Pros
I was able to land a great job still within the fashion industry because of my experience at RL. The discount and warehouse sales were great, but not enough to overcome the negatives
Cons
For a start, RL hires temporary to permanent workers. That wouldn't be too big of a deal if there was some sort of time frame for becoming full time, but there isn't. Mangers will lead you along for months to over a year in some cases, saying that "it will happen soon" in order to keep you in the company. Pay inequality is also an issue. In the past 3 years, temp pay has gone from $15/hour to $20/hour, which seems like a good thing, until you realize that most full time employees are making less than $35,000/year. The fact that hourly workers are making more than salary is pathetic. In addition to not being paid anywhere close to industry standard, raises for regular employees are almost nonexistent. After almost 2 years with the company being a good employee with a great review, my first annual raise was 1.3%. Needless to say, this was insulting, especially considering other employees pulling from the same raise pool were given 8-10% for no reason other than they were in the "chosen few" (more below). For some reason, (and this is from experience across multiple teams), certain employees are pegged as being the ones management likes to promote, and if you are not one of those, your chances of advancement are slim to none. These are the people that are fast tracked through promotions and are given large raises, while everyone else is forced to stagnation whether or not they have better work ethic, drive or leadership skills. Once you as an employee realize this, it can kill moral because no matter how many nights you stay late or how hard you may work, you will not be rewarded in any way. There are people in the company that have been there for 10+ years still in entry level positions while others who have been there less than 3 are in supervisor and management positions. As someone who was at the beginning of her professional career when starting at RL and not chosen as one of the fast trackers, the idea of that stagnation looming scared me away from the company.