Pros
The absolute best part of the job is the folks you meet who work alongside you, they are some of the best people you will meet. The discounts are also a great bonus, especially if you are in the outdoors a lot and looking for quality gear.
Cons
What was once a great place to work, has quickly diminished in recent years as I have watched the company focus more and more on profits above customer experience, training, and employee environment. It is a high stress situation with constantly changing hours that you are scheduled, hyper surveillance on lateness and union activity (in store cameras have increased - more in employee areas) and productivity numbers, and pay freezes with layoffs of core people (resulting in more workload for average retail worker). Most co-workers are struggling to make ends meet. You are expected to have a high knowledge base, but training opportunities are very infrequent and not as easily obtained in recent times. The Headquarters and Corporate teams are the opposite of the average retail employee - they are robotic with no empathy for the consumer or retail employee and very disconnected from the original intent of REI.