Pros
-Most managers are generally understanding if you have something going on in your life outside work and care about you as a person as well as an employee. -Lax dress code. No khakis necessary. You can wears jeans and t-shirts, as long as they are not extremely dirty, contain swear words, or ripped up. Basically, as long as you are presentable, you're fine. -Sam's Share...this can be a great thing if the whole store does well. Most retailers do not offer profit sharing bonuses. Sam's Club does. However, it is also used as a threatening tool by management if they feel your department is not doing well enough. You'll hear about how the Sam's Share is gonna go down if we don't meet this target, or it went down already for some reason, or the store may not even get one...even though you can plainly SEE that there are always lots of people there and the store is obviously making plenty of money. Management gets an exponentially larger bonus than the rest of the employees too, and they get quite upset if their bonus goes from say, 6 figures to only 5...meanwhile, a phenomenal year for employees is a low 4 figure bonus (1-2 grand). Usually it ends up being a few hundred dollars. Still, it's better than no bonus at all, so I listed it as a pro. -Advancement opportunities. You can change your position and move up with a lot more ease than other retail jobs, for the most part. However, if you are too good at your job, and regularly pick up the slack of others, your manager will not want to let you go and the other managers don't like to step on toes, so just be aware of that. -Transferability. If you are planning to move, you can most likely transfer to another store easily enough. Most transfer requests I have seen get approved.
Cons
-Inconsistent pay scale that varies from state to state. It also doesn't take into account if you are cross-trained between many departments. You get one raise per year, varying from 20-60 cents per hour, and nobody I know of ever got the 60 cents...because management claims nobody is perfect and they best they will give is 50 cents. -Management is afraid to fire employees that are not doing their job...instead, they push that work off onto the good workers, with no increase in pay for the extra work and if you are lucky, maybe they will say thank you. That's about it. -If you are a college student, and were told they would work around your college schedule...that is only true when it's convenient for them. Even if you give them multiple copies of your class schedule, they will still schedule outside of your availability. It's like they just throw your class schedule in the trash after you give it to them. I filled out numerous availability sheets too, that apparently never got entered into the computer system, even though I'd gotten them signed by management. -Hours vary hugely from week to week if you are part time. They will work you as many 40 hour weeks as they can get away with WITHOUT having to make you full time. And they will compensate for that later, cutting you down to only 20 hours, maybe even less, to bring down your overall average. So don't think they are being nice by giving you extra hours...they will pretty much take that money back later, especially when they schedule you for those waste of time and gas money 4 hour shifts. -If you are in certain departments, requests for time off are strictly first come, first serve. Even if one employee is always requesting weekends off and you rarely request time off, they will get it if they put their request in first. -Gossip. Almost every employee gossips, which in a sense is basic human nature...but they automatically don't like you if you keep to yourself and just do your work. If they can't gossip about you, you're considered weird. If they can gossip about you, count on it that they will. -Policy inconsistency. You can be told not to do something under any circumstances...but if a customer demands it and makes enough of a fuss and you call the manager, they will get their way and the manager will make it look like you were just being a jerk. And then the next time that customer is there, they know they can get whatever they want and treat you like crap. Respect for the individual may be the company slogan, but don't expect to ever see it enforced. It is supposed to apply to all customers, employees, and management, but it doesn't. Customers can be as disrespectful as they want and even call you names, while you're still being respectful to them, and management will come and act like you were the one in the wrong. -If you break policy and do what you know the manager is going to do anyway, you still get told you weren't supposed to do that and lectured by management. -Irresponsible scheduling. You will be told when you get hired that they will *never* schedule to work a department all by yourself. This is not true. It will happen, and more than once. And not just because everyone else called out, although that will happen too. I was scheduled to close my department all by myself twice in as many weeks, during one of the busiest times of the year. When I asked my team lead and the manager why, nobody had an explanation. They just said it "wouldn't happen again." But it did. -Insurance. Their insurance plans are a joke and way overpriced. A $300 Health savings plan for a single person? That's the cheapest option. I don't need help saving $300 aside in case of health expenses, I can handle that myself. Thanks anyway though. -Work/life balance. Expect to get the shifts nobody else wants, which is generally the closing shifts. And although they say they won't schedule you more than 5 days in a row without a day off, that happens often. The highest I saw someone get was 8 days in a row, without their agreeing to it. Are there places that do worse? I'm sure there probably are, but still...if you say no more than 5 days in a row without a day off unless the employee offers to do it, that's what should happen.
