Pros
My friendships with fellow employees and a few regular customers are what kept me coming back to work, day after day. I worked with some great people in my time at the store, and I can honestly say that I miss seeing certain team members on a daily basis. Aside from that, there isn't much else that I would consider a positive. Benefits weren't bad, but the gradual kick-in wasn't really worth all of the nonsense that I had to deal with in that time frame. The employee discount is 10% off of most own-branded products.
Cons
Where to start? I came into the company with a part-time position that would have me scheduled anywhere from 16 to 40+ hours each week. Newcomers can't rely on a consistent schedule/pay, especially when upper-management decides to cut the allotted hours for each department to "keep costs down." This usually results in over-worked and under-performing team members that are just trying to make it through each day. It's pretty difficult to fit 80 hours of weekly work between 5 employees into 64 hours, with a mostly-absent manager taking up 40 of those hours doing whatever, which brings me to another point. It's all about who you know and are "friends" with in this company. Never in my life have I seen adults act like teenagers in cliques more than I have at Giant Eagle. The people with connections in high places could probably get away with murder, but a great employee that does their job exactly as they're supposed to can easily get screwed if they don't hang with the right crowd. The high prices on everyday items bring in big profits, but that doesn't translate into better pay and better stores. Corners are cut, workers are made to work harder with less compensation, and morale keeps getting lower, but that's okay, because the big-wigs are sitting fat, happy, and laughing all the way to the bank.
