Pros
If one can live on low pay, retired or semi-retired persons looking for activity and some extra cash, young people starting out who enjoy the automotive field, young people who need a stopover point while they develop their main interest or career, college students who need extra cash. Basically, it's a short term solution for earning. The work environment is clean, though one will be dealing with grease, oil and potential battery acid problems during the work day. The benefits are minimal but they can offer some incentive for certain people such as a 20% discount for employees on products (excluding oil), plus other consumer discounts at other companies.
Cons
I will discuss one aspect at this time and post other aspects later. 1 - The company calls what we wear a "dress code", but it is and can be legally defended as a "uniform". Calling it a "dress code" means they don't have to pay for it. Black shoes, black socks, black pants (Dickey's, not jeans). black belt, red or gray shirt (of a specific style), in addition to some ancillary and optional items like sweaters and caps, plus how we must wear the useless pins they give us as motivation for our service (instead of cash). We deal with battery acid, grease and oil almost every day. The shirts get stained and after a while can not be washed clean enough to remove the stains, besides the holes that are created by getting caught on something or by battery acid (which despite best efforts will spill at times. Yes, i know they require us to wear goggles, aprons and gloves when dealing with batteries, but the reality is no one has time for such precautions during a work day. It is unrealistic to assume an employee will put on and remove these extra items before connecting a battery for charging, or removing a battery for testing after it has been charged. The process of putting on goggles, aprons, and gloves itself would take longer in time than the job one is about to do, not to mention more customers walking in, phone ringing, etc etc). Now back to the "dress code" - The shirts alone may last about 2 months. We are paid low wages, barely enough to live on, and they expect us to continue to purchase and pay for these clothing items to maintain the neatness and newness of their "dress code". 6 billion plus in gross revenue, about 9-10% in net after tax earnings and they won't even provide shirts for us, but expect us to "look our best" at all times. (You can also wear an Autozone labeled custom shirt that must be ordered. To this end they recently posted a most laughable concept - "Now it costs less than ever to look your best". They cut the price of shipping an Autozone labeled shirt by as much as 50%. So we still have to pay for the shirt and the shipping, but our "shipping costs" have been reduced. How generous of them!! I will be blogging further on many aspects of this company and their policies which will show the absolute abuse and disrespect they condone when it comes to their employees. Basically, we are "human capital" and as "capital" they expect a return on it without any regard to our well being while covering it all up under their umbrella of corporate propaganda (which I will discuss in a further blog). This company is not alone in its policies, but it is a primary reason why unions came into being. The "dress code" policy is a mere tip of the iceberg.