Pros
Gear discounts, diner and gym at work, awesome concierge service, and great place to make friends with your coworkers. The "office hours" on the sales floor were often hands-on time with gear which was very beneficial. The facility was always super clean and friendly. The company *genuinely* treats customers right 99% of the right time, and in a customer-facing role, you have the ability to help customers in every single way without having to go through management. The best part about working at Sweetwater are the people you work with. Especially if you go through Sweetwater University - your classmates become your friends.
Cons
First and foremost, you work in a "cubicle graveyard" and even though you can design your space how you like, nothing is more uninspiring to a bunch of musicians and creative minds than being in a cubicle all day without access to windows. Really tough in the winter when you quite literally do not see the sunlight at all in a single day. There's a massive issue with distrust between management and salespeople due to CONSTANT changes in policy, which seemed to have started RIGHT when the CEO changed over and the Providence buyout, although management insists it has nothing to do with that. Within just months of working there, the commission model changed entirely and changed how you can earn money, and it was not working consistently for weeks. it was very hard to understand if what you were earning was accurate and mistakes were often found. Since then, multiple other changes have happened that change what you can be paid on - most of all of which are ones that TAKE MONEY AWAY from salespeople - including a disastrous harmful change in shipping costs and how the CRM worked that was rolled out during Black Friday week which showed us how disconnected management was from the sales floor. Not just with commission either - tons of new "standards" rolled out that were extremely "corporate" in nature that suddenly punished EVERYONE when really it's just a few people who were taking advantage of the lax system. Suddenly there are write-ups left and right for hardworking folks, there's having to report numbers to your managers every day, there are performance plans, etc. all for a company that represents the sales roles as "running your own business". It's ok to have these standards, but how they're implemented created distrust, anxiety, and stress between what USED to be "sales coaches" and salespeople. Sales coaches used to be a resource for a very stressful job that requires tons of extra hours and often a massive emotional toll, but now they just play the role of "managers" who have to write people up left and right. To sum this all up, the president of sales wrote an email immediately before a massive winter storm when the county went into a state of emergency one evening due to not being able to keep up with the roads (no, sweetwater did not close early that evening) saying "weather doesn't make you late, you make you late", and giving 101 level advice on how to get your car unstuck - forgetting that people live in apartment complexes and have no control over plowing or getting their cars out. The Head of People wrote emails during every disastrous storm BRAGGING that Sweetwater has only closed twice, EVER, for weather - as if that's something to be proud of. The company will defend this, but their policies BLATANTLY put their bottom line ahead of employees' lives and well-being. From having to drive to work (and for a required and often useless 7:30AM meeting) in disastrous weather rather than letting us work from home for a day, from not having sick time (and saying that they can't give us sick time because it would take from vacation time... no, it really doesn't have to) and encouraging employees to come in and spread disease around because they don't want to use their vacation time or they can't work from home for 2 days, there's a massive lack of understanding and empathy in management. Unless you make the company a massive amount of profit. The people who are top salespeople can work from home on a day's notice sometimes, so the rules are not consistent among all employees. Just like most sales jobs, be prepared to take massive hits in commission when it's not your fault. Fedex errors? UPS errors? Broken items? Mispacking? Customer decided they wanted a car instead? You will pay for it. Overall - don't take a job in sales here if you are used to working for a modern company with a more understanding and empathetic culture. If you aren't prepared to not get paid for meetings and not get paid (and sometimes even lose money) on days you work, don't do it. You will work for free (basically serving as a customer service person) on weekends for years and years because of no hourly pay, and you will have to attend 3 (4 your first year) hours of unpaid meetings each week early in the AM. You will have little control over your schedule, and it will be chaotic - my schedule was a different starting time every day. It's very hard to work here if you care about work culture, mental health, (their mental health initiatives are an inside joke laughing stock among employees) consistent pay, and work/life balance. If you are easily affected by how other people treat you, phone sales positions are not for you. Lastly, Fort Wayne is FINE. It's just fine. It's nice. It's not bad, it's not great. It's Indiana. It's a nice small city. But you HAVE to move here. Rent is cheaper than other cities obviously, but it's not cheap proportional to pay. There are less than 15 women as sales engineers out of almost 600 and hardly any folks who are not white, so don't expect a diverse workplace. Don't forget Sweetwater was sold to Providence, which is a private equity firm... whose sole purpose is to generate a fast profit and then sell the business off. As much as Chuck is still involved, it doesn't feel like Chuck's ethics anymore.
