**NOTE: This list is based on my personal experiences at one location so your mileage may vary.
Where to begin...
- It seems to be almost impossible to get fired. As long as you don't steal you're fine. This also means that people that should have been fired a long time ago still work there. Poor job performance seems to have almost no effect on job security.
- Very little on-the-job training outside of official repair courses for technicians. Expect to be thrown into the deep end with almost no help unless you're lucky enough to have helpful and kind coworkers working a similar shift. You'll be asking your managers a ton of questions which could be easily answered by some proper guidance.
- Employees in the Technology department aren't divided into separate specializations anymore like cameras, TV and audio, computers, etc. How much you know about each of these areas won't really affect your wages in a meaningful way. You'll be expected to know everything.
- New employees at McDonald's across the street make over a dollar an hour more than I do as an Apple and A+ certified technician after over a year. Hourly wages aren't influenced by performance at all. Excelling fast, learning more, taking on more responsibility, and doing a good job won't bring you better pay. No luck trying to discuss a raise with your managers as none of the managers that work with you can influence your wages. Yeah, you read that right. The people who watch over and manage you apparently can't influence your pay.
- Commission pay (known internally as "PMs") are a joke unless you're in a really busy location or have superhuman speed when it comes to repairs/services. In fact, the pay scheme for technicians prioritizes speed of repair and sales of unnecessary services over everything else (quality, thoroughness, customer service, etc).
- Outdated systems galore. A lot of the technology/processes employees use are outdated, especially for such a big company. Transactions in the Tech department take a lot longer than they should and are needlessly complicated due to the outdated Point of Sale systems. Customers hate how long it takes almost as much as the employees. Booking a customer in for phone or computer repair regularly takes up to 20 minutes or more due to paperwork and old technology, even if they've booked their appointment ahead of time.
- Head office constantly adds more bureaucracy to everyone's workflow while being oblivious to the real inefficiencies, or at least has done very little to remedy them.
- As a technician, the abilities of your fellow technicians will heavily influence your experience during work. You'll share a lot of tools as well as the workspace itself with other technicians. They will make things infinitely harder or easier, depending on whether they're organized, helpful, on-time, approachable, and able to solve problems and learn on their own.
- Tech Service management will have their hands full with a million problems constantly so they are going to forget about your requests and take forever getting you what you need. I'm still waiting for tools I requested over 6 months ago.
- Management and Head Office is mainly "lifers" that aren't aware of how other jobs/businesses work outside their walls. They have missed the boat by 20-ish years. There is significant overlap between the people who are happy working there and people with minimal work experience elsewhere.
- High employee turnover. Expect to be training people by your third week on the job. I've never seen an employee come back after leaving including those that said they would return.
I could go on for a lot longer about things like workplace setup, lack of meaningful marketing, management's delegation of responsibilities, etc but I won't. If you do plan on working there I hope your experience is better than mine has been.
TL;DR: Poor pay, minimal training, not great hours, under-performing management, oblivious corporate. If you're a technician you're actually a salesperson holding a screwdriver. Not the worst if you're just getting into the working world but anyone expecting a career or even being able to cover your own expenses as an adult will likely be disappointed.
