From Ohio — 12/28/2008
The pay is pretty good for retail. The pay is pretty bad for day to day existence, however. I have given up any hope of a raise, but the base hourly wage is decent.
I rated the respect as a 3 because I have never been mistreated or felt used by management. Occasionally we will have corporate managers come into the store and start bossing everyone around though, which is bad because they generally have no clue what they are talking about anyway. Respect from customers varies, but by and large they are pretty reasonable considering any dummy can walk in off the street and talk to you.
I rated the benefits as neutral because I do not use them or pay for them. I suspect they suck, since every retailer has crappy benefits, but I cannot rate them.
Job security was tough to rate. At the store level, I feel like I would really have to screw up royally to get fired. As long as you show up on time and do your job, you will be fine. However, given the fact that the company is currently in Chapter 11 reorganization, I do not know if I will have a job this time next week because the entire company could go belly up at any moment. Corporate management is awful, and that trickles down into my sense of whether I will have this job in a month.
Work/life balance is great. They will accommodate you if you are going to school, if you have a spouse that works, if you have children, a second job, etc. All they ask for is that you give them a fairly solid availability sheet and stick to it.
Career growth/potential is not good, but again, this has more to do with the bankruptcy than anything else. I would not consider making Circuit City a career given what I have been told by managers as far as salary, responsibilities, benefits, etc.
Our location is terrible. Circuit City has this thing where they try to locate each store as close as humanly possible to a Best Buy. It is their attempt to not only figuratively but literally crawl inside Best Buy's ass and become them. It is so stupid. The stores being so close together makes it easy for people to price shop items and beg for price matches. If the stores were further away, they could get around that with many people.
My co-workers are surprisingly knowledgeable and reliable.
The work environment at my store is very good. There is no real backstabbing, laziness, or anything like that. No jealousy over sales figures. Just honest competition for better numbers. It would be nice to get some sort of bonus or commission for exceptional sales, but Circuit City's corporate overlords would never go back to that system.
Overall, Circuit City is a good place to work IMO. It is a well known company and anyone can do the job. It is not a very physically demanding job, although you are on your feet for a long time. You get to meet interesting people and try to sell them crap.
