Some good people, nightmare management - Upper Management Guitar Center Employee Review

1.0
Aug 8, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

a) Discount on musical instruments b) Discount on musical instruments c) See above

Cons

Ground hog day everyday! 7:30am - miss target numbers, 4 hours of meetings, adjust strategy, work through lunch, 4 more hours of meetings, adjust strategy again, 4 hours of catch-up on 150 emails, leave at 7pm, repeat daily.

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5.0
Jan 9, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Got to work with so many people

Cons

Long hours during holidays were rough

1.0
Apr 21, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Plenty of capable individual contributors doing real work. - The brand and the business itself are legitimate — the problems are organizational.

Cons

- Senior leadership is politically driven rather than outcome-driven. Strategic initiatives stall out, and leaders spend more energy assigning or shifting blame than actually diagnosing and fixing problems. - Some parts of the org operate on deference to the top. Honest assessments get softened into whatever narrative leadership wants to hear, which makes real cross-functional work difficult. - Senior leaders do not consistently advocate for their own teams. When things get political, self-preservation takes precedence over backing the people underneath, and capable managers end up exposed.

2
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