Pros
City Furniture is a good job if you are starting out your career. They offer various amounts of opportunities to obtain certifications like People First, TWI Certification, HR, etc. They also offer a ton of community outreach opportunities for you to be involved and active in your community. Depending on the location, you will meet some of the best leaders you will ever encounter. This job will also stretch you and give you extremely tough skin over time. You will learn so much about processes and how to lead a team, you will also learn a ton about the business and things you can keep with you forever and take along with you as your progress in your professional career. This company is big on feedback and no layers, so you get a huge say on suggestions on how to run the business.
Cons
This is also one of the most toxic, draining and stressful jobs you will ever have. The culture in each showroom is different, but you will find that a ton of miserable people work in sales. It will make you feel like you’re in a toxic relationship and you will encounter things that are not okay and won’t realize until you leave the organization. This does not come from a bitter place, but you will first hand experience how negative and distasteful the staff can be and be surprised how much leadership will tolerate unexplainable behaviors that come from this staff. It will change you into becoming negative and feeling angry many times. It will also causes a major decline in your mental health and you will feel constantly like you’re not doing enough or getting enough done. Even if you leave at 10pm every night. Depending on how well the showroom is performing, you will feel micromanaged. You will also feel like the ceiling is coming down on you with ways to force the numbers to increase (completely blinded by how the market is right now) you will always have to do another spreadsheet, another training, another workshop and it can become extremely repetitive. You will feel more pressure if you are doing really well in your role and go above and beyond (they say it’s because they believe in you) but it seems like if you are barely doing your job they don’t pay mind to you because you aren’t someone they can train as a their replacement. - which seems easier honestly. You will also wear the hat as GM, HR manager, Operations, Trainer, Customer Service Manager etc, even though you are paid for one role, it will truly feel like you do absolutely everything. Word travels very fast and there will be many people who disrespect and gossip about you including leaders who gossip with other associates. There is also no incentives in being a showroom manager, you don’t get to participate in any of the trips sales associates and GMs get to go on and you don’t receive any of the prizes sales get even though you are apart of driving that performance. The employee discount and KC Cafe discount was also changed significantly so we lost that benefit. The also laid off a huge percentage of the HR department (even those who have worked for the company for a decade) so if you are looking for a long term career, you are in fact replaceable unless you are in sales. This place will try and brainwash you into believing this is the best thing out there for you, if you are reading this, it’s not. If you don’t want to work in a toxic environment, if you wake up stressed to go into work, if you’re not seeing your family, if you are struggling on what to do next, it’s out there, you just need to believe in yourself and understand that City is not the only job in the world that will pay you good.
