Pros
It was very fun to take pictures of the kids, and I made a really great friend (who also no longer works there for the same reason).
Cons
ALL hours were on-call and manager only called in her personal favorites. Everyone else had to set aside 5 full days (from 10am-7pm) of time every week where no solid personal plans could be made because if you couldn't come in that 5% of the time you were "needed," and stay for the whole 8 hours (10 during peak season), you were written up. One person was expected to be able to handle a full day of appointments every 40 minutes. The customers hated this, and the pictures ended up being garbage because 10 minutes of time in the camera room was not enough time to get decent photos. We were expected to sell aforementioned garbage photos for at least $85 every time, or the manager would cut our hours. You were judged on everything: photo variety, photo quality, enhancement variety, sales average, time in the camera room (no more than 10 minutes!), customer satisfaction, strict adherence to the patented sales pitch every single time, cleanliness, even availability. Very unprofessional (Studio manager talked about everyone behind their backs. She badmouthed me for asking for my break one day, which I'd been denied before regardless of the law) Incredibly cheap ($8/hour salary, was told to wait 30 minutes to clock in to avoid extra hours) Manipulative to nice families to boost sales. A bad sales average meant even fewer hours if you weren't a personal favorite of the manager, so you had to choose between being honest about coupons and prices or losing hours. RIDICULOUS retention rate (after one month working there, I became the most senior team member) There's so much more but I can't even list all the things that were wrong with it. Just do not work there.
