Toxic Hostile work environment created by upper management and field leadership - Store Manager Guitar Center Employee Review

1.0
7 Aug 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good people in the stores, fun subject matter.

Cons

WC and the other senior leadership speaks to the store managers like they are dirt! We can never do anything right without being reminded of what we are doing wrong. Constant pressure with zero direction or substance. Constantly asked to do things that are unethical and borderline illegal at the store level to hit some number on a report. Their mantra for every problem is to blame the store managers. It’s the excuse they hide behind daily. They need to face the facts that they simply don’t know what they are doing. Store managers are expected to wear all the responsibility of the store with minimal compensation. The leadership from above is so adversarial that it’s basically abuse. We are constantly on a call to be told how bad we suck with no advise or solutions. The reality is we are running without adequate payroll and trying to run things the same as when we had literally twice as many people. WC uses amateur tactics and basically believes that if we aren’t getting the results we aren’t treating the staff poor enough. Store Managers make middle class money that means they likely have responsibilities outside of work too. The work life balance needs to be brought in line in one way or another. Either Store Managers need to be paid more or the expectations of working so much and having so much responsibility needs to change.

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5.0
16 Jul 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Management takes good care of you

Cons

No complaints that I can think of

3.0
1 Jul 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Sweet deals and discounts Coworkers are very pleasant to work with Good as extra income Good for aspiring musicians to network with experts of the industry

Cons

Obsolete softwares Scheduling system software that is thenmost imperative tool as of it will be the backbone of a lesson lead for your team of instructors success it's also somewhat obsolete amd constantly crashing both IT and Upper management are aware. IT is very diligent and pleasant to work with but Upper management expects their lessons lead to work and deliver at 100% capacity while they continue to have an operating system that only works at 75% capacity, just beware of that and if you're willing to work under those conditions. With that put there go at your own discretion. Nobody gets Christmas/winter holiday vacation time off, also go at your own discretion on that one especially if you have kids and family looking for work-life-balance.

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