Marathon Sports Reviews

I could go on for a long, long time about the negatives here, but I'll condense it to the major points. Many of the other reviews are spot on and do a great job of summarizing the issues. First, the leadership of this company does not care about the employees. The store managers are great and do the best they can, but from the top it feels like you are just a faceless piece of the puzzle. You are expected to go wherever they want you, even if you were told you'd be working in the store close to you when you were hired. A 60 minute or longer commute doesn't mean anything to them, they just want to have a name in a slot on the schedule. The company culture is terrible. I heard repeatedly that you had to "buy in" to the culture to like the company. This "culture" is basically that once you join the company, it's your first priority from there on out. You are routinely scheduled for 9-10 hour days and are only given one 30 minute break during the day. Taking sick days is heavily discouraged. We were told in training that unless we're so sick we physically can't get out of bed, we are expected to be there no matter what. You will definitely get sick eventually, because no one takes days off and we are all just passing around the same bug all winter. Also, good luck getting time off. No matter how far in advance you ask, you will often be scheduled anyway, and then told it's your problem to find coverage. If I ask last minute, that's fine, but if I give 4 week's notice, I shouldn't have to find my own coverage just because they forgot to include my request in the schedule. I also think that the upper management of the company just didn't really know how to do their jobs. Sometimes you send an email and wait over a week for a response, or get no response at all. When you did get a response, the information was often inconsistent with other things you'd been told or only half-answered the questions you asked. There was a strong "us vs. them" mentality with the stores and the warehouse. I know the people in the office worked in the stores at some point, but for most of them it's been too long to be relevant. The warehouse always had some new thing they wanted us to do in the stores that just felt like pointless busywork, but they were so strict and condescending when anyone had questions about anything. The last thing is that there are NO benefits that are not required by the state. After a year of full-time employment, you got 8 paid days off that acted as both vacation and sick time. When you got that, you also got a lecture about how you had to give several weeks notice to take a day off, or that you couldn't take all of it at once, or that there were certain times of the year that you couldn't use those days at all. You also get the privilege of paying huge premiums for terrible health insurance ($2000 deductible and $40 copays). That's it for benefits.

-complete lack of HR department means people do not get regular performance reviews (and therefore raises are not awarded) -while formal training is provided about running apparent and shoes, there is no formal training for providing a gait analysis (which is what this company provides itself on "expertly" providing). Employees are encouraged to learn by observing other employees, who themselves were never trained by someone who is capable of performing a proper gait analysis. -scheduling mix-ups are often not resolved in a satisfactory manner - employees are often expected to come in regardless of mistakes with little consideration or appreciation shown. In addition, during "busy seasons" employees are often expected to work an incredible amount of hours with little regard given for preference or availability, or any real appreciation shown. -very little room for professional advancement