First and foremost this is a 'good ole boys and girls club’ for small town folk with buttermilk minds. It’s meant for younger workers (under 40 for definite). They do not like older employees in entry level positions. The younger employees will bully you beyond belief, it'll feel like high school real fast. If you're not a devoted and proud conservative small town country bumpkin you're going to have issues. If your mom, dad, uncle, aunt, grandma, grandpa work here then you'll advance in the company whether its the store or corporate.
If you're an outsider, they'll treat you like one. If you don't walk, talk, speak, behave like they do, you won't last long. Either you’re a proud boy/girl, or you’re not. In the store you start part time, they'll slave you to death. It doesn't matter if you're front end, back end, you'll get worked hard. Although it's important to note some stores are tougher than others. Your treatment depends entirely on your ability to get people to like you, and if you're young. They typically don't like older employees.
If they don't like you, they'll suddenly cut your hours and screw you over entirely with your benefits until you have nothing left and quit. I have watched countless older employees that depend on their health benefits get their hours gradually cut until they’re eliminated. It’s absolutely sick, and the sad part is they work harder and smarter than the younger ones that hang on their phones all day.
Corporate starts at 40 hours, in reality it becomes 60 real fast since they're grossly unorganized and understaffed. They will work you to death in the store and corporate. They'll allow tenured employees with family history to emotionally abuse you to their hearts content. If you report the abuse, it gets worse. I thought corporate would be different, I was wrong. It’s all about being part of the club and nepotism, just like the stores.
If you have a bachelors education, it would look good on a resume to work for a fortune 50 company for a year. After that, you'll have to decide whether the koolade is worth getting paid significantly less than you're worth. Their stocks do not make up for the short comings. If you have a masters degree, you'll find no respite or advancement here. They'll work you harder, longer, in an effort to break you. Which begs the question, why did they bother hiring you to begin with? They will promote someone with a high school diploma before they promote you. Unless you're just biding your time to gain access to their stocks, be smart and heed the warnings. There's tons of people that work there 5-10 years and go nowhere, and they leave for greener pastures all the time. If you slaved in college to work here, you're addicted to the koolade and need to spend time in rehab.
If you start in certain departments in corporate, they make it impossible to transfer to other places within the company. Essentially where you start is where you end up 95% of the time. As an example if you start in benefits administration, you have a 1% change to transfer out to somewhere else in the company. If career advancement is your prerogative, this will be more of a stepping stone for your resume.
