Pros
Good pay for the industry, job opportunities and benefits. Members of the board of directors seem to know the business inside out and actually shop in the store. Jim seems to really care about the company and the people who work for him. Hopefully, whoever takes over when he leaves will have a similar point of view and work ethic or the company will likely go the way of Walmart and the rest,...The way the company works now I'm genuinely proud of what our stores do for the communities in which they operate, in that they create good jobs for the people who work in the stores and also support the smaller businesses who purchase their stores supplies and merchandise from us. Whereas a company like Walmart tends do neither and generally sucks the life out of its community. Job opportunities are generally way above average at least in the Seattle area because the corporate headquarters are nearby in Issaquah. For example my sister's husband started working for Costco in 1998 and went from a job paying $8 bucks an hour to a much higher paying job working in the companies IT department after only working there for less than a year. Also I feel it is a great place to work while going to college: the company is very flexible place to work those who need unusual schedules for school and they actually pay enough that you can afford to go school and not have to work so many hours that your grades suffer.
Cons
Hard to leave the "Costco culture" and work stress behind. The company is very competitive internally both between employees and other warehouses, and at times this works against the companies goals because it encourages to much emphasis on raw numbers which does not tell the real story since the numbers can and are manipulated by employees and management to suit "their goals". Furthermore, If you decide to advance into a supervisor or management position--the company expects you to sign your life away. Warehouse level managers and supervisors have a tremendous amount of power in making your work life a pleasure or a living hell. But the companies open door policy works well if you have an issue that you are not confronting your management with. In general I love our members, but there are of course the exceptions who think they own you and the company because they paid $50 bucks for a membership card.