Pros
Learning about cars and different sales techniques. Flexibility of my schedule, company car.
Cons
Bonus program was constantly changing. In fact, CEO Darren Jackson was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying the following: "This 138 basis point decrease was primarily due to reduced incentive compensation, benefits from the company’s new variable customer driven labor model which includes the anniversary of investment rollout expenses, as well as a significant decrease in support costs." They obviously do not want to pay bonus, yet the CEO team is collecting millions of dollars in incentives every year. Goals were unrealistic. Middle management was very condescending toward employees. I was one of the top performers in the company yet whenever I mentioned an idea, my sales manger would say "you are just a Cam and don't have the right to do anything." They preach that they want everyone to be a leader and step up when something needs to be done, yet they jump all over you when you do so. The people in middle management seem to feel threatened if anyone working for them has any success.They constantly cut resources to the point that it was impossible to grow the business. There is little to no advancement opportunity. They stopped posting most open positions and hired from outside the company. People who do get promoted are doing so based on sucking up to the Commercial Vice President. I was the fifth person in my district to resign in less than 3 weeks. Once the word was out that I had left, I started receiving calls from people all over the country. Every one was a call of support telling me that I did the right thing and that they were also looking. Many stores are running with one or two people all day and the do not have enough drivers to deliver to commercial accounts. The average delivery time is 80 minutes which is unacceptable to a commercial account. They can't seem to be able to decide if they want to do commercial or focus on retail. I made a very good living and learned a lot at Advance Auto Parts and felt fortunate to have a job but the lack of focus and support was a joke. The stock price dropped 15 points in one day. The ship is sinking. I resigned for a much better opportunity. There are currently 7 openings in a district that only has 13 people in the role that I was in.
