The Picture People Reviews

Pros

- fun environment
- easy way to learn photography
- promotes from within

Cons

- long holiday hours
- very low pay
- closing many locations in 2011

Advice to Senior Management

If you must lay off your most talented employees, offer severance packages to the people that have dedicated numerous years of their life making the company a success.

Pros

-Many hours during holiday season
-Commission from sales + hourly pay

Cons

-Absolutely chaotic during the holidays, I'm talking a panic attack inducing feed lot of people.
-Either far too few employees or far too many were always working so you were either way over worked or had nothing to do.
-The degree to which you are told to upsell people is ludicrous. Forcing frames on a customer and not letting them see their own pictures until you shove 750 dollar packages down their throats is NOT how you make customers happy
-It is very disorganized. People's pictures, important documents, and more frequently get thrown away or lost into a pile of junk no one ever cleans up.
-Do you like eating regularly? Sorry, at Picture People such luxuries are above you. Expect perhaps 3 half hour breaks for every 50 hours you work
- Employees work HOURS after their shifts end and sometimes off the clock. I once stayed until midnight and was supposed to leave at 9 (which was also the closing time)
-Customers will WAIT, not only on weekends either. Sometimes customers will be in there for hours and you just feel flat out sorry for them.
-Forget the kids getting cranky, the adults are almost always stressed out and rude.
-Don't forget the management either, slamming phones down in rage and nearly cutting off an employees finger with a paper cutter as well as constantly bad mouthing everything and everyone.
-There is NO communication.
-Inform a manager you have X scheduled on day Y and will be Z hours late in advance and still be written up for tardiness when you come in.
-Many company policies recently changed and NOT for the better. For example pictures can no longer be viewed online and are only kept in the studio for 48 hours. You can imagine the collective reaction of the customers to these changes.

The abomination that Picture People is is beyond horrible and should flat out be outlawed.

Advice to Senior Management

EVERYTHING needs to be changed. Reinstate old policies, get better management, don't pressure customers so much, space out appointments better, encourage fellow management to not act like gremlins, give your employees a meal break on their 12 hour shifts, I could go on

Pros

Some of the customers can be nice, and I personally had great fellow photographers who were helpful in learning the process.

Cons

For one, the job is absolutely chaotic especially during the holidays. They expect far too much from the photographers as far as getting good shots within a 20 minute span this includes: 18 distinct different shots, 3 background changes, AND outfit changes all while keeping the kids happy. You are running around dealing with wild oftentimes crying children and all the meanwhile you are only getting paid just above minimum wage. The company does not treat their employees right and the management is not very friendly. I would reccommend something else if you love photography as I have lost the spark for creativity.

Advice to Senior Management

Advice for management would be to hire more employees and have them on shifts so that they can be sane. The expectations are unreasonable.

Pros

Opportunity to meet wonderful families

Cons

Long hours
Make you take photographs ( This should be done by those who are talented in this area)
Work for incompetent District and Regional Managers

Advice to Senior Management

Find and hire competent District and Regional Managers.. Create a pay structure that creates incentives for employees to work harder. If the company is losing money.. it's because you have hired the wrong people, and your pay doesn't match the expectations given to each employee.

Pros

Sometimes can be fun. Great customers make job fun sometimes. Not terribly hard work. Some of them are in the mall.

Cons

Managers do not understand the stress of employees. Excessive blackout dates. Customers can be terrible and annoying. Parents and children can be misbehaving. Getting scolded by management!

Advice to Senior Management

Treat employees better. Too much stress is placed on employees making sales. Management team needs to allow more flexibility to employees.

Pros

Babies
Showing a family a picture they passed over with the enhancements you would have added and stealing their hearts

Cons

Scheduling by Management was not thought out
Unappreciated by Lead Store Manager
Write off employees not because, they don't work hard
Lack of opportunity to talented people not able to take a chance on someone who could be great
Mislead employee in interview and then change terms with no notice

Advice to Senior Management

Think about really training someone who could be an amazing photographer for Picture People
someone already has shown talent, Don't just treat them like they are in high school and will never amount to anything!

Pros

You truly can give people lifelong memories. I've literally had mothers cry with joy over seeing their photos. I've developed relationships with some regulars who want me to continue to photograph their family photos. I've heard stories about why the photos were so special (dad was deployed, family lives across the country, 25th anniversary, etc.) and it was nice to know I captured those special moments for them. You can develop some photography skills here and it's fun to work with cute kids and pets.

Cons

The pay is terrible. The only competitive pay I saw was for the studio managers who had salary. This job can make you dread Christmas. The company forced us to book appts 10 min apart, and we were only allowed 20 min per sitting, which is not enough time to do 3 backdrops, family photos, outfit changes and several breakdowns. We were always backed up and it was very frustrating because there was nothing we could do to prevent it. There were many days that I worked a 6-7 hour shift straight with no break, being in the camera room all day. Those days, I would be shaking from exhaustion toward the end of my shift. This is a job where you are constantly standing, kneeling, crawling and lifting. And there were some nights I stayed until around midnight.

The online booking process was not well thought out. This past December, there was a glitch in the system and customers were able to book online appts at the same time as appts we had already booked. We'd have to call the online appts and try to move them. Also, online appts didn’t have to specify how many people were in their group. They selected whether it was 1 person, 2-5 people (family), or 6-20 people (large group) but they didn't have to SPECIFY how many. Sometimes the appt would come in with 15-20 people which was always a stressful shock when the studio is already packed. Also, if we told customers they forfeited their appointment by being more than 10 min late, we would get cussed out (literally) and have customer service called on us, even though we had no choice since late appts set us further behind schedule.

Pre-K was fine, a typical day is from 6-12. Petco was fun except for the fact that it was Fri-Sun so your weekends are shot. The only reason I quit Petco was my Regional Manager was extremely unreasonable. Winter 2009 there was one Friday my partner and I warned customers we might not make it Saturday because the location was 45 min away and we were expecting a lot of snow, so the customers should call Petco before coming. The RM sent us a nasty e-mail saying it was unacceptable to say we might not make it, we were losing business for the company, letting customers down, and that we would be written up if we did it again. We ended up with 2 feet of snow and couldn't make it. The RM sent us another e-mail saying he expected us there the next day.

My biggest issue with this company is they lied to me in order to keep me. Several months before Christmas, I stated that I was in the market for a new job with better pay, but then I was offered a manager position and my friend was offered the senior manager position. I said I would only take the promotion if it went into effect before Christmas. Long story short, every time we asked about our positions, the company kept saying that they'd be doing the formal interview next week, then it was the next week, then it was the NEXT week ,etc. Finally, we had to decide what to do and we ended up having to stay since we had bills to pay. When the DM came to our studio this January, I confronted him about everything and his response was "No one is getting a promotion or raise, I'm here to tell everyone we're shutting the studio down."

The DM also promised me severance, but I just found out that this is not true and there's nothing I can do about it since he didn't give me anything in writing. I guess it shouldn't be a huge surprise since he wasn't honest about our promotions. I did have some good times working for this company, but all in all...I stand by what I said. They are the most unprofessional company I've ever worked for. Unless you're truly desperate for a job, or live near one of the "million dollar studios" where you might make more money, I don't recommend working here. I truly loved my job my first year, but I would not work for Picture People again.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay your employees better, we work very hard for you. Offer severance pay again, you can afford to since you pay so little to start with. Discontinue online booking if all the glitches have not been fixed. Stop forcing employees to overbook their studio, it's a lose/lose situation for employees and customer alike.

Pros

At least about 60% of the time I had pretty awesome customers who I felt appreciated what I did for them. I had a few really great co-workers, too. The photography isn't terrible. the system they use for selling was pretty easy to learn.

Cons

Basically the problem I had with this job is that even though I was hired before any seasonal employee, even though I worked extremely hard and received praise from both managers and customers, they jerked me around alot with not letting me know if I was going to be kept on after Christmas. I wanted this job so bad, calling constantly to check in, never called out for a single day even when I was at the studio literally throwing up because I was so sick. I didn't complain that they scheduled me to be the ONLY employee in the store to work on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day (They wanted me to close on New Years eve and open the next day). I was never sitting around doing nothing when I was there (unless specifically told to do so, sometimes there is nothing for you to do and managers would prefer if you just hung around in the back and waited for something to come up). I was respectful towards my managers and co-workers, I would help anyone with anything they needed. And I came in on New years eve to see that I was no longer on the schedule. But other people who had called out and were hired way later than me were. This job takes alot of your time, it's very stressful, you undergo alot of emotional stress for very little pay-off. All in all, I regret the time I wasted at this job when I could have been out looking for a job that appreciated my sales skills, photography skills, and the fact that I am a hard-working, intelligent, friendly, dedicated employee. I'm just saying, if you know you have skills, make The Picture People your fallback position, your absolute desperate "I need any job that is willing to hire me" kind of job. You won't be appreciated for what you can offer.

Advice to Senior Management

Instead of playing favorites and picking someone to work at your studio because you know them personally, or because someone you like suggested them to you, why don't you try hiring based on who can do the job the best. Who your customers like working with. Who actually wants the position, will accept any amount of hours you give them, and who don't slack off on the job. This would be a more efficient, fair way to run your store.

Pros

fun and great learning experience

Cons

horrible management, including district manager and human resources department.

Advice to Senior Management

invest more effort in competent, talented employees

Pros

It's fun and you get to see babies. You get to take pictures, and learn how all this stuff works.

Cons

Its only part time, and everything is so cookie cutter! Anyone can sit there and press the shutter button how it is set up. I'm so angry. grrr

Advice to Senior Management

More creativity please! And please let associated go full time. And can we just change the lighting a bit? ugh.