Pros
Really fast-paced Managers and coworkers were all incredibly nice and friendly people They give a lot of hours, even to holiday help workers they hire high school students - while I'm not one, I wish I knew this back in high school so I could at least have gotten something on my resume. Regular employees get a lot of info in the break room on any help they could need - child support, retirement plans, handicap assistance, even help with quitting smoking. the customers are great! You're not expected to approach customers and ask if they need help every 5 minutes and overall the work is very easy. Very thorough training, They spent two weeks on each new person to shadow and try things out on their own with someone more experienced nearby...after those two weeks no one got mad if you asked for help, something that I've seen a lot in retail where the norm is a "day" (1hour) minimal training session and then you're thrown into the sharks where you'll most likely sink and be punished for asking questions.
Cons
If you work at a $50k/year store getting paid minimum wage is never a good sign It's an extremely tedious job that, regardless of your physique, will leave you exhausted and in pain after only 2 hours of your shift (this doesn't get better) the California stores don't have fans/AC and the stores are really dusty - I've had two asthma attacks in the first month I was here because of this. I can't imagine what it'd be like in the sweltering summer heat. schedules aren't digitized - they're on a print-out table in the break room. the policies are a little too strict...I'm not a rule breaker, but employees are human and mistakes happen. They give "meal penalties" here if you go over 5 hours on a shift without clocking out of lunch - this means that if you have exactly a five hour shift and are either held at the cash wrap a little later with a long line of customers, or are stopped by a customer on your run back to clock out you get a meal penalty. Three penalties and you're fired. No one will tell you if/when you get your first one until the end of the week. If you got 2 or three in that time completely unaware, you'll be fired basically without a warning. I have really mixed feelings about a company that will fire you without warning over going over your half-shift by one minute, but not bother to reprimand the people who are slacking off on a busy day.