Pros
Challenging work for anyone who enjoys retail work and customer service. Doing the job right requires constantly doing something. Most of our customers like us, and we enjoy hosting them in our stores.
Cons
Feels like your performance is scored like a pinball game- constantly worrying about beating LY numbers for sales, conversion, units per, dollars per, csats, LST, dm visit scores, etc. Making sales and profit seem like secondary considerations to making your required numbers. Feels like I'm constantly in danger of losing my job. I refuse to cheat on the customer sat surveys despite rumors of widespread cheating by other payless districts. Get mixed messages from the chiefs who tell us "don't over focus on tasks" at the same time as " you're in deep if all the shipment/tagging/display/scanning/etc. isn't done within the alloted time." We are supposed to "have fun", while at the same we are reminded when fail at making one or more of the required numbers. I don't believe that the company's top decision makers have a realistic picture of what it is like to work in our stores or what our customers really experience in our stores, even with all the tools like CRM, RGS, Shoppertrak, etc. This is not a condemnation of them- of course they would like to have a more complete picture of everything. But the reality is that the only view they get is what the numbers are showing on the daily/weekly/monthly/etc reports show them, and the consequence of not meeting the goals is "being held accountable with progressive counseling", another way of saying they wanna fire you to show they are accomplishing something. At one time I had a vision that I might stay with payless until retirement. Seriously doubt i'll make it twenty more years, either by their choice or mine.
