Vantaggi
The only good thing about this job is that it's a union job, and because it's a union job it guarantees you hours. And you can be eligible for health insurance through the union. But that's about it. I like the majority of my coworkers well enough.
Svantaggi
This may be a union job, but there is a stipulation that says you can't go on strike if you feel the work conditions are unfair. Health insurance is offered, but utility clerks aren't eligible for it, despite being the ones who probably need it the most. There isn't much room for moving up in the company, and even if you do decide you want to move up to a CSM position, you only get a 50-cent bump in hourly pay. If you are in college, they say they'll work around your college schedule, but they don't do a very good job at it. When customers get upset with the cashier for some unknown reason (despite being provided with excellent customer service), the management will never have the cashier's back and make the cashier look bad, which is not very good for morale. Upper management seems to be out of touch with their employees. The work hours are erratic; one week they'll load the hours on your, and the next you'll be lucky if you get the minimum amount. If you have to call off for an emergency, they give you a hard time about it. I had to call off three days during the epic snowstorm earlier in 2014; three roads around me were closed due to the snow and cold, and whenever I called in to call off, they gave me SUCH a hard time about not trying to make it to work. And they cut corners every opportunity they can. They schedule the bare minimum of cashiers at a time, and when it gets busy, CSMs and managers have to hop on registers to help ring customers up. Then they have to start calling the STOCKERS to the registers to help ring customers up, all because they're too stingy with hours and don't want to schedule any more cashiers than they think they need. When a CSM is on a register ringing a customer up, then good luck seeing if any of the other cashiers need assistance with voids or dealing with an upset customer. I've had my breaks delayed up to 45 minutes because of this. It's even worse when it's not busy and the CSMs are just standing around in the service desk gossiping and doing not much of anything. CSMs also won't crack down on anyone who won't do their jobs on the front end (mainly the utility clerks). The cashiers are stuck doing half of their own bagging since the utility clerks are slacking off and CSMs aren't cracking down on them. Then the customers feel they have to go help bag their own orders since there are no utility clerks around to do it, and then they complain that it's like shopping at a competitor that offers no carryout service but they pay more here.