Office Depot Reviews

Pros

1.) It was easy to get along with the other part time associates.
2.) The hours were...kinda flexible, if you requested it about a month in advance.
3.) Base Pay + Commission. Kinda a good thing if you work in tech and everyone else besides you is selling plans on top of services.

Cons

1.) Pay... Starts of at minimum wage, which is fine, but raises are done once a year and only increases, if at all, by 2%. If you work there for four years your looking at a .50 cent increase in pay. Also if you are crossed trained to work other departments don't think your getting paid more cause you won't. You could be trained to work CPD, front end, Tech and Supply but you will get paid the same as the cashier who refuses to do anything.
2.) Advancement isn't really there. You can be with the company for over four years and still be a CSS I.
3.) Corporate doesn't stand by their employees and their own rules. If a customer comes in and says they bought a printer, let's say 8 months ago, and says they never opened the box till the day before and it doesn't work. You tell the person that you can't return it because of the 2 week return policy and you need the box so it's none returnable. Especially since by looking at the printer you can tell that it's seen some serious use. The customer complains to corporate saying you don't know what your taking about corporate turns around and gives them a full refund.
4.) Healthcare for part time, when I left, wasn't close to even be considered worth it. Say you make a 320 pay check. Almost half of the paycheck would go toward healthcare and you would still have to pay in some cases 90% of visit and medication. I don't know how it is now, though.

Advice to Senior Management

Seriously start taking care of your own. 7.25 an hour, 20 to 25 hour weeks, commission is based on what the store does as a whole, no real room for advancement, and raise are done at 2% a year. Saw a sign once that said "our employees are our greatest asset" in the breakroom. Didn't feel that way.

Pros

They are great with customer service, butting the custoner first is rare thing these days.

Cons

They are not always great towards thier employes.

Pros

good hours and pay is adequate.

Cons

bad hours occasionally and pay s not necessarily worth what you are worked.

Advice to Senior Management

Always work to get better.

Pros

Schedule flexibility, benefits, can make extra money at times

Cons

Difficult to be promoted internally, Corporate rarely effectively releases upgrades, programs, etc to make store retail life easier

Advice to Senior Management

Retail stores should top priority instead of Corporate since they make the money. Internal managers should be valued more than external candidates. Dead weight shouldn't be allowed to remain. Unnecessary spending (Nascar, signage packages, system upgrades that don't make sense) should be cut instead of operating stores at the bare minimum hours yet stating customers are our top priority.

Pros

Scheduling is very flexible. They approve all requests for time off. And if they don't, they will work something out.
Managers are personally great people.
Fun at times, depending on whos working.

Cons

All they care about is ppp's and services.
Customers are only taken care of if they are buying a PPP (product protection plan).
Managers ask for too much.
Non-managers are usually doing manager duties.
Company pay is HORRIBLE. $8 an hour is not worth all the work I do. Raises are also horrible.

Advice to Senior Management

Most employees deserve a better pay. Worry less about PPP's and more on customer service.
We also need better computers for the store. Computers we use are extremely slow and old.

Pros

Good Team to work with, Management is good, Hours are reasonable, Easy to learn, Does not get boring, Job Rotation

Cons

Training the employees is not a high priority with management, but most of the tasks are rather easy to pick up.

Advice to Senior Management

I would take a higher priority on training employees to improve how you can handle customers rather it be checking a customer out, knowing the merchandise in the store, and how to handle certain situations.

Pros

Great pay, commission, and bonus opportunities for store mamagement. Good training and internal promotion potential. Good communication and support from corp down.

Cons

Company has changed standpoint several times on topics (customer service, return policies, etc) have to be willing to go with the flow and be flexible.

Advice to Senior Management

You are moving the company in the right dirction with the new focus on customer service. Thank you for giving the power to taKe care of the customers back to the stores.

Pros

Because it was retail, the flexible scheduling available for personal appointments made the job more suitable for employees with families.

Cons

Working every saturday and sunday when other employees were not made to do this made the job impossible to be able to attend weekend events.

Advice to Senior Management

When promoting an employee to a management position, allow time for training from another store. Do not throw them into the position and basically tell them to sink or swim. Then expect everything to be 100%, when they are unaware of some of the responsibilities they should be doing.

Pros

Coworkers are good, tasks are mostly easily managed, fair product selection, fair store hours, overall operations not spectacular but not terrible.

Cons

Pay is never equal to the amount of work done, opportunities for advancement are limited and rarely fair, too much of a "high-stakes" kind of feeling for a retail job.

Advice to Senior Management

Learn how to better recognize what's important, and who is doing the most work, who deserves to get paid more, who deserves to be promoted, and who deserves to be fired.

Pros

associates are generally good people and just gets a lot of pressure from above

Cons

you get a lot of counselling and write ups about selling product warranty. You better sell PPP(product performance plan) or you will be terminated.

Advice to Senior Management

Office Depot used to be all about taking care of your people, now it starting to become all about bringing in the dollars.