Vantaggi
-the customers are often lovely and sweet; sometimes they’ll bring in their babies, toddlers, and school-age kids -the job itself is enjoyable and manageable if you like kids and serving customers -your coworkers can become your good friends -there is a lot of Mastermind spirit and spirit in general here
Svantaggi
(some of these cons are likely true for work in retail in general) -the company states that their products are priced as they are (i.e. overpriced) and they do not price match because they believe their world-class service makes all the difference but none of that money goes towards sales associates as commission and they will still pay their employees minimum wage or within a few dimes of it -the company “cheats” you out of your raise by giving you your raise just before minimum wage increases (i.e. your “raise” is only for a few weeks because the minimum wage catches up or surpasses it) -when minimum wage increases are significant, there are cuts in hours so your pay cheque ends up being less than you used to make, anyway -there is only one perk to being a part-time employee: the 30% employee discount but even here, they've been making the employee discount protocol more austere (and also, sometimes employees are barred from purchasing relatively new popular items entirely or the discount is cancelled on those items until the hype calms) -only two full-time positions are available in the stores (probably as a way of providing as little benefits as possible) -little to no room for advancement -it isn’t uncommon to see regular customers treated better than employees who are customers -management can be—and in my case, was—needlessly inflexible and arbitrary with scheduling (i.e. some weeks you’ll be down for next to no hours at all and other weeks, over 20 and the hours you receive are unrelated to the number of hours you are capable of working as a single parent, holder of >1 part-time jobs, full-time/part-time student, etc. no effort is made for accommodation and if it doesn't work for you, you'll be pressured to quit) -management is not held accountable because there is no protocol (at least, none widely known and disseminated) or HR oversight regarding the treatment of employees, method of distributing hours, handling of employee requests, etc. it's at the discretion of the manager i.e. sales associates have no power/rights