Pros
1) Benefits available if employed full time. Good insurance, in my experience, and PTO and sick time that build up over time (a small amount of PTO and sick days are added to your "bank" each pay period.) 2) A definite 35 hours per week, with a few more available to work if desire. 3) Great discount, 20% to 50% depending on the type of item. 4) Floating holidays to compensate for being open on the actual holidays. 5) A surprising number of pay raises in the few years that I was there. They reevaluated as a company after COVID and I think appreciated how their staff kept them afloat and continued to work hard even given the strange new landscape we all found ourselves in, even in the face of labor shortages etc. 6) The potential for profit based bonuses each quarter, the size of each bonus depending on how well the company had done that quarter and how many employees there were to split it between. If it were a particular quarter where no bonus would be given, they would give each of us $50 in store credit to soothe the burn. 7) It's not a sedentary job. You will stand and move throughout the entire day and there is a component of moving heavy boxes full of books. It's nice to have that component rather than having to squeeze in time elsewhere to get a little movement in.
Cons
1) Literally 0 tolerance for having your cell phone out during work hours, and this includes in the event of any extenuating circumstance. I.e., you have a sick kid who may call you, you're waiting to hear from the doctor or your mechanic, etc. 2) Literally 0 tolerance for being late, even in the face of extenuating circumstances such as a flat tire. There is no mercy on this whatsoever, and while I understand wanting reliable employees, life happens on occasion even to these people, and it is not reasonable or even rational to disregard this reality. 3) While the company has raised the starting rate a few times, and is decent in regard to raises, the grand total is still not amazing. Maybe that's not surprising given that it's retail, but it is something to be aware of in advance. 4) Some of the leadership is very poor, but as long as they're on time every day, they get to stick around. There should be other qualities taken into consideration, especially in a leader, who is supposedly there to lead. 5) The fact that some customers would come to buy sexually explicit material, ask for help from the girls, be very inappropriate and make everyone uncomfortable on a regular basis, and yet this behavior was tolerated to make a few bucks. Obviously businesses need to make money, but the staff is more important than the meager amount of money we would make from these sorts of interactions and to prioritize the money is just ridiculous. The company is not going to go out of business by setting boundaries with a few pervs, but it will lose good employees if it doesn't set those boundaries. 6) Maybe it's the nature of retail, but as far as the staff goes it seemed to attract a certain subset of people that just never progressed past the drama of middle school. I'm talking about people in their 40s and up. Not everyone was like that, and in fact many, many coworkers were great. But there is a definite element of immaturity that would not exist in a more professional environment. 7) Extremely poor communication. Only managers have work emails, so if there is some kind of mass communication that needs to go out to all staff, it is made by word of mouth. It doesn't take a genius to see how easily things can fall through the cracks that way, especially in a retail environment where people are working all kinds of variable, fluctuating hours, and you never see the same people from one day to the next. It's just poor planning. 8) In my opinion, gross mismanagement of resources. This company spends so much money on giant purchases that then sit in the corporate basement doing nothing but take up space, for years. They spend money on repairs but contract with what would seem to be the cheapest option possible as the repairs are often shoddy and have to be redone, which ironically, only causes more money to be spent. Not to mention the safety issues this can cause-- for example, they once installed a new sign designating "Information Desk" which was suspended from the ceiling over said desk. It fell from the ceiling, I kid you not. They're lucky it didn't fall on someone's head and kill them.
