Pros
I love art and have years of experience with the products sold at the store. I enjoyed helping the customers. I enjoyed working retail in a field I was familiar with and passionate about. I really enjoyed doing the demos. After I applied I got a call 24 hours later for an interview. Impressive compared to other places I've applied for. I felt much better once I was no longer working here. I was disappointed by how my store was run.
Cons
Um, so they never really trained me. I had to basically figure out things myself or ask my co-workers. They would say they were going to train me for cashier for months. Co-workers has same experience. What made me dislike my job was the majority of my co-workers and management. Most co-workers had little to no knowledge of the products we sold- they had been working there YEARS before I was hired. My co-workers simply hated helping ANY customers (not just the difficult ones). So, I often got the heat from frustrated customers who found me after because my co-workers blew the customer off. Overall, most co-workers (including those in higher positions) were difficult to work with, lazy, and consistently went missing on "smoke breaks". Management knew these employees were difficult (I didn't even submit a complaint). They found it funny how [person] wouldn't do her job or [person] would go missing for an hour from their post. Management's solution to their attitude would be to have these employees work in the back or stocking on the floor. Meanwhile I was then moved to register for the remainder of my employment because the others received complaints from customers for being rude. The favoritism of the male employees was ridiculous. Some of the boys (despite many no-shows) were never let go. I worked with several girls who gave excellent customer service, but were let-go. I had an especially creepy male co-worker and management did nothing about him. Misogynistic too, acted as if the girls couldn't handle the heavy-lifting of deliveries, yet always had girls doing the truck with the boys. It's minimum wage, but that's expected. Little to no opportunity for pay increase here. Store is understaffed. Need to hire more people to work each shift. Too much gossip in the workplace. Too much fighting and drama- both employees and management. There's a point system and you get infractions for everything. It's unavoidable. "Report-cards" are basically another term for more infractions and are also unavoidable. Working there was Catch-22. FES would tell me to do one thing, despite it being against store policy (ex. coupons) then I'd have a notice on my punch card to sign a "report card". Good work went unnoticed. I came in early for shifts, stayed late. Help open and close. Unloaded the truck, stocked, swept, cashiered, helped customers. All the good co-workers quit and found other work because they couldn't deal with the frustration any more. Also they would make staff sign forms (ex. new policies) without reading the new packet.
