Formerly appealing part time position
Pros
Good part time work for those disposed to electronics, box stores. I came in at a good hourly rate -- and left at a good hourly rate, prior to some curious decision to give everyone a 10% pay cut. I also understand they're not paying a reasonable amount for mileage at this time. At one 'project', I was literally standing around a box store for four or six hour shifts -- can't remember now, which -- where I basically read email and news, even did a training for other work while in a near-deserted store. I heard about, but didn't get to experience, the ending of a big program with LG, which was ugly and featured people who had given a lot of loyalty to the company/companies and program getting very little notice, and apparently no severance. I did get some good training on products: mostly. Especially on LG. A project for intel was laughable: the store staff assuredly knew more than I did, and I was supposed to encourage them to do more training, pro bono: insulting to them.
Cons
All-or-nothing/feast-famine on projects. Can't ever anticipate, very difficult to arrange around any other (more stable) work. Micromanaging or nonexistant managing: little in between. Work that simply does not seem to have any impact: attrition is fairly high, and a lot of reporting/check-in processes have been developed simply due to the weird nature of the work, and the morale/lack of that can develop. At most 'projects' I struggled to try to stay focused on the sales floor: boredom is a significant work hazard. When representing tablets, computing processors, antivirus software, laptops, televisions, home appliances, very often no one will actually enter the store in an entire shift remotely interested in your product. A 'project' at Home Depot brought out this difficulty, in spades -- and unto absurdity. When the store staff doesn't know to expect you, and the store management has ignored communication and doesn't know/recall anything either, it feels like make-work. Having representatives get piffling training on projects that seem like the five minute mastermind of a marketeer is insulting: representing a set of hand tools one week, toilets the next, scuff erasers the next: bad form. I was assigned a project in the next county at a Walmart which frankly hardly had any computing stock, and hardly sold any -- that is, any that weren't either the cheapest or next-cheapest carried. I asked for the first night, a Friday off on the project so I could stay out of town and not rush back == and was made to understand it was a problem. So: I commuted 70 minutes in rush hour traffic to the store, and literally spoke to no customers, at all, interested in laptops for the shift. Every Friday evening was like that. My reporting on the demographics of the store seemed to fall on completely deaf ears.A significant lack of field testing/pre-testing/confirming appropriateness of stores seems to be the norm.