Sam's Club Cart Associate... The Good, The Bad, and The Morning Team Leads.
Pros
good pay for a first job, great exercise, they will work around your schedule, they have a 12 point system, calling in sick (Not Using PTO) only takes half a point... The people i work with always have good energy and are very understanding, especially the evening front end team leads, they are super nice but still give authority. Sam's Club provides you with free cold/frozen water for your shift. they have to give you a 15 min break every 2 hours, so if you work an 8 hour shift, after 2 hours, you have a 15 min break, 2 hours after the break, you have a 30 min lunch, and 2 hours after that, you have your last 15 min break. you're allowed to clock in 9 mins early and clock out 5 mins early as well, and you're allowed to be up to 9 mins late. i like that my afternoon team leads often notice how hard i try to work compared to the other part time after noon cart associates so when i go to clock out feeling exhausted, ill be pulled aside and told that they notice how hard i work and it just feels like all that pushing and lifting was worth it. I've only told the store manager Ken "good morning" a couple of times since i started working here but he seems like a really nice person and a great club manager. At Sam's Club, if you do your job, everybody will feel like family. I came into work recently after only having around 20 minutes of sleep the night before, the closing team lead told me that they understood if i was going to have to go home early because of how sleep deprived i was that day, she was more worried if i was okay than how it would have impacted carts. the higher ups understand that nobodys perfect which gives me another reason why i like this job. I really recommend this for a first job and to those who want to try new things. if you give up easily and don't have a good work ethic, this one isn't for you.
Cons
as a cart associate, you are expected to push carts to the bay, but you also have to help members load items into their cars if they ask you... and a lot of people ask you to. sometimes you will be scheduled by your self if you work from 4-9 on weekdays, which can be very frustrating especially if members keep asking for help and its a really busy day. Another thing is most of the members who ask for help really do need the help, and when we help them, they often try to give us tips. Sam's Club has a no-tip rule so i always tell the member that i cant accept tips, if the member keeps trying to give me the money (forcefully), ill accept it. You're not supposed to... but i was taught growing up that it was rude to decline a tip. Now the worst con on this list is the COS associates. the COS associates are the team leads, cart associates work with the front end team leads. If you are scheduled to open or clock in in the morning - afternoon, beware, the morning team leads are not nice people. the front end team leads who work the morning shift have been working at Sam's Club since the 80s-90s, and often think that they are holier than thou. One of the team leads constantly throws my JUST OPENED, fresh out of the minifridge water bottles away that i keep in the corner of the bay like i was asked to. they constantly complain that there are no carts when the manager has me scheduled to open by myself and for 3 hours on the busiest day of the week until the next cart associate comes in to help me. ive gotten yelled at by a morning team lead because i was taking a 5 minute break to let my body cool down because it was really hot that day. they really like arguing whether they are right or wrong. one of them once yelled at me for walking to a full cart corral to bring them into the bay because the cart corral was "empty"... i don't really think that a row of carts sticking out past the cart corral and into the middle of the road is what an empty cart corral looks like. I've been told that the store manager Ken likes going around the parking lot every morning to see if the cart associates had did one of their duties of picking up the cardboard that's in the parking lot and recycling it. Almost every time i open, im yelled at by one of the morning team leads and told to go around the parking lot and collect the cardboard. the morning team leads also never call anybody to their lunch or break on time, its almost always 15 to 30 mins late. my best advice is staying away from morning shifts. I really enjoy this job but the team leads have made me consider leaving multiple times.
