Pros
If you work like a slave, and leave on good terms, you'll always have a job or be rehired. There is opportunity for advancement but you'll need to drink a lot of Kool Aid or suspend reality. There are a lot of good hearted and helpful people you'll work with.
Cons
All the negative comments are so true. A company built on the exploitation of their workers. Examples? It begins even before you start your first day, they make you spend $$$ buying their uniform, which is illegal in my state, they get around it by calling it "dress code." I've seen employees made to stay at the store during major hurricanes and blizzards while honestly fearing for their well being. Their pleas to leave being denied by district managers. For years and years they made the closing workers punch out and run end of day reports and still required the employees to do tasks off the clock. They had to be sued to stop the practice. There is absolutely no training. They force well meaning, but inexperienced young folks to work on cars, typically in the rain/snow/sub-freezing weather. If you get sick from being forced to work outside, there is no sick time. You can be literally be fired for missing three days of work within 9 months. Denied breaks or delayed breaks are normal. People are forced to sell add on items to customers. Big deal, every place has sales pushes, right? Wrong. Autozoners are constantly being threatened to sell high priced and high profit grease packets to customers and not the better valued larger sized product that will save them money. I've seen single parent's hours cut to one day because they didn't sell their quota of grease packs. The company doesn't care if you sell an engine to someone, they only care about grease packets and other add on register sales so the managers and DM will look good. People with 30 years auto experience, owning part stores, etc. don't mean anything to them, it is the employee that sells the most grease packets that can't even put in a battery, etc. that matter. The people that sell the most grease packets get the promotions. I call them "grease packet managers" and they are the reason you get poor service when you go into an autozone because they don't have any real life experience (or manager training) and now run a million dollar business. The company says customers come first, but employees know better, The company doesn't really care, they care that one of the 15 garbage cans wasn't emptied and not that you changed 30 wipers outside during a blizzard while you had the flu.. Or changed a customers alternator belt on the side of a highway. They will say they care, but don't. Customer compliments are the first message deleted on a district managers message list. Read all these comments posted here by the real workers - the ones in the stores that do the work and not the high paid DMs, or the ones who have cushy jobs in Memphis or the regional office. Maybe the multi million dollar CEO will get the message. Like he says, "It's a great day to be an AutoZoner." Too bad the majority of people that work for him and make him rich don't earn a living wage. Disgusting...