Working at Fastenal — Reviews by Employees

I agree with most the comments by incompentent people. My D.M worries about how much weight he lost and how people percieve him(he's a loser). His wife seems to be the one running his business.I get calls from her once amonth asking what I need to work on. Nothing but tirads from him. All I here from him is how he and everyone should be happy we have a job. threats....NOT a good motivator.He should go back to pa where he belongs.No one is going to make money for many years.The ecomony is NOT looking up. My outside salesperson is not strong and my dm knows that but he is too lazy to replace him. Im a large and profitable branch but I think its time to go... I will be looking

This company will not spend a dime to enhance the employee experience. They go out of their way to micro-manage every aspect, eventhough they proudly boast that they do not mico-manage. You will go far with this company as long as you kiss up and believe all the B.S. that you are told. This company forces you to pay all of your own business expenses including meals when you travel. When the company is not doing well or they just need the cash to complete a capital investment, they just adjust your commission to pay their debt. If you ask what happened to your commission, your DM will have a very confusing explaination. If you question the RVP about pay, he will probably attack you personally and embarass you in front of your coworkers. I have not seen more than 3 or 4 forklifts that even meet US Safety standards. You should expect to earn about 50% of what your competition earns. Last year they actually took aware our bottled water in the branch offfices due to the expence. I guess a $2 Billion Company cannot part with $20 a month to rehydrate their dedicated employees. They DMs and RVPs actually bitch about the expense for toilet paper at the branch. When I was a GM I worked over 11 or 12 hours a day, so I just brought in my own toilet paper to avoid the controversey. If this is the only company that will hire you, I guess you had better take it. Make sure you network with vendors and customers, so that someday you can find a real job with a real company that does not disregard federal and state labor policy on a continuos basis.

Another thing nobody has really touched on here. Does anyone really know how your freight or pay for freight really works? My guess is no. I know either they have changed the way people get paid off freight, no one really knows hence doesn't know how to explain it tactfully that it hurts the OSP, or it is so confusing, they describe it to the poor managers who have to come back with the info and try to expalin it to OSP. THe last time we checked, it was not in OSP favor. Us OSP's kept asking until people in WINO got tired of hearing from us. We just wanted to know how we get paid and how to make it work for us so we don't lose anymore money. Here is a good kicker: IF you as an OSP have 70% of sales for the branch you are responsible for 70% of the freight. So here is wher you get killed: to round off numbers, your branch does 100k. you sell 70k. your customers could have paid back all the freight (plus more per WINO "request") nad it still isn't enough. If the branch has 7k in freight, you are responsible for $4900 (70% of 7k) even if your customers were responsible for, say, $2000, plus $1000 you tack on to put money into the "freight" column. You are still $1900 short and somehow get nailed for it! Again, this all could have changed again. Or, been explained incorrectly by the wrong person. Please someone chime in. I want an accurate description if this is correct or not! It seems a lot of people know about this site now. And people who defend Fastenal are now coming on strong. If any of you know how this works, please explain! I may be way off base. As I have stated before, I want to be fair and reasonable. THe truth needs to come out, and I think people who have knowledge of this truth have read and even posted comments on this site! If no response is posted to the "freight issue" i have stated, I will have to figure it's at least partially true and is another thing that stinks about this place.

I was just fired from Fastenal yesterday. I worked the Help Desk for 4 and a half months. In that time I did all required training, took every class offered, got my Fastenal License, trained in a branch, and became fork lift certified. All so I could be better at my job! Meanwhile my boss (office "manager" of my HUB) is telling employees-my friends- how she intends to get me fired. I call in sick ONCE in 4 months and the psycho drives by my house! She waits til Im on lunch and gets in my computer to check my email while telling another employee not to say anything. I spend a day in the hospital and she says Id better not F****** call in sick because she doesnt want to close for me. I reported these things to the HUB manager and what did he do? NOTHING. She found reasons to have me written up, oral warnings, and fired and that man stood by doing nothing. To save his reputation as manager? Thats a joke. I fully intend to pursue legal action based on unfair treatment of employees and the HUB managers lack of response. I was also told upon leaving that I would not be allowed to work in a branch, even after being offered a job. I dont care how bad you need a job-do not work for these criminals!

I left the corporate world several years ago and should have never come back. The people I work with at my location are awesome people. I do understand that I may be in the minority as the previous branch I worked at had a manager who was basically worthless, had part timer doing his bin stock so he could sit with his feet up on his desk while Inside Sales did everything for him. Made me come back to branch so he could leave and go god knows where because Part timer was already at his account. Our DM is a actually a really great guy and could sell sand in the desert, but is puking blue on a daily basis. Talks out of both sides of his mouth whenever we have a question, but we can't call him on it because, that's right, don't want to come across as negative to this company or your life will be made a living hell until you quit, that's also right, they won't fire you.

There is no outlook for growth in this company, I've seen and heard so many success stories that have gotten flipped around on the person who made it happen. For instance...Try landing a huge OEM or something like that. Think you've hit the jackpot? think again. They'll make sure once your branch is big enough that another store is opened near by to take half of the business you worked hard to get.

Big push from Willie Wonka and his oompa loompas to start selling fasteners again. Oh, wait, that's impossible because of our little margin problem that the competitor doesn't have. I know of several branches that get alternate cost or "true cost" of products so that they can keep business, the GM's have told me. I also see that another dividend was paid out, I'm actually okay with this, as I do benefit slightly from it, but if it were my decision I would have probably reinvested this money back into the company. Or into researching how we can better outsource all the garbage we-do-everything-ourselves departments in this company. We insist on developing our own software for the POS MC70 when this end user software has been available for years. Oh, yeah, let's change it every other week as well. Can you say job security?
Don't forget to push your Bounty Hunter products the rest of month either. Fastenal wants you to sell as much of this low margin crap as you can so they can save money on their payroll expense.

In closing I'd like to thank Fastenal for all of the training and for providing a networking opportunity to myself so I can find a better job, making twice as much while being twice as happy. But until then I'll be coming in early and leaving late, and have a good attitude while doing it because that is what good people do.

The blind leading the blind.

Many of you comment that everything was better under B. Kierlin, who by the way, is still Chairman of the Board, and reaps his $6.5 million in stock dividends each year. Yes, Oberton is the CEO, but who do you think gives Oberton his orders. Sometimes I think that loyalty to BK is misplaced, as he still runs this company.

Brad Beetch needs to be fired!!!!

Fastenal is a stock company that happens to sell nuts and bolts. Keeping the stock high is more important than employees. They have taken $$$ away from employees to keep stock up and pay big div. Bob need to fire entire inner circle and start over. Its not to late to fix what is broken, but the wrong people are in charge and need to go.

Heads up folks, changes are coming. They are going to start taking your pay if you are in bottom quarter of score card three times in a row. Branches doing less then $50k get two employees, that's it. OSP's are leaving every week. An RVP got mad because branch personnel where going to make more than him, so he got WINO to cap their commissions. Folks, nobody wants to do business with them because they can get it quicker and cheaper somewhere else. If you are thinking of working for the blue team, you need to do your homework. If you know anyone in their area ask them about their reputation. Get everything in writting, save emails containing offers. You will need them because they will try and short you.