Pros
Competitive benefits Experience in retail Customer Service experience Personal interaction with employees and customers Constantly busy, never bored Learn something new daily
Cons
I have an MBA and I've been in retail for 9 years. I graduated in May and with the economy how it is I couldn't find work. I took the job at CVS out of necessity for a salary a little over poverty level. I'm expected to complete a ridiculous list of tasks and am complimented only when my manager remembers to. I had to do over 100 hours of training (outside of work) and I was not compensated, and that is where all of the training happens (online). I was lucky enough to have a beauty advisor who was eager to show me how to do a lot of things, so in that aspect I was happy. I was put into a 12 week plan and a week ago (my 25th week), I asked when I was going to be moving and they said "you'll probably be in this position for a year or two". I was brought into the company for a bargain price and they blatantly lied to me about the program I was in during the interviews. Advancement is a joke, as well. If you advance from a Shift B to a Shift A, you will see a whole $1-$2 raise. And even going from Shift A to an Assistant it's the same way. The only manager in the store that gets paid what they deserve is the store manager. Every other manager makes very little and they do almost as much as the store manager. At CVS, you are not very appreciated but the moment you make a mistake you are held liable and you will be talked to immediately. There is also way too much drama. They need to stop hiring little 18 year old drama queens and start hiring people who come to work to do their jobs. There is gossiping every night I close, and I'm expected to deal with that and get my job done. My fellow Shift B's call our position "Shift Babysitter Supervisor" because sometimes that's what it feels like, you're babysitting. The stone-age technology needs to go too. Registers at my store freeze at least once a day. The systems always go down, whether it be the Moneygram machine, the Pharmacy's system, or the cash registers. With all of the acquisitions, the computer system can't keep up. Stop being cheap and update it.