Pros
I decided to work for Chuck E. Cheese's in college starting in 2010 because it was one of the only jobs available and few other jobs that were hiring. Three (3) years later in 2013 and I am still here at the same job in Atlanta. I'm warning you that this is not a job for the faint of heart. If you are in high school it may not be as bad but you will still begin to hate this job after a while. There can be fun moments with the families and other employees but the cons greatly outweigh any pros and therefore I wouldn't recommend this job for anyone. I am currently at a good location but even that hasn't help because it still sucks overall. I'm the longest working male employee at our location. There are 2 girls who have been there longer than me. The only reason I have stayed this long is because there is nothing else that I could find.
Cons
There are too many cons within CEC where do I begin? Should I begin with the fact that Chuck E. Cheese's is a con itself giving customers overpriced prizes and horrible pizza deals? Should I begin with the fact that the management are con artists and lie to employees about raises and reviews? This is a multi-million dollar company which has its headquarters in Irving, Texas and it doesn't give the slightest care in the world about you the employee. I will try to be direct and to the point. There are many cons to this job so pay attention potential employees to what I have to say. 1. If you decide to work at Chuck E. Cheese's it is not a glorious job. Regardless of your position you will be treated as scum and in my opinion worse than a dog. The management is scum and they treat you like scum. You become a slave when you sign up for this job. You will be forced to work and work and work with few breaks or in most cases no breaks and no praise from management. Technically they are breaking the law by not paying employees for 20-minute break periods but they don't care because you are a slave to the company. There are no company parties and no sign of any company culture. The management doesn't care what you have to say or what you think is best for the employee or the customer. If you get the early shift you will need to be at your store location by 7 in the morning. If you get a late shift you might be at your store past midnight closing the store. Luckily I got a good shift every week and rarely worked past 6 in the afternoon. Also they rarely give you a lot of hours and don't want you getting anywhere close to 35 hours. Chuck E. Cheese's will not make you rich. They want to keep you poor. 2. There are no raises or so few that it is completely pointless to ask. If however you are crazy enough to want to be an assistant manger you will still be forced to work crazy amounts of time including early and late shifts. More than likely they will transfer you to a different store. I never aspired to be an assistant manager at CEC because overall the culture sucks and usually management quits or transfers within 3-6 months which I didn't want to do. By the way we had 3 different General Managers and at least 20 different assistant managers within a three year period. Every single manger is new or is coming from a different location because the Regional Managers enjoy moving people around like pawns on a chess board. Sometimes there are extremely mean assistant managers and you have to put up with them which really sucks bad. Eventually all the management scum leaves and new scum is hired and replaced. They are just pawns anyway and the best way to deal with them is avoid them and keep your mouth shut. I will admit some managers can be nice but there are so many rude and cruel managers that it outweighs the decent ones. 3. Chuck E. Cheese's is cheap. They rarely fix things in the store. When something breaks they just leave it broken for a few weeks or they don't fix it at all. We have these magnets in the front of the store that have been broken since the first day I started working there and have never been fixed. They are extremely annoying and I have asked them to be replaced many times but the management really could care less so I have stopped asking. Chuck E. Cheese's is also one of the only stores that doesn't place trash cans outside of the store or near the exit so if you get the Kid Check position be prepared to throw away the trash for customers which is disgusting. I have asked them to place a trash can toward the front and all they do is say no. It's no use talking to a mindless pawn. Also there branding sucks because even though they update somethings they don't update everything and so you have the out-dated Chuck E. Cheese. 4. Chuck E. Cheese's is always under-staffed. There is never enough people to do all the work so you are always racing around to do something else. It feels like a marathon. This is because they have a quota just like other restaurants but this is just ridiculous. We have customers waiting sometimes in line for 20 minutes for one pizza. Meanwhile there are management who stand around and are too lazy to help the store themselves or pick up the slack.