Pros
Meeting coworkers who are like minded, share your love of the outdoors and anything outside the box. Industry discounts and prodeals are wonderful.
Cons
Wow, as a result of new leadership, Eric Artz, the company is hemorrhaging money. We exist for profit, that is it. They do excel at campaigning otherwise, the outdoors is for everyone, well yeah, if everyone can pay for the gear, which a small percentage of people can. Store management is hysterical. I wish they were as good as they seem to think they are. And boy, do they believe they're awesome. They're lazy yet demand more from you than they are willing to do. Business is booming but they still schedule only one opener and one closer, we're expected to serve classic REI customer service, sell memberships, sell credit card applications, do the MRA (restock process) and stock the floor....all by yourself. It's completely exhausting and demeaning. You feel depressed when you get home. The radio chatter is enough to make you want to seriously hurt yourself or someone else, it's a crazy, crazy environment that depletes you.