Pros
Gear Discount Awesome Staff Supportive in-store Leadership Chance to develop skills and manage decent sized team
Cons
Guitar Center over time became harder and harder to work for. When I was hired, many of the staff had just had hours cut drastically, and were run ragged . The whole mood of the staff was low and continued to get lower as corporate slashed long standing policies, and made decisions that affected the profitability of the store (which affected management bonuses). In the midst of this context, as a lessons lead you are managing complicated scheduling needs, managing 8-12 contractors, being a customer service representative, selling expensive lesson plans with quotas that do not change with demand, creating a space that is comfortable for families, and enforcing a controversial no refund policy. This last one is the one that really made me feel uncomfortable, both with it's ethics, and with the angry parents getting heated when enforcing it. I don't know how many families pulled out of the program and went through a painfull appeasement process during my time. So it was a full load, that most of the store has no clue how to operate. If you are sick, lessons often stops working and you need to fix it when you get back.