Pros
Branch becomes your family and regular customers become like friends. If you're young, inexperienced and fresh out of college, you're guaranteed your own branch or department within two years. This could literally be your first job and you'll be making more than your coworkers the day you start. Also paid holidays for full-time employees including Labor Day and Memorial Day.
Cons
The reason so many people are here for 30+ years isn't because they love their job, it's because no one can afford to retire and most of the staff feels they’re too old to find valuable employment elsewhere. It’s honestly sad how many people stay because they feel like they have no choice. Raises are nonexistent and promotions are few and far between (unless you’re hired specifically for one of the management programs). There are people working here who make virtually the same as the day they started 10-20+ years ago. A few of the upper salesmen have to work two jobs. What's most insulting is that the trainees make double the pay of the people who are training them and fixing their mistakes all day. And while many of the trainees do work hard, you don’t expect to dedicate years of your life learning an industry only to have junior-fresh out of school getting ready to be your boss in a year. Most of the trainees leave once they realize that after two years, they’ve reached the highest level they’ll get in the company. The senior management may be older but they’re not retiring any time soon. You climb a ladder to reach the highest level of employment the company will offer 95% of its workers in two years. After that, there’s virtually NO room for growth and your opportunities are limited to how well you socialize and can find a ticket out. Virtually no support from corporate. The branches, or at least mine, just got used to fending for itself. It’s a hassle to even get a flyer made because marketing basically tells you they’re too busy to do their job. You get used to just promoting things yourself (thank God word of mouth works with the customer base). The company has all these resources for us to succeed but they slap your hands every time you try getting access to any of it. They do send us polos and t-shirts on rare occasions. You always know which belong to us and which we hand out to the customers because the customers will get the high-quality golfing polos (free) and we'll get the ones that fall apart after a shift and a half but yet we're still expected to wear them. It’s embarrassing for the company, especially since the customers notice and they love to joke about it. There's absolutely no value to the employee. The reviews from this company are a joke. The senior team makes employees write good reviews to hide bad ones. And since they know management is looking for them, no one writes cons or how they actually feel. I remember being asked to write a 5 star review back when this company was scored at about a 2-3. It's why most of the reviews read like they've been copy and pasted from a website or like the people writing them are being held at gunpoint. If you asked anyone on a branch level how they actually felt, the response would be entirely different. Truth is, everyone is miserable and it’s sad because it used to be an entirely different atmosphere to work in. Over the past years, it’s just gone downhill. The only diversity in this company is their BMIs because on a branch level there's only really one race, gender and age range.