Can be a great place to work, if your Store Manager and your Regional Director are halfway competent...
Pros
Great employees with strong work ethic in the store. Decent pay and benefits for not requiring a college degree. Sometimes fun to work in the production area, and on a store-by-store basis supervisors can have freedom to work on their own projects (I say that with reservation...check out the store you're applying for first!) Workshops and other escapes from the daily grind were also pretty fun.
Cons
The company seems to promote mediocrity and punish those who try to make things better. I saw way too many incompetent managers last months, even years, while countless individuals who made small mistakes were immediately terminated. Employees were afraid to speak their minds (even when they would offer helpful suggestions) for fear of punishment. Store manager ruled the place with an iron fist with some of the most unintentionally hilarious rules, all of which held the manager to a different standard than all other employees at the store. Supervisors were regularly held to the same production standards as line employees and were written up if they did not match the full-time production workers' standards (even when they spent the entire day busy with supervisory work). At the same time, when employees at my store attempted to reach out to upper-level management, they were continually ignored. Most of the "troublemakers" who found the store manager's rules to be unfair were fired before they could get their cases heard at HR. It's a huge gamble where you get hired on as to what your working conditions will be like. Many of the store managers (and a few Regional Directors) are great and will gladly listen to employees' concerns, but one never really knows until they get hired, where they're going to be. Many good managers at the company are weighed down by the incompetent people above them. If you're looking for a guaranteed good experience in management, you'll want to do more research before you apply here.
