Pros
REI has great employees and great customers. They are the heart of REI's authenticity and culture. It's fun to work with and get a discount on all the exciting outdoor gear. REI has better benefits than many other low-wage jobs I've looked at, with a lower threshold for health insurance eligibility than most (you must average 20 hours per week after your first 1000 hours on the job). There is a fair amount of autonomy and capacity to make your own decisions. Managers, (when they are present), usually support you. The pay is better than Taco Bell and you don't come home smelling like ground meat product?
Cons
The pay is still too low, and the hours fluctuate greatly. Often, meeting your membership quota is about the only measure of your performance that managers evaluate you on. If you've ever experienced a cashier or sales specialist become outwardly irate at your refusal to join the co-op, it's because if they don't sell that membership, they won't get enough hours next week. Over the past few years, it seems as though upper management has been trying to squeeze out more profits by tightening down on "controllable expenses", mainly payroll. Which means when the store gets really busy it is likely under-staffed. REI likes to boast about its "Diversity and Inclusion" but racial and ethnic minorities are still grossly under-represented in the pool of employees, and the health plan explicitly discriminates against transgender employees.