Pros
- 20% Discount on *most* parts - Decent paycheck and sometimes decent hours - Some of your coworkers can be really awesome people - It feels really good when you help a customer and they are polite and thank you for your time and effort. Unfortunately,this is a rarity at Autozone -As others have said, use this job as a stepping stone.
Cons
First off, let me warn you that if you work at Autozone you can kiss any social life you had goodbye. It will strain your friendships and relationships since you will basically live at the store because they are so understaffed. When customers start asking you if you ever go home, you know you have a problem. The hours are ridiculous, like opening at 6:45 on a Saturday and closing at 10 pm on a Monday. You'll love your early morning rides into work seeing every other business in town closed as you pull into the parking lot. You will be chronically understaffed and expected to fill in at a moments notice if somebody calls in sick. You will work tons and tons of Fridays and Saturdays. You'll be begged by your friends to get another job so you can do things again. Your wife will get angry because you can't get any time off to take that weekend trip to Atlanta you want to do. If you have friends like mine, you'll eventually be almost "written off" because it is always assumed that you'll be at the "Zone" when anything interesting happens. When you do get time off, it will be because your hours have been cut due to "poor sales". If it rains or snows, if your not selling enough grease packets or for whatever reason not many people are coming through the door, you can kiss your schedule and paycheck goodbye because you'll start getting sent home. As a part timer, you are completely expendable to Autozone. You'll learn to loathe bad weather because it means your paycheck is about to get sliced up. Your value to Autozone is based solely on how many "extra items" you sucker customers into buying. These items range from little packets of grease, felt pads for battery terminals to whatever "checkout challenge" item has been placed at the register. It doesn't matter if you end the day having sold a $2,000 engine, if you don't have any tally marks by your name for selling packets of grease on the score sheet, your ass is in trouble. This can range from a verbal butt-chewing to having your hours cut -- which is particularly despicable. You will also be pressured by management to slip the grease packets into customer's bags and charge them for it when they aren't looking or fool them into thinking the grease is included in the price or that you have to buy the grease if we put a battery on your car. Management will often try to "boost morale" by having phony contests with your sister stores to see who can sell the most "extra items" where the only reward for your day of hard work and tricking customers is silence or maybe a verbal "attaboy" ---- rarely, if ever, will you earn any kind of financial or material reward for selling a lot of stuff. If a reward is given out, its usually to your store manager. Customers can range from downright rude to utterly stupid. The nice polite customer who properly thanks you is a rarity. People will expect you to have the knowledge and skills of an ASE Certified Mechanic and get angry at you for not being able to give them free advice that they should rightly have to consult and pay a mechanic for. Don't worry, you'll get chewed out for this too as these customers will almost certainly fill out the customer satisfaction survey and give your store poor marks on "Being able to diagnose the customer's problem".