Pros
You can get free promotional items, and several free things for just being hired, plus highly discounted items once a month, and regular discount all the time.
Cons
They insist that everyone is open to "on call" hours, and even though the employee manual says that you can have no more than 2 (or 3, I can't remember exactly, but no more than 3) "on calls" in a week, my first week was entirely on call. I asked the girl who did scheduling and she told me that my store didn't follow that rule. So I had to set aside my entire day to call in half an hour before I would need to be there, and they never took me in. There was a stretch of two weeks where I had TEN on calls, and didn't work once. Even when I had fully scheduled shifts they would always send me home early. The "veteran" employees all talked about how they all had second jobs (or husbands...) to support themselves, and they only worked at VS for the discounts, but I don't know how they managed this because people with second jobs were immediately dropped after hiring when management found out their schedules weren't completely open. They employed over 120 girls for the holiday season so that no one could be full time, including the managers, so no one could have benefits. This also meant that there was no communication in the store about policy or procedure. They would also change the store displays completely every week, and with only working a regular 4 hours a week (even though the interview promised a minimum of 15) I never knew where anything was. The managers were often angry with me for not knowing where things were, or what proper protocol was for procedures that I was never taught about. It was difficult to take the managers seriously because they didn't even know my name, and would often scold me by a name that wasn't mine. I decided to get a second job within a few weeks, and decided to leave completely when I witnessed a manager and employee interaction over the "dress code." The manager approached the employee and said, "Those leggings aren't black, they're navy-black" employee, "Is that okay? I asked another manager yesterday, I even brought them in to show her the color" "If you ever have questions about dress code you talk to me, not her. You can't wear those" "Do you want me to take them off?" "Yes, right now." Mind you, the employee was wearing an alarmingly short skirt without the leggings, WHICH WERE BLACK. Once I had secured a new job (which payed less per hour, but immediately offered 5x the hours I had been getting) I called in to tell them I was giving notice. They told me I had to bring in a letter of resignation, which is fair. When I came in with it, though, I went up to the first manager and smiled and started to talk, and she just snatched it from my hand, scowling, and turned from me and immediately walked away. I had still given two weeks notice, so I called in all my "on call"s for that week, one of which answered, "Oh yeah, we could definitely use some- wait, who is this?" and when I told her, "Oh, no, actually we're all set." Needless to say, I had no schedule at all for my second week's notice. I have worked various retail jobs for several years now, and I have never had as negative an experience as I did working at Victoria's Secret.
