Pros
- If you have chill grey shirts working at the store, even tedious tasks can be made fun. - Very flexible about days off and extended leave if you let them know decently in advance, however (see cons). - One free meal for each shift worked-- basically anything off the menu you want. - "Incentive" to perform tasks quickly and correctly in the form of small pay raises. - Close-knit and decent crew of employees at my particular store, but I'd imagine this can widely vary depending on the hiring standards of the GM. - Everything is regulated, so you don't have to look far if you're wanting for something to do during slow times. - If you make the small extra effort to interact with customers in the dining room, you can earn bonuses on your paycheck in the form of secret shopper reviews. Asking a customer how they're doing or bringing their order to them is a small sacrifice to make for additional cash on payday.
Cons
- During high traffic times, you will be rushing around to finish all your tasks and I've worked shifts of sometimes 8 or more hours without having the time to sit down once. Bad job to have if you're super out of shape. - When you start out, the managers will be busy with running the kitchen so sometimes they will not have time to adequately train you on a certain station before throwing you into it. It can be frustrating to get in trouble for making a mistake doing something you were not formally trained how to do. - "Red shirts" often get the short straw in terms of workload. I am often in charge of the cash register, the dining room, and several food prep tasks in the back of the store simultaneously, each one with an expectation of prompt completion. Must keep dining room absolutely spotless while taking orders from a steady stream of customers and somehow prepping food items to keep the kitchen stocked while the managers prepare the orders. - Very inflexible about call-offs or short notice emergencies. They will make you feel extremely guilty or afraid to call off, even if you legitimately should not be at work. Co-worker got fired for taking his daughter to the ER and not calling before the start of his shift (first such offense on his part) even though realistically, we didn't need him to keep up with the store traffic so he wasn't screwing anybody over. - Getting hours can be annoying starting out because they will not schedule you for the number of hours you want until you are trained on more positions--a problem compounded in high traffic stores by the lack of time on the manager's hands to train new people and still keep up with customer demands. - Third party company monitors cleanliness in the store, and the smallest stupid little things can be a violation (placing a spray bottle on a table you were going to clean and sterilize anyway, apron strings hanging out in any way from anywhere in storage, etc.)