Pros
Obviously, the 50% discount on most items in the store was a huge boon. The people you meet while working, both customers and co-workers. The variety of cool things we'd get, always making for great conversations.
Cons
The general culture is so focused on sales and profits that it feels like an utter failure of a day when the store goal, or even your own personal goal, isn't met. Having a store goal is one thing, and absolutely makes sense, but putting unruly goals on a worker who could be spending an entire morning shift by themselves when there's little to no business can be incredibly disheartening. Making your personal goal is what dictates your hours (unless you have a manager that doesn't like you and is trying to get your to quit), so if you want the hours you need, you should get really good at selling low-quality, over-priced products. Because of how personal sales goals are set (and what they mean to the company), working for sales can become competitive to the point of bad blood between coworkers. A little friendly contest is one thing, especially when it's used to motivate workers during slower months, but I've seen friends become nasty with each other because they were pitted against one another over an assistant manager position, which neither one ended up getting. This can lead to incredibly nasty attitudes, and that will make shifts really uncomfortable for people not involved. This is all encouraged by upper management, too, so it's not like it's the culture of a single store. This happens on a district and regional level. It's too easy to stumble upon files that are supposed to be confidential, as well. It's almost as if management wants people to find them in a misguided effort to get people to either correct their own behavior or leave. Both options are terrible management strategies, and incredibly unprofessional.
