Too Stressful - Anonymous employee Sur La Table Employee Review

2.0
Jul 15, 2015
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Employee discount was good for most items, especially if you like your kitchen gadgets. Starting pay was decent for a retail job. Some of the other sales associates were nice to talk to and work with.

Cons

Management pitted employees against each other by handing down unrealistic sales goals, fostering a subtly hostile work environment. Ringing up a sale was tedious because you had to figure out which sales associate to attribute each product to and key it in manually to tally up sales figures. If you made a mistake, there was no way to go back and attribute the sale to the correct employee. For example, because the register defaults to the person who is ringing up the sale, I accidentally rang up a $400 coffee machine under my own number because I forgot to key in the number of the employee who had helped the customer on the sales floor. Management changed work schedules after the schedule had been posted without telling employees whose hours had been changed, then acted surprised when you showed up to work but "weren't on the schedule." Having over 10,000 items in-store might sound great, but in actuality, how can a part-time employee have a prayer of knowing about even a fraction of them, let alone being able to locate them on the sales floor? Poor product training.

Explore other reviews about Sur La Table

5.0
Jun 12, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Very fun work - Get to work with professional chefs - You will actually learn more about cooking in this position than you will taking the classes - Employee discounts

Cons

- Low pay with no opportunity for advancement, not a career path - Sometimes kitchen is understaffed, putting a lot of pressure on you

1.0
Jun 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I gained lots of knowledge & was inspired to cook.

Cons

What was once a fun job, became chaotic & sad!

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