Pros
Mechanical or automotive experience is a plus but not required to do well in the industry; All on the job training, no schooling required; Good benefits for full time employees; Unionized stores provide solid healthcare; Regular pay raises and 2 weeks paid vacation; every major holiday we have off and are paid for; Don't have to buy your own tools; Mostly get to be your own boss if you're a mobile technician or repair specialist; Company often hosts bbq's, large catered meetings, and friendly competitions to boost morale; Hours are very regular, except in Winter when work tends to slow down, so the job can be semi-seasonal.
Cons
Positions can be very static- once you become a technician, repair specialist, or dispatcher there isn't much upward movement. They tend to hire outside for management, so people who've been with the company for years often have the same position they had when they started. This makes the work tedious and sometimes unrewarding, but the pay is often good enough for people to justify it. Not a woman-friendly work environment- technicians and management often engage in sexist and misogynistic discussion as well as behavior. "Locker-room talk" is common in the workplace, and often encouraged. This can be extremely frustrating, and it explains why the workforce is overwhelmingly male. Management and the company's bonus program also encourages technicians to do extra work off the clock, and punishes those who follow all the rules. As a technician you must meet extremely tight time windows for all of your appointments; you are constantly being timed when you are clocked in and if you run over a certain limit, even by 1 minute, you will lose your bonus. This timer doesn't take into account the amount of time it takes to drive to appointments, so if you get several jobs that are far from each other then you can basically kiss your bonus goodbye. If too many technicians don't get bonuses then the corporation will chew out the managers or penalize the technicians themselves. This rule often results in technicians skipping lunches, or clocking out between drives and counting it as their "break" even though they are still working. Management is aware of this, and even encourages it, while doing nothing to fix the problem. This often leads to irregular hours as well. Employees are encouraged to arrive hours early for shifts, get their parts, but wait to clock in until 8am to optimize their time. Some days that's possible, and if all goes well you can make a lot of extra money with the bonus program (sometimes as much as $200-$300 extra.) But most of the time things don't go smoothly, and employees end up working hours later than they were supposed to. 10, 11, or 12 hour shifts are the norm, not the exception. The tight windows, combined with an often heavy workload, and the simple fact that window installs aren't easy all means employees often cut corners. They frequently resort to using tools that aren't considered "legal," skip essential steps for properly installing the window, or break/damage parts of cars and find ways to cover it up. This constant race against the clock encourages sloppy and dangerous work. Again: management is completely aware of this, and as long as jobs get done, they're ok with it.
