Pros
Discount. Made lifelong friends born out of shared trauma. Diversity.
Cons
Too many hours for too little pay. Endentured servitude. One day off most weeks a year. No real overtime. No job security. Some managers make minimum wage for full time paychecks up to 130 hours. Lack of communication. Upper management only cares for their own wellbeing and not the stress or condition of their employees. At least one open to close shift a week. Too much standardization. Majority of time spent working alone in store. Sales goals and expectancies are too high and unrealistic. Sales associates make minimum wage for 4-8 hours a week. They are held to same selling standards as management. Sales associates hours are cut on a whim, day of. Sales associates are expected to come to work on same days notice. "Promotions" based on necessity of upper management and not on effort or accomplishments. Pay is deducted to lower and level out any promoted mager so there is little pay increase. Sometimes co-managers at large stores make more than store managers of small stores. Work weeks are no less than 45 hours and mostly 50-60 hours per week. Everyone from manager down is expendable at any given moment no matter how long you've been with the company. Vacation policy is hard to work with, you must take a full week off from Sunday to Saturday. The balance of tasking and selling is impossible to accomplish 100% with the hours and tools given. Upper management will never help cover stores or help sell when they do not have the proper amount of management staff for stores. Instead they force other store managers to cover other stores on their off time thus extending their work week even further. Store managers are all too frequently left to work open to close for a week or two or three or more without anyone hired to relieve them. Breaks are not mandated or required for any associates or managers over the age of 18 and usually not taken due to lack of time. Management staff work minimum 9-9.5 hour shifts each day with no break. We are then told to put in extra hours over that time to accomplish tasks of which we don't get paid for since we are commission based.
