Avantages
The general manager at the location I worked at was a good person. They demonstrated both exceptional leadership qualities and strong management skills. The customer base, especially the regulars, is amazing people and a lot of fun to get to know. Honestly, it is the easiest job I have ever had, and there should be very little stress. I want to stress that the General Managers I interacted with at my location were great, all three of whom I worked with during the one to two years I was there. It really bothered me to see how quickly middle management burned them out.
Inconvénients
Middle management is as efficient and moronic as the military, which aligns with their ideas on how to run the Outpost. Zero local marketing means that if your signage is not adequate, you will struggle financially; however, executives do not seem to care. They have stated that they want people to have good experiences. Still, middle management is often misguided and cannot measure good feelings, so they ignore the executive mission and run the company as they wish, often leading to extremely unprofessional business practices. They should be given a 2-week notice. They are likely to fire you on the spot. They will flip-flop on promises and practices at the drop of a dime, with zero integrity. They cannot focus on anything beyond numbers, so they hire people to make coffee, then force GMs to try and push people into pushy upsell tactics. Every new system implemented is done with a military mentality, prioritizing the lowest bidder with the lowest quality. This means that staff receive systems that are broken, slow to correct, expensive to fix, and frustrating for both staff and customers. They side-step any accountability for their own failures and steamroll them to the staff in the stores, so nothing actually gets corrected or fixed. They are succeeding at bringing all of the worst traits from the US Army, and can only function because they are propped up by the company.