Pros
In the church division, the photographers and portrait consultants are 100% commission. You can make great money in the right church, or you can basically end up "volunteering" your time in a bad church. The photographers have quite a bit of leeway in their creativity, at least, though they are restricted in their use of lighting and camera settings. The insurance benefits are nice to have.
Cons
I honestly don't know how Lifetouch legally gets away with working their photographers and portrait consultants 8-10 hours a day with no breaks whatsoever. There are times I go as much as 8 hours without even getting out of my chair, much less have time to go to the bathroom. Their gas reimbursement is a joke. .22 a mile, after you take off 60 miles a day for your "commute." If you're working 30 miles from home, there's no reimbursement for that week at all. And sitting for 8 hours straight in a metal folding chair, with no keyboard for the laptop, is an OSHA nightmare. I spend my day with my neck craned sideways to see the laptop screen. I have carpal tunnel now, but there's no worker's compensation help for that. Ten minutes is not enough time to even show the customers their portraits, much less try to sell them anything. If I'm selling, the appointments are taking 20 minutes minimum, and the line is growing, people are getting mad, and some walk out. But I get penalized for those, and for the people who are so cheap they only want their free picture. Hey, the free picture isn't my idea, so I shouldn't have my average, and therefore my commission, dropped because of it. But management doesn't care, because if I quit, my ESOP goes back into the general fund and raises the ESOP payment for management. My quitting is actually to their advantage. There's always another person lined up waiting for their shot. And they might last two weeks or two months or even two years.
