Reliable, secure job without many options to move up
Pros
I used to work at a large retailer with hundreds of employees, so working in a store with 2 people in management, 5 or 6 salespeople, 2 stock guys and another display merchandiser has been a welcome change. It feels more like a family working together and we have a good time. It's usually a relaxed atmosphere, where we can talk and joke while we work without worrying about a boss yelling at us to get back to work, yet there's always plenty to keep us busy. I feel like I'm a valued and necessary part of the team, like if I suddenly disappeared they'd be frantically trying to replace me just to keep things running. It's a stable job, even if it is monotonous and unchanging. I don't have to worry about downsizing because they can't eliminate the position, they'd have to close the whole store. It has been a comfortable, stable job for the past several years as my life has gone through some major transitions. The schedule has always been the same, which is also nice, Monday-Friday.
Cons
We all work as a team, helping each other out, which is good... but it too often turns into doing other people's jobs because they didn't schedule enough people that day and it's suddenly busy. I often have to drop what I'm doing to go answer the phone or carry something out to a car, even when I'm trying to catch up on my own work, just because there's no one else to do it. I want to help out, but I also have a lot of my own work that they want done asap, and I can't work over 40 hours. A lot of daily/weekly tasks are assigned by corporate office people who have no clue how much work there is to do in the store already. The stock room is so small we can't keep enough product in stock and regularly have to sell the display models (many of them the only one in stock on purpose for lack of space), which we then have to put out again when restocked (then they often return it and we have two out of the box). I keep redoing the same exact work over and over. We also get a lot of "Internet returns" and don't have room for everything in the displays. There were no raises for 3 years due to the "bad economy" and then when I got a raise it was 25 cents/hour. Minimum wage is catching up to my pay rate and the only way I can earn more is by moving to sales, which I'm not interested in. I have a lot of experience and responsibility now, but they pay me like a new hire. It's steady work that's going nowhere.
