Circle K reviews

-Usually scheduled alone; almost impossible to get breaks/use the restroom -Boring - the work is easy, but if it's slow you'll have to find something to fill your time Since you're usually scheduled alone, you'll have to deal with rush hours by yourself. Most hours are slow, but you'll get rushes that last for a while where you might have a line of customers ten people deep. For second shift workers there's a concern as to whether or not the overnight person will come in. There are less than 10 people on staff, so if they decide not to answer their phones, you'll be stuck overnight. Customers can be a con, as many of them are under the impression that gas station attendants are all high school dropouts unable to count. Rushed customers might snap and yell, and lottery customers can create a long wait for other, already impatient customers. Also, some people just don't know how to use a gas pump.

Couche Tard is broken up into separate business units across the US and Canada. Some units are very similar culturally (especially the heritage Circle K units) because of Couche Tard's tradition of absorbing stores and leaving operation teams in place. The company does very well on revenue generation and M&A, but the independence of the business units (roughly 500 stores each) strains the lean retail business model that Couche Tard has become famous for. The regions often have different operating structures, accounting systems, advertising, global purchasing, fiscal responsibility, marketing programs, fuel agreements that under cut any "clout" that management can muster by using CT as a single company. Couche Tard's reputation of being driven to save money on the front end has given them an impression in the industry of being cheap at any cost. This is great for quarterly/yearly results, but the rapid growth has hidden the long term sunk costs in overhead and operating costs of constantly negotiating service contracts, buying new software, marketing systems and purchase agreements.