Pros
-good benefits for a retail job, good discount and allowance and health benefits too -a few of the people were lovely -lots of knowledge to be gained whilst working there, if you love technology already then you will absolutely love a lot of aspects of this job seeing as you get to talk about it for hours on end whilst helping people learn about it too. -no shortage of learning resources whatsoever. there are plenty of tools to help you catch up on product knowledge and sales interaction practise. -store admin tasks and general time based tasks are very easy to do and very well set up, there are definitely lots of resources in general to help your independent learning.
Cons
- leaderships style of management completely contradicts what you're told during your two weeks of training which is that sales is not the priority yet management will constantly press you for apple care and general sales numbers turning it just into another retail shop in tech rather than the special apple store. a definite lack of transparency in some cases happens as a result of these managing practises in this store. - the career progression in this store is extremely slow, having been around several members who have been there for many years still on a fairly basic salary and job role, (even though they are expected to do much more due to their tenure but not be paid for it). This is a very very common occurrence in the store especially for the sales floor where there is little to no progression in terms of promotion whatsoever, and if there is then team members who have been there longer are likely the ones to get it, as you can imagine it sort of becomes a queue rather than skill based promotion. -apples feedback system. this is apples tought and trained method for critiquing co workers to help them improve, which requires you to ensure you and your co-worker are in a comfortable space away from the floor and relay feedback gently and constructively to one another using very soft language. this can however be completely turned on its head, as most of the time it's delivered in the most passive aggressive way possible particularly by certain tenured members of staff, or it just goes straight down the drain and someone criticises you quietly there and then. - everything from upper management feels extremely robotic and disconnected. whether its your store specific seniors or videos from upper corporate in retail, it feels like you're being spoken at by an AI chatbot. At a store level, senior managers were extremely unaware of processes of the store, they will have no idea how to help you during the day if you had a sales or repair specific enquiry, this is particularly prominent in the sales department and becomes an issue when the more competent leads and experts are unavailable. they have no idea how to do your job but they are the same folks that tell you how to do it and stand there and watch during busy days unable to help you if you're majorly stuck. -you are not always protected as an employee. being in retail means that unfortunately you will be victim to strange or uncomfortable interactions which is expected however, the problem with this store is that genuinely alarming situations from customers is rarely treated as a serious issue. the customer is above all mentality tends to superseed your safety and wellbeing at times although nothing catastrophic happens on a regular basis so its not as terrible as you'd think. just be ready to report a strange situation to a manager or lead and have them either do nothing or tell you about how nice they thought the customer was. -finally, the working culture is quite specific, having worked there and obviously come from a different background it lead to feeling left out at times. -you are genuinely underpaid for the level and quantity of work you're required to do, even as a part timer the full days are taxing and earning just above minimum wage may not feel very fulfilling