Extremely Stressful, No Corporate Structure, Too Big Too Fast.
Pros
If you move into sales, it can be lucrative. Even if you have no experience, you can learn quickly and can make a lot of money.
Cons
The money is not worth the damage that comes from working here. Dysfunctional is an understatement. The company grew too big too fast in my opinion. The owners in Atlanta (when you finally met them) seemed like decent people, but lost sight of the well being of their employees and were completely disconnected from what was going on outside of their home base in Atlanta. You were lucky if you saw them once a year, and you knew that you were just one of hundreds. Originally I think they were more involved, but once the company had investors, the owners were driven by what the investors wanted (huge growth = $$$$). They hired managers (and kept them for far too long!) who were not qualified to manage, highly incompetent, emotionally abusive and manipulative etc. Long time local managers prying into your personal life, wanting to know about your relationship with your parents, if you had a boyfriend, trying to play matchmaker and asking IF YOU WOULD DATE THE OTHER MANAGER! Highly unprofessional and very invasive. The company as a whole never had the infrastructure to keep up (internal systems, HR, decision making processes etc). All decisions were made from head office with no consideration to how they affected the other locations specifically, which created exponentially more work for employees every day. It was so inefficient, it was shocking. If you had a problem, it had to go through local managers to head office and then you were lucky if you ever heard back at all because they never took you seriously since you weren't in Atlanta. It was always too little, too late. The support staff were never compensated anywhere close to what the sales staff were, even though they were equally (at times more) important to the process, The only way to make a decent living was to be in sales, and there was never enough local support, training or structure for a new sales person to grow and thrive. The urgent AOG support environment is chaos, and the company seems to always rob Peter to pay Paul with their inventory, so you never have what you need to support your own customer. Sales reps at other locations would rob inventory, make shady deals, sell exchange stock outright etc and would never be reprimanded for it, and then you would be left holding the bag, scrambling to find what you need for your own customer. Very short sighted. Working for this company for too long literally scarred me. I am no longer able to work in fast paced, or even moderately stressful environments. The anxiety triggers that this work environment created for me are irreversible. I was so exhausted and emotionally fatigued after working there, that I will never recommend anyone to be employed there. I only stayed as long as I did for the money, and regret it every day since.
