Pros
Some of the pro's in quick bullet-points: *Great management, although this depends on the store you are in. In 7 years at the company I've been fortunate to have great managers who help me grow as an employee and believed in me. They even let me keep my job when working minimal amounts of hours to stay focused on college. However, I have seen managers come into stores who have HORRIBLE attitudes and turn the whole stores' attitude into a plague. *Healthy company overall - always expanding and pays attention (generally) to improving older stores. I helped open a new store and even when the store wasn't making the sales figures they predicted it to, they pledged to never let the store go. *Benefits - They offer benefits even if you are part-time. The benefits aren't too great, but if you shop around, you'll generally find a plan you like. *Friends - I've said this many times - you'll make tons of new friends working at Giant, whether they be co-workers or managers. If it's not for them and the "family" that you make, I would have left a lot sooner.
Cons
*Compensation - Pay is on-par with other non-union grocery chains, but is horribly low. As a part-time supervisor in charge of 20 to 30 employees per day/night, I made a little over $10/hour at my highest point. For management, the salaries are great, but for their part-time, front-line employees, the salaries are horribly low. *Hours - Some stores will give you close to 40 hours/week even if you're part time, and some stores that are slower can barely manage to give you the minimum 12 hours/week. Most people (especially front-end: cashiers, baggers, etc.) complain about not ever getting enough hours. *Hire Too Many People - Store employment associates (SEAs) generally care more about hiring, hiring, hiring than keeping their existing employees hours regular. Say you're working 30 hours/week, then 5 new employees are hired, well then get used to working 12 hours/week for awhile. And generally, the people they hire get worse and worse. *General "Do More with Less" attitude - Things such as "Project Thunder" and "Project Fix" (GIANT employees know these terms) aim to fix overspending at the store level, and are spun in a way that gets employees and the public excited about "New low prices", etc. In retrospect, all they are doing is cutting people's hours. It was to the point toward the end of my employment as a supervisor where the attitude was "The customer is always right, the customer comes first, the customer, the customer, the customer...", but yet upper management never scheduled me enough cashiers, baggers, or customer service people to serve customers well enough. If you are in a generally slower store, this will not be a problem. If you work in a very busy location, you will CONTINUOUSLY have to do more with less, especially people-wise. You are expected to bend over backwards for customers, but with no associates to help you do it. It's just all put on your shoulders. This is my biggest pet peeve about this company. Upper management (at the store- and corporate levels) are totally and completely disconnected with what is going on in their stores on the front-line.
