Pros
If you're lucky to have a good team it makes it slightly more bearable, I imagine we share the same sort of camaraderie as those soldiers stuck in the trenches during the war. 25% discount, often get first pick on sale stuff or new season clothing which is handy if there's something you really want.
Cons
Serious issues with stock control, our store receives on average around 12,000+ items a week in delivery, far far too much for the display stands to handle to the point that the store never looks tidy, every inch is crammed with stock which you can't see, we get daily complaints from customers that can't touch anything without entire rails dropping to the floor. Despite myself and my team working as hard as possible to keep the shop presentable it still looks like a bomb has gone off in a charity shop. Any kind of sale or seasonal event is an absolute farcical disaster, quite often we have no equipment to actually fit out an area for sales, no staff to actually carry out the tasks, no communication from any management, zero plan or execution. Staff morale is pretty much flat line, I've seen bright eyed bushy tailed enthusiastic co-workers become miserable nervous wrecks, a few having to be signed off work with depression and severe anxiety. I would say around 80% of our current team want to get out as fast as possible. Since joining the company I've seen around 16 members of the team leave within a 12 month time span. Some hounded, some having to go on sick leave from stress and others being dismissed for bullying. After about 3 months you realise that creating perfectly folded displays and neatly size ordered shelves is absolutely pointless, the hour you just spent making a display look great will be trashed within 5 minutes by customers who couldn't care less. It's extremely demotivating and makes you not want to bother even carrying out the most rudimentary tasks after about a year. Finding a fitting room with hundreds of pounds worth of clothing strewn across the floor is extremely common even if the fitting room is manned 24/7. You are essentially a cleaner, your job is to clean up after customers, the majority of which rampage through the store like rabid baboons leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. Despite the company being worth $60 billion there unfortunately isn't enough money to spend on training staff, to progress, fancy becoming a department manager or visual merchandiser? sorry we haven't got the money better luck next time.