Pros
Co-workers tend to be friendly, helpful, and hard working. Generally speaking, store management tries to lead and coordinate their employees into an efficient team. They're all pretty supportive and understanding of their employees needs, at least in my store.
Cons
It feels like communication between the corporate level and store level is incredibly weak. Corporate seems to use fear to motivate their subordinates and the company overall seems to operate as a hierarchy rather than a network or team. Disagreement, concern, or criticism is treated as a threat to the company rather than an opportunity to grow as a whole. Many managers, both at store and department level, voice that they feel micromanaged and that they have no autonomy--and in some cases, no purpose. Particularly on a department level, where one manager said that the title of manager felt more like a target for corporate to point their finger at if something goes wrong. In some cases, managers are written up because someone above them didn't like a solution a manager came up with to address a problem despite it not breaking rules, hurting the store, or affecting the company. The implement a lot of new ideas without genuinely asking the management of their stores and rely on "experts" to come up with strategies that are great on paper, but aren't necessarily one-size-fits-all for each store. The deli in our store, for instance, now has a new tile island in the middle of their prep room that greatly hinders the deli workers' ability to maneuver their floats with any degree of efficiency and clutters the general workflow. Hours are scarce in a few departments. The deli is notorious for getting its hours cut and creating a stressful atmosphere in which employees feel the need to work off the clock, since they would face consequences both if the work was unfinished and if they worked over their allotted hours. Though I don't actually work in the deli, my mother has previously, and the deli workers at the store I currently work at voice similar issues, which are that expectations are unreasonable, yet unwavering. Workers may be understaffed and slicing meat for a line of customers, but will be reprimanded if they fail to simultaneously find the time to fill the cake case and prepare the hot bar among other things. Sometimes, regardless of how skilled the workers are at prioritizing their time, circumstance dictates that it's impossible to get everything done, but there is little to no tolerance. Employees across departments note that, if you are good at your job, you are laden with increasing responsibility until you are no longer good at your job, at which point you start to get complaints on your performance; a bit like a sadistic juggling act. Several employees have voiced dissatisfaction and quit because corporate, and by extension their overworked management teams, criticize mistakes harshly, but rarely note or reward what is being done right. Raises and employee appreciation are paltry. Because of aforementioned grievances, the entire atmosphere that they try to say that they have feels incredibly fake. They refer to everyone as a "family" even though everyone feels like they're walking tightropes just to keep their jobs and no one feels secure. They say things like "We don't believe in unions because we feel it gets in the way of our relationship with our employees." but then fails to foster any sort of tangible relationship--it feels more like a convenient and polite lie when what they're actually saying is "We are in charge. Fall in line." They tell us to take pride in the store we work at because it is OUR store; but any ideas or decisions made for such an idea are discouraged. Providing excellent customer service is important to me, but feels tainted when we're told to greet customers to dissuade them from stealing from us. Personally, I'd rather greet customers out of the genuine desire to make them feel welcome, but now that an ulterior motive is in the back of my head, that minor pleasure is soured. I witnessed one manager at another store being chided for being to familiar with the customers. He'd made the mistake of learning some of their names and following up on bits of small talk he'd remembered from having interacted with them prior. It's an absolutely miserable working experience made tolerable by the solidarity of misery shared between you and your co-workers.