Pros
For a first job, this is a decent place to work. Harris Teeter provides well for its employees, and treats all employees fairly. I have never once experienced any sort of agrument, serious debate, stereotyping, racism, foul joking, ect. from any of my employeers or fellow staff to either myself or other coworkers. The staff is always friendly in my experience and Ive made many friends working there. My personal experience; Once I established myself as a hard and determined worker (which only took a month or so) I was praised and appreciated by staff, and eventually, come the begining of the school year, they were able to accomodate for my new lack of time by allowing me to create my own schedule and adjust it as needed.
Cons
Though this is a nice and friendly environment, I feel that there are some serious flaws, overlooked by hireups. UNIFORMS, in my experience, our uniforms have always been uncomfortable and ugly, and sometimes I feel my preformance to be worse and more uncomfortable due to lack of movement thanks to the dress code requirements (tucked shirt, belt, collared shirt). MANAGMENT, Ive had a slightly less than desirable experience with our floor manager. Though our manager was kind to me (as they recognized my work ethic) I was contantly pestered with requests to change my availibility to be more frequent despite stressing an infinite amount of times my restrictions (school and sports). It became seriously annoying and forced me to attempt to dodge my manager anytime I heard them coming, a bit dramatic, I know, but the problem was serious and most likely affected my decision to leave, this could just be my manager and I do understand that this is part of their job, but they understood my scenario and continued to ask. CART COLLECTING CONDITIONS, during the summer, a common work season for employees like myself, our outside duties such as gathering carts in cart bays becomes exceedingly difficult due to a lack in breaks among other things... Many other teenage employees tended to slack off (it seemed our managers never cared... or knew) whereas I completed the EXPECTED amount of work and at the EXPECTED pace. For this pace, during the summer at least, I had some MAJOR issues. A small pro for baggers at this location (and i assume all locations) we were allowed free unlimited access to water, nonetheless I had issues keeping my composure and struggled to keep cool during the summer (tempature cool). I remember overheating many times and one time, so bad, the managers put me in the break room for a few minutes because they noticed customers were becoming exceedingly concerned. You would sweat and eventually smell and because of the uniforms, the sweatmarks would not only stain but also show for the rest of the day, causing you to look more unproffesional. These conditions caused me to switch positions to become a Casheer instead of a Bagger/Cart Collecter. CASHEERING, though I only have 1 issue with the actual casheering part of the job, its probably one of the biggest problems... They provide no seating or protection against back or feet injuries. Unless you have a seriously comfortable pair of shoes, your not gonna enjoy standing there for almost 6 hours with nothing but a low-grade cushion pad to stand on. I remember having some seriously back problems to the point that the pain became almost crippling (temporaraly) this is not much of an exaggeration and I dont have a bad back, Im very young and healthy but still had (and maybe still have) back pain because of this, not to mention horrible posture. They absolutely do NOT allow seating during downtime and this has caused some uproar from fellow staff in the past.