Pros
- the tastings are really well thought out and put together - the crew becomes like your family, as you really spend more time with these people than your actual family - at my store, being a hard worker gets you recognized - being recognized as a hard, productive worker gets you a chance to own a section and write an order for that particular section - the management at every particular store is very different, so if you don't like your current management, there's chances to relocate and love your job much more - amazing benefits; great but you'll definitely work for them - chances to relocate almost anywhere in the United States, as there are so many stores and many more opening up every year
Cons
- the mates at my particular store tend to mistrust crew members pretty often, not allowing them to talk while they work or do what they'd like to to their owned sections - owning a section does not mean a pay raise, so basically this means much more work and stress for the same pay (or technically, the normal two flat rate raises per year) - this job requires constant physical labor, very rough on the body after a while - if you're not planning on becoming part of the management team, this job is pretty much dead-end - for the amount of daily physical labor that is required, the pay is less than adequate - availability must be completely open for you to get hours, this means that there is almost no time for a social/personal/school life - during the slow season, hours can and will be tremendously cut and the management at my store uses silly excuses to explain why YOUR particular hours have been reduced - you must work 30 or more hours a week to receive benefits; if you have your hours cut, you can easily lose those benefits - customers can be extremely over bearing - favoritism is very apparent, nobody at my store has been horribly mistreated, however, I've heard of that being the case at other stores - sexism is very apparent; almost every male that I work with gets paid more than most females, even if they haven't worked for the company as long - the work days are pretty long and strenuous, 8 hours of straight physical labor isn't good for the body or mind - you will absolutely not work a set schedule, sometimes you'll work a shift starting at 5:00 am and the next day you'll be scheduled at 3:00 pm until 11:00 pm and then the next day you'll have to come in at 10:00 am and work until 6:00 pm.