Pros

- Intelligent and friendly coworkers - Very lenient dress code - Ample paid vacation and sick days - Usually not very busy, since Amazon and nook are destroying our business - Discount at cafe makes breaks convenient - Generally higher caliber of customers than other retail - While the employee discount isn't enough to keep you from buying at Amazon so that you can pay your bills, you do get to borrow hard cover books for free for two week periods

Cons

Keep in mind the company has changed over the past few years, so this review would have been much more positive if written in 2008. My guess is that things are even worse now, though since my store closed a few months ago, I can't be sure. The biggest problem is the amount of upselling required by management. Expect to ask EVERY customer if they want a membership, tell them two benefits of the membership, ask if they want to buy a giftcard, demand they tell you their email address (actual suggested wording: "Give me your email address"), and if they have a kid, ask if they want to join the Kid's Club. Management's only solution to sales being down is to raise the goals and micro-manage sales of memberships etc. per hour, then write up cashiers when no one reaches the goals. Another issue is how the company treats its customers and expects us to follow suit. Cashiers were reprimanded for telling customers they can opt out of automatic renewal when buying a membership, though if they don't opt out, their credit card will be charged $25 the next year. Similarly, the membership changed last year to not even have the option to opt out, to require a credit card to apply, to not be cancellable and to no longer discount hard cover books 20%. This made it worse for customers renewing their memberships, but if you're honest to customers about it, your numbers will be lower and you'll be written up and potentially fired. Basically, management sees customers as walking bags of money to be exploited in the short term and requires its employees to treat them the same or else lose their jobs. The final major negative is the nook e-reader. Since stores get no revenue from e-books purchased on nooks they sell or even purchased over the store's own wifi, every nook sold means less money for the store in the long run, so less payroll for you. Memberships also don't work on e-books, though they finally changed to give $10 or $25 off one nook per year. Thus while nook sales are pushed hard, they counteract both the store's prosperity and the membership sales which are required to keep your job. So be prepared to shoot yourself in the foot and pretend to like it, though you won't be able to afford a nook with your paycheck, nor would you want to invest in one once you realize how doomed and desperate the company is. Finally, a con which seems increasingly common in retail. Not only is the pay low, but hours are cut and more workers hired, so that they can have numerous untrained people working for minimum wage 15 hours a week instead of experienced staff that can live off their wages. Oh, and expect a 25 cent yearly raise if you get one at all, and no tips if you work in the cafe.