Pros
- Few hours given out, which might be a good thing for a college or high school student. - Simple, simple job. Not really asked to do a whole lot. - Managers, including the head manager, at my store were mostly humane. - As flexible as possible with scheduling (which turns to be not all that flexible, unfortunately) - LOTS of loyal customers, so you'll get to know them. This is sometimes nice.
Cons
- The company is suspicious of everyone, all the time. Now, aside from the fact that it's a bit demeaning to you as an employee to have the manager examine the contents of your lunchbox every time you leave the store (company policy), this suspicion causes a huge amount of frustration. As an associate, you cannot do voids, aborts, returns, you name it, which means you're always waiting around on a manager to come do something before you can continue checking customers out. We at our store did not even have such luxuries as a quantity key because the cashiers had been "abusing it." So suppose an old lady comes in with 50 pixie sticks to give to the local children on Halloween, each individually wrapped with those impossible-to-scan UPCs. Guess who's scanning fifty pixie sticks? - There are only 2, three absolute maximum, employees ever in the store. This is frustrating for one thing because you start to feel like Tom Hanks in Castaway: you never see anybody else in the store, and you'll find yourself talking to the jar of olives, and naming various items in the store. But again, there are more practical considerations. With only 2 people in the store, you the cashier are left completely in charge when the manager goes on break. Now suppose the manager leaves the store on break, and is held up for a while. Then suppose you've just finished scanning a cart-load of groceries when the lady decides she doesn't want an item. What do you do? Void the item? Can't do it: requires a manager key. Suspend the order, apologize, and scan the other customers? Can't do it: no suspend function. Switch over to the second register? Can't do it: you're only allowed to work one register - working both, you're probably engaged in some kind of fraud scheme, you thief. Wave your hands furiously, apologizing profusely, and wait for the manager to come stick a key in the register, all to a chorus of tapping feet and throats stridently being cleared? CAN DO! Have a good time. - There are only 6-8 employees in the entire store, head manager included. This means that scheduling is not as flexible as it could be. If one of your coworkers calls out, guess who's getting a phone call? That's right. I once received 5 desperate phone calls one morning I'd been off because another guy called out. I went in. - You're supposed to ask every customer to donate to the Dollar General Literacy Foundation. Not really a big deal, I guess, but some managers get pretty aggressive about it: counting out the donations after every shift so they know exactly how much you personally hauled in, etc. - The company gives out almost no hours. Full time employees can count on 20-some hours a week. - Stingy company, will take weeks to fix problems such as broken air conditioners. If the air conditioner at Publix malfunctioned, it would be fixed the same day. Not so at Dollar General, where apparently air conditioning is a minor issue. Also, don't expect any nice equipment: everything in the store has been there since the day it opened. Count on your register being less apt to handle a steady flow of customers than a Gameboy. - Dollar General seems to attract a certain, kooky stripe of people... You have been warned...