The area managers are ruthless. If they're not a nice person, they can make your life hell.
They will advise anything to make sure you hit targets - even lying to customers about what suits them
Hours are awful, you feel like you don't get much of a life outside work
Customers are NOT always right and they can complain about the silliest things (like discontinued products which are completely out your control), can cause a lot of stress
Very wasteful - rather than letting you keep old testers when you get new ones in they demand you destroy them
The counter gets dirty REALLY easily and it's such hard work to clean and keep looking nice
Not enough training on brush and hygiene management - I used to clean my brushes with soap and water at the end of each day as well as cleaning with solution between clients but not everyone does this..!
If you work in a store like Boots of Selfridges, the managers are Bare Minerals and the managers at the store are always in conflict (e.g. about what hours they want you to work, where you should be doing your paperwork etc) and you get stuck in the middle. Bare Minerals want you to do paperwork on counter so you don't miss any potential customers whereas the store thinks this looks unprofessional and want you to do it in a back room. You can't win!
You end up working overtime without pay all the time. You can't tell a customer to leave just because your shift has ended - you have to complete the sale which can take up to half an hour. And if there's another customer waiting... you can be stuck there for ages. However, if you are 3 minutes late to counter, they demand they take it off your break! This may have just been the store I was in (Boots) but it was very unfair.
As a counter manager, I was on a very low salary. For advisors, it is even less.
