1. Hours - I was hired as part time and gave management a full 40 hours of availability. I was given under 20 hours a week and frequently scheduled during times that conflicted with the availability I gave them.
2. Attitude - Management was extremely condescending and patronizing at times. Make no mistake... most of the employees are doing minimum wage, non-skilled work that a monkey could do. Management seemed to take it upon themselves to not let us forget that. This was a common theme I witnessed through all departments.
3. You'd better like Cool aide - Showing up and doing your best to ensure customers are leaving satisfied is not enough. You'd better live, breathe and eat their core values and simultaneously be a court jester. If you're not wearing socks with sandals, you don't boulder at Joshua Tree or you don't spend your free time hiking sections of the PCT, then you're just one granola bar away from getting let go.
4. Cliquey - Newcomers are not welcomed, especially anyone who's under 35. Much of the staff was middle aged and many were unwilling to engage new faces. If you want to make friends, you'd better be a single 48 year old and spend your time cleaning local beaches of trash or wearing fanny packs...... or both.
5. Smoke and mirrors - When you're hired, you're explained all of the benefits of working at REI... profit sharing, discounts, health insurance, 401k... etc. You'll soon find out that to qualify for health insurance you'll have to maintain a 20 hour a week average for 1000 hours... which is difficult to do when you're not even scheduled 20 hours a week. That also pretty much excludes any kind of profit sharing and 401k contribution simultaneously. The pay is minimum wage, which is the standard among billion dollar companies. What do they expect from you for your lucrative $11.00/hr pay? Your dignity.
5A. Yay-Days - You get what is called a "yay day" which is basically just a paid day off, because its cheaper to pay you minimum wage for a day that you don't work than to actually just pay you a livable wage. Its just an internal marketing scheme to make it look like the actually care about your work-life balance. One day a year?! OH LUCKY ME!
5B. OPT-OUTSIDE - The biggest joke in retail history. We are given black friday off from work to appear like the company cares about its employees and getting outside, when in reality the months of Nov-December is one giant black friday. Thanksgiving is sandwiched by heavy sales... and black friday is closed so all the good ole' boy club of REI can post on social media about not being materialistic in their $600 Arc Teryx jacket.... come on.
6. Advancement - Does't exist unless you've satisfied numbers 3 and 4. Every time I mentioned transfer to a different department I was either laughed off or completely ignored.
7. Memberships - Where do I even start? I'll keep it short and sweet. You are REQUIRED to sell memberships but there is absolutely no incentive. You get nothing for doing it, but if you don't pull it off you are scrutinized. This alone is the sharks fin breaking the waters surface. If you get a job here, try not to fall overboard because those sharks are blood thirsty!
