Pros
Co-workers are good people Free pair of glasses annually The process for making glasses is fairly simple if nothing goes wrong Lower management is sympathetic for the most part
Cons
Upper management in general, they make knee jerk reactions and on at least 1 occasion during my tenure outright lied to the employees - recently restructuring managment positions, firing hundreds of employees and increasing workloads of other to compensate. Unrealistic goals, especially given the world economic situation - expecting employees to produce at least 110% of the previous years sales and then 110% of that number in order to make any real bonuses Shoddy pay - base salary is low especially if working in a higher volume store Poor bonuses - Bonuses are based on sales goals and not related to lab work at all, regardless of how well you make glasses in the lab your financial situation is determined by the retail staff. An environment of fear - Bonuses in the lab are also doled out based on the amount of breakages on a weekly basis. But this creates an environment of fear, nobody wants to report a mistake and hence no honesty, and little opportunity for coaching if nothing is reported. Also nobody wants to be the cause of every other co-workers loss of income, especially when they tend to be the only good thing going for the company. Lack of respect for lab techs - Upper management views the lab tech positions probably as little more than fast food employees in a chain and pay us about as much. No room for moving up in the company - on several occasions the management staff will outright lie to you to get you to do a job. For example, one co-worker who was a lead lab tech came to our store with the specific instructions that he was training to be the lab manager here. A few months later they hire a new lab manager from outside the company whose backgrounds was at a Home Outfitters/Designer Depot/Bed, Bath & Beyond type of store.