Your work ethic determines how far you will go with CEC and your attitude determines the experience.
Pros
As a webmistress/graphic designer with years of experience but no degree to show for it, I had to search for a second job to support my passion. On a whim and tired of working at boring establishments, I chose to work for "The Cheese" and so far I love it, even after only one year. Here are my pros: - I get to "make magic", have fun at work, and put smiles on dozens of little faces - The company culture is great and something you can easily feel passionate about - This is not your typical service job where things get revamped only once a year; new stuff, experiences and challenges are always coming to the store - You will always have something to do if you work at a moderately busy location - Great team; I have my opinions about some of my co-workers but I try to remain neutral and do get along with most of them - I get ~35-40 hours per week which is enough to prevent me from having to look for more work. - Management saw that I couldn't decide where to train next and has bent over backwards for me. They sometimes assign me small jobs I can do in other areas like kitchen, dining room, helping clean games etc. even though I'm a cashier - Though I'm quiet and tend to not speak up my work has been noticed and I have been awarded with promotion. - I get scheduled for a variety of shifts (opening, midshift, closing - perfect for the night owl in me) - I've never had a problem getting a shift covered or some time off as long as I give proper notice. - You have the ability to cross-train which in turn will get you more hours
Cons
Some cons... - If you hate kids, your experience will be lukewarm at best. Some of them will be annoying, whiny, and demanding and you have to hold your tongue when they throw a fit. - Some parents will be disgustingly rude and demanding just as much as their children, and you will have to be careful to avoid conflict with them. Beware of the "control freak" parent. - You may get dragged from one station to the next at the drop of a hat depending on store volume and where help is needed. - You may find that your store has an air of "drama" from the school-age kids who work there, or that some workers slack off while you bust your butt - In general there is a large focus on prevention vs. damage control which is unrealistic and inefficient - It's open 364 days a year, so unless you book time off for holidays well in advance it can affect your work-life schedule The only major problem I have with CEC is the poorly structured training process. It's as if corporations have no value in developing efficient training programs anymore. Putting them in front of a TV with the same cookie-cutter training DVD and then arbitrarily quizzing them on what they watched does nothing to prepare them for the variety of experiences they can have in a service position. It's very rushed and can be confusing, resulting in employees who don't know what to do and constantly need to be supervised. Training in the store on a busy day is definitely hell (for both trainer and trainee), because you switch from learning new things to being left to do stuff on your own with little guidance. Working directly and thoroughly with the trainee needs to be the focus of training, and that's significantly harder to do when other things demand more or just as much of your attention. Trainees should only be brought in on a day the store is expected to be at its slowest when training can be the focus and done hands-on, and then they can merge into working busier and busier shifts. You learn the basic areas everyone is responsible for in 4 days with a group of other new employees, and after that it's all trial-and-error. This is inefficient, and cancels out people who may be extremely hard workers, but who learn differently. I basically had to teach myself how to do some things because my training was not thorough or guided enough and was far too rushed for my capacity of learning and storing information. This is the downfall with training so many people at a time rather than one-on-one. To make the most out of your training, you just need to not make that mistake of being shy and ask lots of questions if you're not sure about something.
