Pros
As retail management jobs go this one is fairly easy. Most stores get one truck per week and they come fully palletized and 60% in storage totes. The stores is small and controllable. If you have a decent Manager your will enjoy your job and be treated fairly. The company pays a decent wage and this is made better by an outstanding bonus program. The bonus money shows up on a line on the P&L. You can see ti grow or shrink month by month. Its not a surprise what your getting and its very achievable. No pie in the sky. A manager I worked for got $30K 2 years ago (before taxes). SM gets 80% and AM gets 20%. The 401K match is better than most at a dollar for dollar match up to 5% (compare to most that offer .50 per dollar up to 3%). They offer a stock purchase plan 15% below market rate. If you make a career here you will actually make more money than you would working for much larger stores, although you need to get to the store manager level and above to make the real $.
Cons
If your Manager is a self-centered dictator they will schedule themselves off every weekend and holiday and make you work them. Apparently the company does not have a schedule guideline. They do the schedules a week at a time in most stores. Plan to have no life. If your store is well run you can work a 45 hour week. Some stores wear hours as a badge of honor and think nothing of working 60+ hours/wk. Many managers come in on their days off and dont take lunches. If you are someone that likes to eat lunch dont work here. Each store gets scored for customer service via customer ratings from phone questionaries. This company like many others has been duped into beleiving that a few angry customers can determine what the reality of service levels are. Be prepared to be tortured if your store doesnt get good scores. Does anyone really beleive happy customers waste their time calling in? Come on. Wake up and smell the coffee. The angry ones call and the scores are meaningless.The training program is good but the trainers have no time to train. Plan to train yourself. Systems are good, but can you beleive they dont have Word or Excel on the stores PCs? Unreal. Hello its 2009. If you need a spread sheet plan on doing it at home or drawing a graph like your in 6th grade. Need to write a letter? hahaha again do it at home or use the DOS like word program they have from 1982. The staffing is lean. On some days or nights a manager may have one or two other employees tops. Plan on ringing register ALOT. Plan on unloading trucks yourself. Plan on flowing the freight yourself. Plan on working with minors. This company loves minors. They dont even bother trying to hire adults.