Pros
The atmosphere is great. The stores are clean, well-lit and stocked with new, top-quality merchandise. If your sales support team is good, then they'll help you keep the place looking like a department store should. The customers were mostly easy to handle and management strongly prefers to talk to angry customers themselves, so you don't have to. This job gives you the chance to make your department look flawless, with everything in its place. You get to know your products quickly and seem like an expert almost overnight. Also, JC Penney isn't a commission-sales job, so you don't feel forced to sell things to your customers.
Cons
The management at JC Penney never lives up to the company's stellar reputation in retail. The senior store managers are all veterans who tend to be waiting out the clock on their retirement and don't seem to care much about the day-to-day operations. The department managers (Sales Managers) are more hands-on, but they have a high amount of freedom in running things their own way, so you'd better hope you get a competent manager. If he/she does something wrong, it almost always gets blamed on the associates and part-timers. Lastly, the quality of associates hired seems to decline every month. Because it's a part-time, non-commissioned job, it attracts a lot of high schoolers and day players who don't take their job seriously at all. Your department, and thus your job, can be severely impacted if you get stuck with coworkers who don't care.