Pros
co-workers are great, like-minded computer enthusiasts
pay is good for retail, however as a service tech you are not doing retail, and are qualified to make a LOT more elsewhere
Cons
Sales above everything else, even in the service/repairs department. Constant pressure to churn out as many units as quickly as possible as long as it looks like the work was done, the quality doesn't matter. "Learn to love the rework" - in other words, it's more important to churn through units quickly than to do a quality enough job to be sure it won't just be returned with the issue reappearing or never even being addressed.
Constant pressure to sell services rather than recommend what is actually best for the customer. Quality work is not rewarded, only your ability to top the sales charts, and to know how to strategically encourage only satisfied customers to pad your reviews.
Home office is full of entitled racist homophobic/transphobic incompetent suits who will pop their head in your local store now and then to give completely out-of-touch and unreasonable decisions on what needs to be done better, while not providing local management and subsequently sales floor and service employees with the tools they need to do their jobs properly.
Service techs are expected to keep up with vendor trainings, but they are given no training hours. Your hourly pay depends on how much labor you generate, which is determined by the services that you complete, be that a diagnostic, a repair, a backup, etc. So you can either actually focus on your trainings, literally lowering your pay in the process (or do them in your own time, which no respectable employer should be asking of its employees), or you can do what management advises, which is to do the trainings while you're running the diagnostics on the 5 machines you're expected to do at a time. It's ok, most of the trainings you can just ignore all of the content of and click through them, as was demonstrated to me. Have a problem with the assessment questions? Google them, no need to actually learn the material.
I've witnessed the head of HR herself make a homophobic remark. I've seen trans employees being forced to continue to use their deadnames in logins and email, despite complaints. I've seen managers make homophobic remarks. When I called in to HR to complain about a very problematic manager and let an f-bomb slip while describing a particularly awful experience, they interrupted me and told me to watch my language and 'remain professional'.
The service department is not there to do quality repairs. It exists purely to draw people into the store so that they also go on the floor and buy things. If you know enough to be hired here, you will make a lot more money, work a lot less, and deal with a LOT less red tape if you put in the work to start it up on your own. The amount of money you actually see out of the ridiculous prices they charge is so incredibly small, and what they like to gloss over is that there is even a cap to how much you can make. If you exceed that, your pay does not increase further.
