Company: Apple
Date: 2008-12-27
Overall rating: 5/5
Employment status: current

The best retail store on the planet.  Period.
Pros: It is just a really fun place to work where you get to use and sell the latest and greatest consumer technology of any company in the world.  You get to sell product that are genuine and that you know are the best of their kind.  Everyone uses a handheld cash register to ring people up on the spot.  Just about everyone you work with is extremely friendly.  There is an energy in the store unlike anything I have ever seen, like everyone is just so happy to be there, employees and customers alike.  There are always customers bustling in and out of the stores, sometimes to many to handle, but you never feel intimidated.  You actually feel like you can help everyone in the store with what they need.  There is no commission, which is a good thing for three reasons.  First, so there is no competition between you and other employees, everyone works together to answer the customer's questions and get them what they need.  Second, you don't have to be pushy when trying to sell a customer something, which allows you to almost build a relationship with the customer.  There are various customers who will come in now and say, "Hey, how are you doing?  How's your family?  I'm doing great, my Mac runs wonderful."  Third, there are no goals to meet every week or month.  Sure, you try to do your best, but you are not going to go home hungry or get reprimanded if you don't, which is so nice, and lets us be laid back and casual while still being productive.
Cons: If you are hired at, lets say $10 an hour, six months later, another employee can be hired at $10.50 an hour for the exact same position, and you won't get a raise because of that.  Basically the person with less experience will get paid more just for getting hired later.  When you argue with the higher management, they will deny it even happening, even if you show them your pay rate against another person's pay rate.  Also, you would think that because one works for Apple, one would know when new products are going to come out before the public.  Sadly, no.  Apple runs around employees with the same amount of secrecy as it does with the general public.  And a major turnoff is we as employees are not allowed to speculate at all about possible future Apple products and software.  If you do, you face getting fired.