Pros
High pay compared to similar jobs in the area. I would say the benefits were alright but expected better from such a high profile company. Received free products ONCE a year at Christmas, that was our only “bonus”. O and the soda was old stock that was flat and out of date, so i guess this really is not a pro after-all. In the beginning we had many company events to raise money for charity. 5k race, Softball and Hockey games that everyone loved and really brought people together, But new management came in and cut every single one for the bottom line. It was also a union job at the time which was a great thing but the new management came from a location that was non union and eventually will try to bust the union up if they have their way.
Cons
Extreme work conditions.Long overnight hours up to 18 in one day. Quality time with friends and family will be hard to come by. Summers brought a lot of overtime/money but there was no AC let alone one fan in the entire warehouse creating temperatures approaching 100 degrees. The worst part of it all, the front office section was kept heavily air conditioned at all times EVEN overnights when not one person was in the office working. If you have to use the restroom you must go ask permission from a manager to do so, which I did not because that is absurd. Also very high productivity numbers were set, which created a competitive toxic environment. Teamwork was non-existent because of everyone being afraid of missing their productivity numbers if they stopped to help a coworker. I was able to reach the standards but i am a young man. Co-workers that were 40 up to 50 years old had to reach the same productivity marks which is unreasonable and unsafe. One long time worker had a heart attack on the floor and was forced to retire. If a worker has been at a company for 20-30 years, given their entire adult life to a company I would expect the company to take care of them and offer a less physically demanding position. Pepsi does not. They would rather fire the loyal employee and bring in a much cheaper replacement. There are some opportunities to advance but the positions are given to the biggest suck ups and not to the most deserving person. Contradicting a manager such as suggesting a better way to do something will only hurt you. They only want yes men that can be taken advantage of. That is the reason I was fired. New management came in and starting making cuts everywhere. They tried adjusting our pay period which would result in all my coworkers and I losing out on 5-10 hours of overtime pay. The after result was everyone receiving their rightful OT pay but I was fired shortly after for standing up for everyone but regret nothing from it. Now I'm sure this happens at many corporate companies but hopefully most have morals. One of the most sickening experiences in my life occurred during my time at Pepsi. Every year we had a charity hockey game that raised thousands of dollars which is wonderful. But that was cancelled because Pepsi didn't want to spend the 100 dollars to help host it. But before it was cancelled all the money raised was given to the American Cancer Society, which I know was put to good use regardless. But I brought up to lead management why don't we give all the money to Roswell Park Cancer Institute? All the money raised would stay in the local community and Roswell uses all donation money received to treat patients that are less fortunate that otherwise wouldn't be able to afford the high cost of treatment. What the manager said next is the reason I will never work for a large corporation again, he said "O ya well I know the donated money would help a lot of people from our area, we gave all the money we raised to Roswell for years from all our fundraisers. But that all changed about five years ago, you know why?" And with a chuckle he says "Rosewell switched from Pepsi to Coca Cola. Can't be supporting a place that uses our main competitor can we haha" and walked away. I was shocked. Pepsi is so slimy that they stopped donating money because Roswell has Coca Cola in their vending machines. You would think that something as important as helping cancer patients would go beyond a BS corporate rivalry but not for Pepsi. I lost all respect for the company that day.