Aaron's reviews

To start out the pay is horrid, they start you out at $8.75(Franchise) and after a year I received a whole .25 cent raise. They believe that your money should come from bonus which are extremely easy to miss and even if you hit them they are not even worth hitting at all you make make an extra 100 a month maybe. And they always have an excuse to get out of paying your the bonuses. Either it being that the credit dept. didn't close credit or customer gains were too low. The worst part is that your pay is handled buy your store manager which means the more you get paid the less he/she is going to make, since their pay is based how much the store profits. So he/she will do anything in their power to keep your wages at a minimum that way they don't take a pay cut and may even cheat you out of bonuses, of they few that you may get. Which brings me to next point on management. The higher ups are always breathing down your neck forcing you to achieve near impossible goals. Nothing seems to please them, no matter what you do. They always threaten to take away your job and make you feel like you are the reason the company is going down the drain. They talk to you as if they were paying huge salaries and you are not delivering results. Which is why they don't hire people with degrees since they know they will demand more pay and if they don't like the way they are treated they can just get up and go. Which they hate because they want total control over you. The store may be understaffed making employees work up to 50 hours a week. But the store manager refuses to hire new people for the same reason of him making less money and gets very upset with you for having a 100 hours on your check(paid bi-weekly) and will refuse to pay you the overtime. And moving up the latter is almost impossible. Its like a monarchy you cant move up unless some one leaves or gets fired other than that your hopes of climbing the latter are very slim.

Oh let's see, where to start... Summary of my accomplishments at Aaron's (you have to read to understand the CON: I was hired in as a SM - won some awards, within 3 months was promoted to CAM - won more awards. After 6 months with the company I was promoted to GM which I was told was uncommon for someone who isn't a "fast tracker". Like most people who get promoted to GM, your first store will likely be an underperforming store. I knew with my work ethic, competitiveness, and willingness to be the best that I would be able to handle it, no problem. The store was underperforming like nothing I've ever seen but I enjoy a challenge. Within 1 month and I repeat within 1 month my staff and I turned it around. We grew the store the largest that it had ever been (while i was there) and in the month of July (which is suppose to be one of the tougher months) my store was ranked I believe 3 or 4 in the entire company. I'm not just talking in my category they rank you in, I'm talking about out of every store in the entire company. Within 8 or 9 months I was offered another store that was closer to my family. It was of course under performing and would later go on to be a bottom store, but I wanted to move. Once again within 1 month and ill say it again, 1 month, my staff and I were more successful than that store had been all year long. Next within 2 months another opportunity came up for me to run the largest store in our region. This store was bleeding (going backwards) bad and fast, it was going to take some serious work to fix this monster. Now I was already working 70+ hours a week, but the money was going to be good so I went for it. This time it didn't take me a month to fix, it took me a month and a half and that's only because I started in the middle of the month. This store was on the up and up and we were going places BUT here's where it gets good... After about 6 months at the large store I had an altercation with a customer. She fabricated some lies about me and said I forced my way into her apartment. Well never had been in this situation before I immediately contact my regional manager and explained everything to him. In return he relayed everything to the divisional Vice President. After about 6 hours of talking in a closed office, they both agreed that I wasn't lying nor did I do what I was accused of. Well the next step is to forward all information to the legal department and they are suppose to decide if they would back me or if I was on my own. Needless to say they did not back me, they actually wanted to fire me. My regional manager said that wasn't going to happen so they came to the conclusion that they would change my status to "leave of absence" which also means I can't get unemployment benefits. I didn't find this out till after I was denied my claim. So I later came to find out that since companies like these have been sued so many times its just easier for them to get rid of an associate rather than fight for them. No matter how great you are at any job, you should never work for a company that won't work for you. The funny thing is that one of Aaron's new slogans is "building relationships one customer, and one associate at a time". That couldn't be farther from the truth in this situation. Would I recommend working for this company? That's for you to decide. If you doubt my performance then check the numbers because they don't lie :) .My intent here isn't to bash the company, I'm telling my story so hopefully in the future something like this won't happen to anyone else. Thanks