Pros
-Device repair and battery rebuilds are very fun most of the time -Learn a lot about the chemistry of batteries -For what the basic sales associate position entails, the pay is very good and the difficulty level is low. However, If you are ANYTHING other than a cut and paste sales associate, it quickly becomes awful. -Scheduler reasonably accomates schedule requests, for the most part
Cons
-INCREDIBLE focus on negatively reinforcing employees from upper management. They will tell you one or two things you're doing well at, and then proceed to have a 30 minute discussion on how low your sales numbers are (even if you've repeatedly beaten the ridiculous Spiff program goals multiple times). Associates notice this, but the managers get it ten times worse. -Extremely competitive environment. Because the Spiff bonus program is based on individual sales, nobody wants to work to help out the other associates and bolster store/company sales--only the top selling 8 of 30-something employees receive Spiff bonus, everyone else gets nothing... so boosting others' sales literally only hurts you. -If you get into rebuilding battery packs, expect to have little to no chance at earning a Spiff bonus. Some stores get 2-3 rebuilds a day, others considerably less so. The packs count for absolutely nothing, and are an INSANE time sink (HUGE commercial orders every month or so that sometimes take two whole shifts to complete), with promise dates set by other employees who half the time don't know or don't care about your current workload. While you're busy trying to make deadlines for customers, expect to be prodded by management to sell more, sell more, sell more, sell more, sell more, sell more, sell more, sell more, sell more, sell more... -Upper management will go the extra mile to revoke bonus pay, usually if you've just crossed the threshold for a Spiff bonus. -All the store managers pretty much hate each other I think. Literally everything is based on sales numbers, and some managers will stay late during their free time to boost sales numbers while eschewing actual management duties, but this is overlooked because of their individual sales numbers. They also get bonuses based on ranking, so again, it's literally set up to be counterproductive to a team setting. -You will be moved from store to store to store to store, where each store manager has different rules and expectations that you have to keep track of or get angry phone calls at 8:00am wondering why the counter wasn't perfectly clean. No compensation for travel. Usually you work between 3 stores, and a fourth or fifth occasionally. -Average increase in responsibility leads to minimal increase in compensation and considerable increase in stress level. -Have I mentioned the negative reinforcement and excessively competitive bonus program that serves only to demoralize employees? -If you work a closing shift, you will be by yourself for at least an entire hour. This becomes about 2 hours during the holidays. One of the stores is in a shady area. It is not fun to close this store by yourself, given the customers that come in on a daily basis. -The customers. Jesus, the customers. Most of them are okay. In fact, about 90% of them are okay. But the ones that are bad are REALLY, REALLY bad. They know little to nothing about the product they need and are inquiring towards, and when you show them what they're asking for, they become angry. Precious few customers actually understand what a manufacturer's warranty is, and guess who gets to get berated by the rest of them? The associates. The most common issue is the cash refund policy. No cash back over $30. Prepare to be berated by angry customers for selling them a battery in the manner which your boss asked, and then by your boss for not selling enough. -We all had to sign 'non-compete' forms agreeing to not work for competitors within 5 years or something, yet the owner constantly poaches commercial salespeople and technicians from other businesses. -The closing shift is usually right in the meat of the day, 11-8. Not enough time to really sleep in, not enough time to have a really restful evening. -You will be worked 10 days in a row about every other month with NO OVERTIME due to the pay week starting on Saturday. You will frequently work 7 or 8 days in a row with NO OVERTIME. The schedule is usually fair--5 days on, 2 days off, but you will be scheduled in such a way that you potentially work monday through friday AND the weekend (60+ hour week) with no overtime pay. -I probably couldn't even buy afford Nyquil with the garbage tier health insurance.