Pros
Good employee discount - 50% during months we made the store goal Was hired even though I had no previous retail experience The managers in charge of training were very thorough and patient
Cons
You're required to do commission work for hourly pay. You must attack customers from the moment they walk through the doors and essentially harass them until you get them into a dressing room, where you are then required to bring them multiple pairs of shoes and alternate outfit options, whether or not the customer wants them. But even when you make a sale of several hundred dollars, you only receive a fixed hourly rate. Company policy forbids managers from leaving the sales floor during their designated hours. This means the sales associates end up doing all of their work - bringing the manager's customers to the dressing rooms, checking on them, getting different sizes from the sales floor and heels from the back, ringing them at the register - and getting none of the credit. On days I was the only sales associate on the floor I could work 8 hours and end up selling less than $100 because the managers had taken all of the sales. This meant I would be scheduled for fewer hours the next week, earning me less pay, while the managers were still guaranteed their salaries. Required to be "branded" at work - dress sexy, full face of makeup, wearing heels. Means extra hours outside of work getting ready, and long, painful days running around in stilettos. I was promised during my interview that if I performed well during my first two weeks, I could start the stylist program, which would involve scheduling my own hours, a pay raise, and earning commission for my sales. I was the top sales associate during my first two weeks - and then was told that they'd have to see how I did for another two weeks, another month, another month after that, etc etc. After 4 months with the company I discovered that a sales associate who had been there for two YEARS was "on track" for the stylist program...but was no closer to it than I was. *Might be location specific* The Beverly Center requires employees to pay for parking and Guess did not figure out a good way around this. The sales associates had to fight to be one of the top sales associates to earn a parking pass. Since parking could cost up to a full hours' pay every day, this created competition and ill feelings amongst each other rather than teamwork. Meanwhile management constantly told us to put the store first and help each other out, even though doing so would cost us money. Each manager also had a different idea of what it was that earned you a parking pass, so there were multiple weeks that I should have had one and didn't.
