Vantaggi
Great place to learn, if you have a good DM, you will always be challenged to make yourself a better employee. I have learned alot on lean management, ROA, ROI and simply managing people and put these skills to action. Its a great place to start if you cant go to university and want to properly learn how to run a business.
Svantaggi
I really don't get the feeling they care about employees. Well, actually, they just don't. If they get a bad month they simply cut part timer hours without notice to leverage and make it a good month (the manager will have to put in extra hours to get jobs done), if that is not enough they will simply fire them and then the OSP's (the weakest links will go first), and this is not "downsizing" or "laying off" due to a bad year or something, it is simply firing people to cut spending on employees to save a single month!. Then when things get better, they hire new ones and the wheel goes on and on. We are also constantly threatened that we will lose our jobs if we don't fix "what ever is on their mind". Yeah, "what ever is on their mind" changes every week, you are never "safe" at fastenal, no matter how good you are. Great school but they do not deserve your life of effort.