Pros
There isn’t a lot of great stuff I can say about the company. I worked with some great people on an individual level, but Associated left me with a bitter taste in my mouth.
Cons
In the four years since I’ve been there and left, Associated has closed down over 25 of their previously locally-owned branches and chopped a lot of heads. Your job is never, ever safe with Associated until you’ve broken upper middle management status. When things go wrong, the company’s policy is generally to find a way to blame ground level employees first and try to actually resolve issues later. I also dealt with a number of managers who were straight up invasive about personal things going on in my life, so far as to blast an email to my district detailing the horrific death of my father to covid and that my entire family had gotten it but me. This was done in order to draw attention to me and raise funds for my family. While the gesture was on some level, probably well intentioned, it felt extremely icky to have my personal information and trauma blasted to literally thousands of people who could now identify me by name (and did) and the Dead Dad Girl. The attention I received from coworkers after this eventually drove me to quit. I also never saw a raise or a bonus in 3 years.