Pros
When you start out in lower level leadership there can be a lot of growth opportunities. Product assortment is always changing so it keeps things exciting. Learn a lot about customer service and selling, scheduling, strategic planning, visual merchandising.
Cons
Once you have worked there for a lengthy period of time the opportunities seem to be less and less for career advancement. The company has changed a lot over the years and now has a culture where they reward the leadership skills of managers at stores that are simply making plan even if it is just based upon having the traffic to do it vs being focused on skills as well. They have also stepped away from having a development plan process for leaders as they had in the past because they have such a strong focus on selling and business metrics only and don't want anything to get in the way of that at all even if its about developing leadership skills. This has really decreased the quality of leaders vs what there had been in the past and many high performing leaders with exceptional skills moved on and have been successful at other companies. Also pushed out many experienced District Managers to save money and new DM's do not travel to locations as frequently as former leaders. One may only see their DM once per quarter even in a high volume newly designed location and this creates a lack of feeling developed as a store manager. Work life balance can be ok if you are good at delegating tasks and are ok with working every holiday and weekend because it is an expectation that leaders are in the business. They have been remodeling stores and saying they are growing the company, but in secret while doing this they are closing locations as well and not making it public news as many other retailers do. They have also cut back a lot on product because of the remodels because it has hurt spending.