Pros
- I've loved almost all my co-workers and a few managers I've worked with. - You get discounts at JCPenny and the Sephora in the store, 20% if you use a card and 25% if you use cash. - You'll sometimes meet really cool repeat customers who you enjoy. - Work with your schedule - You get to photograph a lot of animals (mostly dogs) during the Holidays
Cons
I've been at my current job for 3 years and I just feel like I'm being taken advantage of and really under appreciated. The company pushes such high expectations without really giving back to its employees. For each session, we're only given 15 minutes in the camera room and there's so much expected from us for each session. We're talking people in the company grade each session regardless if you had a good sale. With children, it's pretty rare to have a fantastic session because children are so unpredictable and most of the time are not corporative in these 15 minutes. You get children who are scared, hyper, crying, don't want to listen to you, whatever. Since I've been here, the expectations continue to go up while I continue to work at the same pay since I've started. I've never received a raise here. While you have to sometimes deal with unhappy children, you also have to deal with unhappy customers/parents who can be pretty rude, especially around the holidays. I think a huge reason for it is a not so great clientele. The company charges cheap prices. When a company charges cheap prices, you generally attract some not so great people. Rarely does someone ever pay full price here, and when they do, they ask if there's a coupon they can use or something along those line. We constantly offer Groupons and the same coupon is up all year long. Those people who come to you with a Groupon or that coupon for $3.99 a sheet are not gonna come back unless they have one. It's not even a coupon anymore either if it's offered all year round. Over half the customers I deal with think spending anything more than $100 is too expensive for photos. It makes it almost impossible to sell the higher packages because of these. You also get in trouble if your photography or sales average does not meet the companies expectations, which are too high. I've had several managers and seen many employees come and go during my 3 year years here. None of the people who I originally started working with are still here. If that doesn't say a lot about a company, I don't know what does. Be prepared to be understaffed and overworked for the holiday season. You will be booked every 15 minutes at the very least on the weekends. Not the job for you if you are looking for a decent part time job for hours. Manager will take up most of the during the year and it will be too slow to have two people on shift.