Pros
On the surface there are lots of thoughtful businesses practices taking place that prioritize the worker. Pay is good, you’re given time after you clock in to get dressed, bathroom breaks are always allowed, one time it was storming and flooding in the morning and management made a point to let everyone know they should prioritize their safety. The people who work here are always super cool, I made a lot of great friends. No issues with under-scheduling. Pronouns are always at the forefront of interactions; this is the first place I’ve worked where that was the case and it was very much appreciated.
Kontras
Management will veto shift swaps that would require the shift recipient to work overtime; they say this is to encourage a work/life balance, but obviously it’s to the benefit of the employer not to pay overtime rather than allow an employee to make more money when needed. This is just a performative gesture. The PTO for part-time workers is also a performative gesture; the conversation rate to build up PTO hours combined with the fact that you can only use it in a full-shift amount means you have to work for several months before you can utilize it for a single shift. CF was not transparent in the interview process about hours. All employees /must/ work on Saturdays, and there is no option to swap shifts out of it because they are understaffed and every experience specialist works Saturdays. They also schedule you to your absolute maximum provided availability every week, which was a shock and required having an extra conversation with management and advocating for myself to adjust. I believe this was either strategically talked around in my interview, or the manager interviewing was just unaware of this (which is an issue unto itself). Floor managers do not appear to be trained at all in effective management, only in operations. Most tended to be extremely condescending; one repeatedly would clarify the difference between a sharpened and unsharpened pencil by showing me. Often floor managers would simply bark orders with no rhyme or reason, indicating that they have not been given any insight on how to manage a team. (Except for Karl! We love Karl.) There was a very clear disconnect between upper management and those of us on the floor every day. The expectations and details of our routines were set by people who do not understand the reality of the work because they either work in a corporate office not in the CF building or only step in for brief periods when needed. When problems with these details were brought to the attention of our immediate management with suggestions for change, they were usually met with “this is how ____ (corporate worker) wants it to be” and a promise to relay our notes, which I highly doubt ever happened because such changes were never instituted. Once we were heavily understaffed and a manager was helping close- they barely contributed to the labor happening around them, and were astounded by the efficient methods we were using. These were methods that had been used by the crew for months.