Vantaggi
I was hired for a Five Guys that was just opening, so from the start I really saw them try to create a solid team that they could keep. They really do care about serving quality food and making sure the customer is happy, and they want to take care of their employees.
Svantaggi
Like I said, I was hired for one as it was opening, and as a result, they hired a lot more people than they normally would have so they could whittle that group down into the team they have there now. Unfortunately, I felt like I and many others were quickly overlooked because of this. After the first week, I think the managers knew who they wanted to keep, and who they were going to let go in a month, and unfortunately, they did nothing to hide this (they would blatantly NOT teach me how to do anything new while I watched them show certain people how to do everything, even when I asked they basically just told me, "oh, we'll get around to that some other time, just stay on your station"), and after they made their decisions there wasn't any way to really change their minds. I worked harder than most, yet I was still fired after the first month, along with many others who probably deserved to stay. This also led to a somewhat hostile work environment. People were willing to sabotage others for the sake of staying there. One of the guys in my crew used to point out every little thing I would do wrong just for the sake of making me look bad. One time during prep, I went to the bathroom for maybe 5 minutes. While I was gone, my coworkers told my manager I had been gone for almost 20 minutes, and I was immediately reprimanded by one of my managers. When I tried telling him they were completely over exaggerating, he didn't believe me. The secret shopper scores can easily be lowered by a few bad employees, which in turn affects everyone who is working on that shift. I was only shopped a few times while I worked there, but I remember the first one scored a zero, and every deduction was from two employees; the girl working the cash register, and the guy who was on fry duty. However, the worst part is the micromanagement that came from every angle. Prep work was timed down to the second in some cases, especially rolling meat. They would tell you how quickly you should be able to do something, but then would give you zero advice on how to do it faster. One time a manager walked by as I prepped lettuce and said to me, "This is taking way too long, you're doing it the wrong way (I was doing it the way the trainers had showed me the first week), there's a much better way to do it that gets it done in half the time." AND THEN HE JUST WALKED AWAY without bothering to show me.