Pros
You generally work alone or with 1-2 co-workers Decent work life balance Medical benefits and 401k
Cons
I can really only speak about my experience as a field employee with Public Storage but after working here for over 2 years and seeing the way the upper management runs things, I can only assume it just as bad in other departments. To anyone looking at becoming either a relief or property manager for Public Storage please be wary. First off, there is no room for advancement as a field employee. You could become a property manager and possibly get an on site apartment but that is as high as you will ever go. Public Storage DOES NOT promote higher than the property manager position but they will attempt to give you extra work with no pay raise once you become more experienced. Because field employees are not promoted to the corporate side of this business, the managers are MASSIVELY DISCONNECTED with the employees they are managing. As a field employee you report directly to a DM(District Manager) who has never actually done your job full time. The DMs are told by the RMs(Regional Manager) how to manage us field employees. Well the RMs have never done this job either and are rarely out in the field so they are even more disconnected. Now this wouldn't be so bad except that Public Storage upper management evaluates your performance based almost solely on numbers and metrics. We are told to follow these absolutely robotic and inhuman scripts for just about every interaction we could have with a customer. These scripts are written by someone in corporate who has also never done this job. The point of the scripts is to streamline the service to help us meet certain numbers each month in several different categories such as move-ins, lock sales, insurance sign ups, and merchandise sales to name only a few. But the scripts really just make us sound like the robots and makes the entire interaction terribly awkward. Then, if you don't meet the numbers they expect, you just get told that you must not be following the scripts well enough. Plus most of these categories are not even within our control and trying to influence customers to buy packing supplies or locks can only get even the best salesman so far. But you'll still reprimanded for not meeting your numbers anyway! On top of having to manage reservations, maintain the cleanliness of the property and do collections, this can become a bit of a stressful job. In the end Public Storage is asking A LOT more from us field employees than what we are paid for and all incentive to work as hard as upper managements wants to get the job done is completely removed. Why would I keep working my butt off when I have no other room for advancement and I'm barely getting paid over minimum wage? I would highly advise anyone thinking of working for this company to only use it as a place holder job until you find something better.