Pros
Great stepping stone, plethora of learning opportunities, majority of branch employees are great people. Ability to sell and offer a large variety of products.
Cons
Lack of upward mobility, poor benefits, poor compensation, long hours, lack of resources, lack of engagement by middle-upper management, poor commission structure, no transparency, lack of overall direction, unsustainable growth expectation (so they can validate the poor compensation). The company likes to present itself as though it operated as a decentralized organization, but this couldn't be further from the truth. I'm sure it may vary from DM to DM, but largely the organization is micro-managed by the DM's. They make the calls, but the branch manager will have to take the fall for their decisions, which often times are terrible. Which leads me to the next criticism of the company, the DM's. Most of them have been with the company for many years and were promoted to these positions when the company was in its hay day and happened to be in the right place at the right time. Again, this doesn't pertain to all DM's, but there sure seem to be plenty of them out there that are completely incompetent and happened to get lucky. Another thing that Fastenal likes to put out there is the endless opportunities for upward advancement. Advancement opportunities are available, but only until you become a branch manager. Once you achieve the branch manager level your career plateaus and you can either settle in and be happy with your 55-80k/year for putting in 50-60hrs/week and HOPE that at some point an opportunity becomes available and that you've played the politics game well enough to get selected for the position, or you can take the experience you've been able to gain and join a more employee friendly organization.