
“I feel like there might be a misconception [that] Costco is so great,” she said. “Um, let me tell y’all, ok?”
@coccainecate If you value your mental health do NOT work at Costco #greenscreenvideo #costco #costcoemployee #job #costcotiktok #fypシ #xyzbca #viral #trending #costcohorrorstory #costcostorytime #employeeproblems #foryou #foryoupage ♬ original sound – C O R I N N E 🤍
The former employee then began a nearly 10-minute rant detailing her experience there. For context, she said that she’s worked for other retail giants (like Target and Walmart). But she said that nothing could prepare her for what she faced at Costco.
Apparently, Costco drug tests its employees and only offers a standard three-minute grace period to employees before they are considered late. She also said that management doesn’t always honor scheduling boundaries. For example, despite telling them that she couldn’t work certain times because she had a second job, they would still put her on the schedule knowing she’d be unavailable. When she brought this issue to her manager, she was allegedly told, “Well that’s your schedule, I can’t do anything about it.”
Corine argued that certain employers should be mindful that people work multiple jobs to make ends meet. So, she escalated the problem to a higher-up—the other manager who hired her and knew that she had a second gig.
“He looks at me weird and he’s like, ‘We don’t work around other jobs,’” Corine recalled.
On her first day of work, Corine said she was assigned to fold clothes and help guests, despite getting hired as a stocker. She believed she was given that assignment because of her gender.
“Because I was a female, I was thrown into clothing,” she said. “I did not see any other female stockers.”
Ultimately, Corine said that her time working for Costco was riddled with sexism and that every time she tried to assert herself, she was reprimanded.
“As a woman, I was not given an opportunity to be cross-trained. I was not given the opportunity to learn and to move up,” she said.
Corine left a PSA to future employees in the accompanying video caption. “If you value your mental health do NOT work at Costco,” she wrote.
This is not the first time that a Costco worker has accused the retail giant of discrimination. In 2022, a Muslim Costco worker said that she faced bigotry at work because she wore a headscarf. An earlier lawsuit also alleged that Black workers faced racial abuse while at work.
In the comments, many users discussed their own experiences working for Costco and similar companies—which they say pulled similar stunts with scheduling.
“I was a seasonal, too, and they did the exact same thing to me,” one user shared.
“Amazon tried doing this but with my class schedule,” another said. “I told them I would not be working for them and they called me… every day after that.”
“My bf worked there for 15yrs before I met him,” said a third viewer. “One yr in to us together I got him to quit for an IT job and hes been much happier.”
But there were also some positive reviews about working for Costco.
“I haven’t had a bad experience working,” one person said. “Everyone at my store seems to like being there.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Corine via TikTok comment and to Costco by its online contact form.
