Pros
The management salary is significantly higher than the average pay rate in retail. I started at $9.35/hr as a seasonal employee and now make $20.00/hr. If you are an honest and hard worker then the company recognizes that and promotes from within. The health benefits are truly wonderful. To be covered from head to toe is something I do not take for granted. If you like to be a busy bee and have your shifts fly by then this is a great place to work. It can even be fun depending on who you're working with. All you can eat chocolate but honestly, who needs all those extra calories anyway.
Cons
Upper management has no idea how difficult in shop management roles are. We are expected to run the store, answer emails in a timely matter, fax important paperwork, train new employees, focus on superb customer service, count inventory, work until midnight on Christmas eve, come back to work at 4:30am the day after Christmas, ETC. ETC. ETC. Their standards are insanely high and impractical for certain situations. Want to fix that? Visit your shops and ask your managers how things are running. Take our advice if we offer different options. And on top of it all, we have to bow down and kiss the feet of every single person who walks through our doors. This company has taken the saying "The customer is always right" to a whole different level of squashing our dignity and self respect as hard workers. In a nutshell, the company will always back up the customers word against their own employees. This is never ever a good idea for running a happy business. If a customer wants to sample 10 pieces of chocolate (that's roughly $10) and then walk out without making a purchase, I am expected to happily oblige. Even though we are pushed and encouraged to make our sales goal, alongside that I also have to hand over our product for free without making the customer "feel uncomfortable" for not buying anything. If you want us to make our sales goal, I guarantee that limiting samples would take care of that. What people don't understand is that the more we don't make our sales goal, the less hours we are given for our employees. So in a sense, when handing out free chocolate we are sacrificing more hours which equals more money on our paychecks. We are essentially paying for those greedy customers. It was fun and dandy to offer unlimited samples when this company was brand new but now that this name is so wildly well known, I think it's time to offer strictly one piece of candy of their choice. Anything more should be charged as we are lacking on sales thanks to this method of horrible people taking advantage. And yes, people take advantage on an HOURLY basis. * If you don't like people walking all over you, this is not the job for you. Because if I am not always wearing a BIG warm smile, I am always at risk of a customer complaint which could result in a corporate write up.
