Pros
You don't have to have anything more than a GED and a willingness to learn the policies and processes in order to be promoted. There are a lot of benefits, and they get better at salaried level, which is a major reason a lot of people stay despite the cons. Also this is one company that will likely never die.
Cons
There are a lot of ways to get information about how to run a store, the problem is these sources often conflict with one another. Info on the WIRE will differ from info you receive via corporate email, which will differ from what your market or regional manager wants. It's a constant juggling act; you never know if the "company direction" one person gives you today will be a waste of productivity because it gets changed or overridden tomorrow. There are also hundreds of policies and many aren't easily accessible unless you know the exact name of the policy you are looking up. People who have been with the company for 20+ years can't even remember most policies and often misquote or misunderstand the wording of the policies so often that everyone else believes that they know something they really have no clue about. At the highest levels of corporate, it's obvious their hearts are in the right place because they promote work-life balance, being family oriented, saving people money so they can live better, workplace safety and respect, honesty and integrity, etc. But the farther down in management you get, the less likely you are to find people who actually care about these things. At the lowest levels of management, you are forced to be reactive instead of proactive; you are always doing over the hard work you just did yesterday. It's easy to forget about values when you don't feel valued.
