Pros
many people want to work there because they love books. it is nice to have an employee discount and access to check out books. jobs allow for a lot of merchandising and opportunities to be department heads allow employees to learn a lot about one area (like kids book or gift items). after asking for training, i was taught about the different departments in the store - resulting in promotion.
Cons
communication from corporate is unrealistic and ineffective. small payroll budgets make hiring good employees impossible, few benefits, corporate does not listen to store level management on differentiation of stores that would make it compete locally - all decisions are company wide and seem to be made without walking into a store and seeing how long things take to be implemented and what impact, if any, they have. zero time for customer service do to constant merchandising and discounting moves, putting out inventory and scanning every book for voids monthly - all on a skeleton crew. management has to work 60 hours to make up for constant budget cuts and increased "projects".