Pros
Mostly lovely coworkers, learning new things, working with customers and meeting new people.
Cons
Oh, my- it is a very long list. Outdated clothing and accessory choices for most sizes, with the exception of Juniors departments in some stores. Management is completely useless- the only times I saw management step up and actually do anything worthwhile was in the week or so before any corporate visits or during inventory. Clique culture- if you aren't "in", you're not getting the hours or promotions, period. Dingy, outdated storefronts. Everything just looks dirty, no matter how often you clean. All hardware, form computers, to phones, to RMUs, is old enough to be in a museum. Software constantly full of bugs, and always being updated RIGHT BEFORE a fast-paced season, like Thanksgiving or Christmas sales. Plumbing and HVAC systems were also super old, and constantly falling into disuse because of lack of repair or maintenance. I cannot begin to count the amount of times I was asked by management to unclog a toilet. Yeah, not my job! Customers sweating and complaining of heat in the store at all times. Employees are not trusted at all, so there are tons of nitpicky small rules that make things impossible. At the same time, loss prevention is a JOKE. We did not have even ONE LP Officer in the four plus years I was there. So employees are scrutinized and even fired for not following certain "employee loss prevention" procedures, but customers were stealing our store blind every single day and not ONE thing was done to stop it. We were not allowed to approach employees if we saw them steal something. They were allowed to walk out of the store with purses and pockets full of unknown amounts of merchandise, and if the police happened to catch them, great. If not, bye-bye merchandise! Even the detector alarms at the door were almost always turned off, so people could be walking out with small electronics or cosmetics or anything at all that had those useless little sensors and no one would know. Not enough employees on any given day to actually finish everything that needs to be done. Sometimes we had ONE employee covering ALL of softlines- meaning, one employee covering fitting rooms, returns to the floor, straightening the shelves/racks, helping customers with clothing/shoes, manning the jewelry counter, price checks for shoes/accessories/jewelry/linens/bath/kitchen... the list goes on. ONE PERSON doing ALL of that on a Saturday night. Imagine. As Front End Lead I was expected to do a multitude of things but also to cover for all the holes in the schedule that day. Many others were expected to do similar things... to be on a cash register, to sell credit cards and SYWR, to do returns of merchandise to the floor, to do price checks, straighten shelves, clean around the check-outs, retrieve carts from outside, move where-ever I needed someone to fill a hole in the schedule. Countless times I would close the store until 1am, and be back at 6am to open. At least once a week this would happen, more often during the holidays. Black Friday is a joke... Great deals advertised, and next to nothing actually in the store that matches the ad. No organization for these types of sales either, no lines or cues, no "take-a-ticket". Food and produce selection is extremely lousy and, more often than not, products are past their expiry dates or on the brink of expiration, but still sold because they didn't want to take the loss on the product. Broken or damaged returns would not be processed as such and would be put back on the sales floor. This happened often and was a matter of policy, the SM wanted it this way. Losses would be underreported so the SM wouldn't be in trouble with RM or DM. As for the RM and DM, oh my- what a joke! They were nothing more than an email address to send a bunch of useless reports of useless numbers to at the mid-day and end-of-day. Store visits by the DM were dreaded because he was of no help in any area, just lectured and instilled fear in all employees. Too many lazy teenage high school employees who would rather text and chew bubblegum than actually work.