Cool coworkers & customers, competitive pay, free chocolate!
Pros
I was a seasonal employee for 6 wks in Nov/Dec (Christmas), 4 wks in Jan/Feb (Valentine's Day), and 2 wks in March/April (Easter). The salary was significantly higher than my state's minimum wage. The interviewing/hiring process was fair, simple, & fast. The manager & assistant manager at my shop were friendly, understanding, patient, fun, & professional. The same adjectives applied to most of my coworkers (seasonals & permanents). Even the customers made the job enjoyable, because most were nice folks who were happy to be there. I suppose us giving out free samples might be part of it! ;-) Speaking of which, another pro is you can eat as much chocolate as you want on your shift; you can also buy products at a generous employee discount. See's is the third retail store I've worked at, but the ONLY one that posts a daily exercises chart & is so serious about it that you have to initial it each day. (They're simple & quick, but definitely valuable. I have orthopedic issues so I appreciate the company's proactive approach to employees' physical state). As a California-founded company, See's offers Kaiser Permanente medical insurance & you don't even need to work 40 hours weekly to qualify, which is awesome. This is one of the reasons I hoped to transition from seasonal to permanent, but at the time there was no budget to hire more permanents. I do, however, plan to work part-time as a seasonal again later this year. Yet another good thing about working at See's is that the "sales floor" is very small compared w/ big box retail stores, department stores, supermarkets, etc. That means it's easy to learn where everything is & not get confused.
Cons
Certain popular chocolates seemed to run out more often than it seemed they should have, especially during peak times, which required us to apologize to customers, who were sometimes a bit unhappy. This isn't truly a "con," but the form requires me to write something here.
