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BLICK Art Materials

Engaged Employer

Tough Place To Work - Anonymous employee BLICK Art Materials Employee Review

2.0
Oct 19, 2009
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

They are doing well in their market, there is no denying that, nor is there any denying that the are doing well overall. The physical environment is great, all the coffee and snacks you could want, in a downtown business are of Highland Park, so you can walk to lunch or just shop on your breaks. You will be exposed to a lot of new tasks and roles in a short time.

Cons

Dick Blick is a tough place to work. There is little or no training done. Management there is pretty brutal, it is not uncommon to hear swearing and yelling at your coworkers through open office doors. Management openly ridicules staff, using cartoon voices, wild gestures, and insulting comments. It has been openly stated by senior management, that they "...don't see how anyone could be competent at there job working less than 50 hours a week". They systems at DB are a disaster, this is no integration at all, except through daily journal entries, and the process can take upwards to two hours, longer if there is a problem. As mentioned above, you will be exposed to a lot of new tasks an roles in a short time, however, the processes and steps change constantly. Don't plan on mastering any of them. The company does not intend to invest in business intelligence software, so staff are stuck doing daily business reports, in Excel, manually. Turnover in the support staff is very high, most of the people in the supporting roles (Acct, Fin, IT) are not happy, and would do talk about leaving as soon as the economy is better.

Explore other reviews about BLICK Art Materials

3.0
Apr 11, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

It's probably the easiest retail job you'll ever have. When the store makes more than their sales goal, all the staff get extra money added to their paycheck. Sometimes is like 20¢ per hour but on really good months it can be an extra $1.50+ per hour. They do 401k match if you're into that, up to like 3% i think. Everyone who works here is pretty chill and into art. Even the managers are mostly decent. Corporate people aren't TOTAL dummies like some other companies. Like I said, its probably the easiest retail job you could get. The PTO is actually pretty generous I think.

Cons

They start you at minimum wage, may get a $0.25-$0.50 raise at your yearly review. Company policy is to not give associates more than 25 hours per week. Basically impossible to survive on the low pay and low hours, but it's hard to get a second job because they want full availability. There's no opportunity for career growth or learning or anything. You're just a cashier and maybe someday you could be a manager, but there's really nowhere to go from there. Like, long-term this is not really a good job i think. There's way more corporate involvement than any other place I've worked. Senior leadership from corporate will visit the store pretty often.

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