You'll be worked like a dog and seldom praised, thanked or recognized. You'll be pulled in 5 different directions all shift and sometimes be expected to do several things at once. You'll be handed a task list a mile long and expected to pull off miracles. Communication is poor and feedback usually on the critical side. Everything is micromanaged and tedious. If there is a way to suck all the joy out of a task, Walgreens will find it and make it policy. Training is horrible - nobody has time to do it right, so you're thrown in front of a computer to watch endless videos and read countless pages, much of which you'll quickly forget since there is no direct experience yet to pair it with. Regardless, you'll be put on a shift to run the store solo before you're ready and while you still have a huge amount of questions and insecurities. You'll be dealing with lots of rude customers who blame you for things you have no control over. You'll spend most of our time as a stockboy / truck unloader / warehouse manager, and the rest of it trying to keep the shelves filled and faced and the store neat since you'll have only a skeleton staff to help you. You'll work different hours every day and week, a mixture of first and second shifts, sometimes back to back. You'll work most holidays and one day every weekend. You'll be interrupted endlessly while trying to complete and task, and paged all over the store for refunds, price checks, customer problems, change and pickups at the registers, and answering the obnoxious call buttons for all the locked-up merchandise ("Customer service is needed in the baby aisle!") You'll often be stressed and frustrated and at wits end, declaring how much you hate the job (I hear it often from every fellow manager, and say it myself). Your boss will be so overwhelmed himself and have so much pressure on him that he pretty much will only ignore you, except when he's being critical. Every holiday season is cause for stress and panic (and there is ALWAYS a holiday season lurking at Walgreens). Everything is always urgent with this company and you therefore burn out quickly, especially when coupled with the lack of appreciation for your efforts. And the company will make it seem like YOU'RE the problem because you don't work hard enough. Unless you're desperate (as I was), avoid this company at all costs, or at least don't stay long if you value your health and quality of life. I plan on jumping ship at the first opportunity.
