Absolutely Steer Clear. Worst Life Decision.
Pros
You will meet your best friends here. The people in your store will become your family (for the time you are there) Good Discount Position looks good on resume
Cons
You end up spending all your money there, the eventually realize how absolutely terrible the clothing quality is. You can not wash ANYTHING from there or it will shrink. You will spend every minute of your life in your store, or thinking about what's going on in your store. You can not have a social life. You will never see your family or friends. You will work several 10 hour shifts a week. Your SM will also expect you to stay late every shift. You basically have to come up with an excuse to be able to leave at your scheduled shift time. Floorsets and refreshes were scheduled almost every 2 weeks which is absolutely insane for any retail company. You will be at the store until 5am moving one personality to another room, only to have to switch it back 2 weeks later. Floorsets you sometimes have to work 15 hour shifts, where you feel like you are going to black out or throw up, but your SM won't let you leave until you are finished. I don't know if anyone realizes that their clothes are marked up sometimes over 700%. The cost for most of their shirts and dresses are purchased at around $10-13 cost, and are being sold for $70-80, which is absolutely absurd. I get they want to donate a percentage to their give back, but you are absolutely ripping off your customers and employees. 45 hour work weeks turn into 55 hour work weeks. You can't ever leave, there is always more demanded of you. The CEO will announce visits and then never show up. You end up staying several hours after your shift making sure the store is perfect, or waiting for him to come, and he never comes. Or expects you to show up several hours early the next day for him. Don't even get me started with setup for Semi Annual Sale. You will be cursing the entire time, threatening to quit. You have to markdown 90% of the store in one night, and then do an entire floorset. It will easily take you a full 24 hours to complete. God bless you if you don't quite after that. They then come and visit your stores right after and will YELL at you if it's not perfect. Why don't some of the executives come and help us do markdowns, stay with us until 9am and then come back for our shift at noon. The store managers LOVE the company, and will brainwash you into thinking it's the best company in the world, but it is just brainwashing. It is Extreme lack of communication from DMs. It takes at least an hour to close at night, sometimes 2, which makes no sense. You will always be the last store to leave your shopping center at night. Tighten up that closing procedure so we can actually get home at a decent time. Do you really need me to write an inspirational story? These things are a waste of my time that they already have taken so much of.
