Vantaggi
Most customers are rural honest folks and the store locations often lend themselves to a more laid back lifestyle. Dealing with rural issues of Ag etc. change with the weather and are never the same. A basic level of challenges keeps life interesting.
Svantaggi
Must be independently wealthy to stay at any level within stores. Stores are routinely run on skeleton crews and forced to cut hours even more if sales look to be slipping in the least – even if there are a few days of rain. Company purposely hires those with the simple life thinking they are simpletons and compensate accordingly. Many solid employees look to leave as macro economic picture improves. Constant menial tasks come out of the company office fast and furious. If it means customers or task - district level and above give lip service to “legendary” service but the reality is woe to the store that is not 100% compliant. Work is often physically demanding to the point becoming a safety issue – a point that the company chooses to ignore Stingy with raises at lower levels, those that could actually use it. Actually gave minimal (most cases 1%) raises to most levels of management last year using the missed “Sales Plan” as reasoning. Missed plan may have been a strategic positioning error like cutting marketing rather than a tactical store level failures. Salary of senior executives has radically increased in past few years. It is a slap in the face.