change in culture - Associate Manager Build-A-Bear Employee Review

Quite a few: when I first started at the company in 2009 the culture was based around the customer experience and their happiness. Once the new CEO took office, the culture quickly changed to a selling culture. If a single mom came in with her 3 kids, in the past we would be happy to get her kids the cheapest bears with tons of cool bows and we'd be happy with our sale. By the time I left, the assumption was that we'd upsell that struggling mother, and we'd be harassed by upper management to do so. The culture changed from a company trying to make the world happier to a company trying to squeeze the last penny out of families just trying to do something nice for their kids. On the plus: they pay WAY under what is considered the industry norms. They expect a LOT from their part time retail employees, but don't offer competitive salary, benefits or commission. They expect us to SELL like we work on commission, but don't receive an compensation for the extra push.