Pros
RARELY boring, decent hours, decent pay, off Sundays/most bank holidays, good for building work experience/tolerance
Cons
Rent a Center is like your first "practice" girlfriend of jobs. She's what's easily available and she's kind of fun to fool around with for a while, but you eventually realize she's horrible and you'll leave her having learned lessons that will help you avoid similar issues with later girls. I have too many amusing, infuriating, and horrifying stories to share (okay here's a brief summary of the oddest: a customer tried to feed me a dog biscuit once, and claimed they were "her favorite"), so I'll just sum up my experiences with some suggestions for others considering this job. 1. Regarding the business conducted between employees and customers, more often than not each will be constantly trying to coerce, scam, or lie to the other. With Rent a Center's business model, NOBODY is the good guy. You will constantly tread a thin moral line at this job, and frequently find yourself astray on either side wondering how you got there. 2. Essential supplies: Work gloves with good grip and some kind of padding on the back, a pocket knife, spare clothes, hand sanitizer, and VapoRub (for rubbing under your nose in scent-based emergencies a la "Silence of the Lambs" autopsy scene, since a good portion of customers houses I visited had at least some kind of strong unpleasant odor ranging from smoke to mold to bodily waste of animal AND human origin). 3. Your enjoyment, or at least tolerance, of this job will depend entirely on the nature of your co-workers, especially your manager. Not just their attitudes, but their actual ability to do their jobs will greatly affect your own performance. One thing is constant though, corporate always wants their sales and will pressure your boss relentlessly until they are forced to take unsavory measures to ensure the numbers stay high enough. This drove my first manager to have an anxiety attack which hospitalized him. Good luck, you're gonna need it.
