Pros
-Sundays off -I was fortunate to have a fantastic framing team. They were the only reason I wouldn't quit sometimes. -Custom framing itself was very rewarding work. Love seeing the look on customer's faces when shown their final piece. - Framers really care about their work. Dedicated and loyal.
Cons
Where do I begin?! -You'll get customers wanting to discuss politics very often. They can be pretty judge mental. (One of our framers was chased into the frame shop by a customer because customer found out she was atheist.) - Big wigs belittle the managers, in turn managers belittle us. - Management is TERRIBLE! - Always cutting down hours. Part Timers can't go over 27 and full timers told to stay below 38. - Always understaffed. I was often the only employee on the shop floor which made it difficult because I had frames to work on but customers getting mad they weren't getting help. I'd spend a lot of time running around the store showing where things are rather than do my framing job. - framers always covering fabric counter. If framer is busy with a customer there begins a "paging war" to try and find someone to go cut fabric. - framers lucky if they get a lunch break let alone any other breaks. We were told we could take a lunch but we have to leave the break room door open to go help customers whenever bell rings. This should not be legal. We just wouldn't bother trying to take a lunch because its always interrupted. We would take lunches if we had overlapping shifts. - By the end of the week, if you got to your max hours they allowed, and were with a customer then you would either have to clock out and continue helping customer or just leave them! Seriously. It felt like most Saturdays I would have to abandon whatever framer closing that night to a bunch of waiting customers because I was out of hours and had to leave. I've worked off the clock but we all decided this wouldn't get things to change. - We work when we are really sick because to take a day off would screw up the delicate schedule of hours that is assigned to frame shop. - Managers may have certifications on the wall, but I guarantee you they're way out of date. None of the managers help framers or know how to do the job. - Frame shop layout regarding tools is extremely inefficient. - We never got any training on how to do more advanced framing techniques. If something difficult came in it was usually left for framing manager to quickly do because there was never time to be shown. - company does not care about people at all. All these cuts in hours, not hiring enough people, and yet they have the nerve to ask us for donations to their Bible Museum or whatever it is being built. Look after your employees first! - I'm surprised they don't give us a quill to write with. Frame shop severely needs to catch up with the rest of the world. There is no computer to write up orders. Everything is hand written on long forms that have to be perfect. (If you have to scribble something out then you need to start a new form). This causes some customers to grow impatient and then puts pressure on you to hurry up. You then end up copying this information down a few more times for the schedule book, order sheet, customer info book, and upsale sheet. Very easy to have something lost in translation this way! - No use in complaining about things to HR. We were told stories all the time about employees in other stores making complaints and then losing their jobs. No one speaks up because everyone is scared of this happening. - HL has a bad reputation for long lines at the front because there are never enough cashiers. - Framers are either getting frames done by the skin of their teeth or behind. They are hardly ever ahead of schedule because they don't have enough support. - Little chance of moving up in the company. You want to progress up the ranks? Don't work here. - I think every HL budgets things out differently. So in some I think there are more framers or more employees in fabric etc. This is what I have experienced though.