Pros
Since I am a college student, our store manager has been really great at scheduling my hours around my school schedule. We also get a generous 20% discount on parts for our own cars. Our stores really do look great. Our computer system really is the best in the industry that I have seen. We can order almost everything that we carry in only two days. And everyone in my store truly does enjoy helping our customers with their cars.
Cons
We had a record year in 2008, set sales records every month, and almost every week. Our store manager got a HUGE bonus. Capital HUGE!! And what did the rest of us get? A pizza party for which the company only picked up about half the tab, and then our hours were slashed. And it wasn't slow business that they cut our hours for, they started slashing hours at least three months before the winter slowdown, while we were still setting sales records. Not only have all the employees been struggling, but customer service has been terrible. I have literally heard the question "Are you the only one here?" several times, during the mid-day rush, while the only other employee in the store was the manager, who was taking care of massive amounts of paperwork while the phones were ringing off the hooks and impatient customers were walking out the door. I have had to turn away customers that needed go-out-to-the-car service, and told them to come back later for our free testing services, all because we simply were understaffed, all during the same time when my hours were cut from around 30 to around 10. We are expected to do cheers, chants, and acrobatics like a bunch of middle-school cheerleaders, while at the same time receiving NO benefits for part-timers, getting our hours slashed on the whims of management during our busiest months in the fall, then struggling to keep up with bills all winter long. On my last two performance reviews, I have actually been criticized for spending too much time providing personal customer service to particularly needy customers, when I am one of the few employees with hands on mechanic experience. We do price changes that mark products up to gouging levels, and then mark them down again a few months later when they stop selling. And wages are nearly unchanged from what they were 10 years ago.