Staff Exodus: Dollar General Employees Stage Mass Resignation, Citing Unfair Wages and Exhaustion
The complete departure of Dollar General store workers highlights systemic issues of low pay and excessive workloads.
Dollar General in Mineral Point, Wisconsin, didn’t just have a bad day, it had an entire staff vanish at once. On March 9, every single worker was scheduled to open, and not a single person showed up. The manager, Trina Tribolet, and her five coworkers had already resigned, turning a normal workday into a public walkout.
What makes it complicated is the way they left their message. They taped up handmade signs in the window, thanking customers while also spelling out why they were done: exhaustion, unfair wages, and feeling completely undervalued. Tribolet says the final breaking point was being forced to throw away perfectly good food that could have helped families, plus having to remove items no longer stocked.
The wild part is what happened next, Dollar General shut the store for a few hours, then moved on, while the workers’ message stayed in the glass.
In an unprecedented turn of events, a Dollar General store in Mineral Point, Wisconsin, was compelled to shut its doors after its entire workforce resigned simultaneously.
On the morning of March 9th, not a single employee showed up to open the store. All six staff members, including manager Trina Tribolet, tendered their resignations, citing exhaustion and dissatisfaction with their wages.
The previous night, they left a handmade sign in the store window, declaring their collective resignation. The sign conveyed a heartfelt message: "We quit! Thank you to our amazing customers. We love you and will miss you!"
Before the store ever opened on March 9, Trina Tribolet and the other five employees had already decided they were done, and they made it impossible to miss.</p>
A separate sign found within the store detailed that the entire team had decided to leave due to feeling undervalued, overwhelmed by their workload, and inadequately compensated.
In addition to discarding products nearing their expiration dates, they alleged they were also mandated to remove any items no longer stocked by the store.
The night before, they left that handwritten “We quit!” sign for customers, right alongside the bigger complaint about being overwhelmed and underpaid.</p>
Tribolet asserts that being compelled to discard perfectly good food that could have benefited families in need was the final straw for her and her colleagues.
In a statement issued following the walkout, Dollar General confirmed the closure of the Mineral Point store for three hours after the walkout occurred.
Subsequently, they have recruited new staff.
Then came Tribolet’s specific grievance, being told to discard food that could have gone to families, instead of letting it reach people who needed it.</p>
"Furthermore, we take pride in our commitment to assist local Wisconsin communities through our partnership with Feeding America at 21 stores statewide," the statement affirmed.
"Over the last twelve months, the Mineral Point Dollar General store has generously donated nearly 7,500 pounds of food to local food banks like Second Harvest Food Bank of Southern Wisconsin."
After Dollar General confirmed the three-hour closure and brought in new staff, the tension shifted from the walkout to the company’s Feeding America policies.</p>
"Maintaining the highest standards of food safety is of utmost importance for Dollar General and our partnership with Feeding America. As such, Dollar General stores are obligated to strictly adhere to the donation policies set forth by Feeding America. These policies are designed to ensure the safety and quality of donated food items, safeguarding the well-being of those who receive them. By following these stringent guidelines, we uphold our commitment to serving our communities responsibly and providing support to those in need."
Nobody wants to get told to throw away food for pennies and then come back for another shift.
