Avantages
Great employee discount - 20% year round with 30% off twice a year (usually in the summertime, and around the Holiday Season). Great availability of auto parts both in your store, at your nearest HUB Store (Warehouse), and via Vendor Direct Order (VDP) or Special Order Parts. Most employees are knowledgable about automotive repair, body work, stereo work, or other specific mechanical fields based on their personal experiences. Benefits (Health, Vision, Dental, Retirement, Stock Purchase Program) for full-time employees are decent overall. Health insurance prices have only increased twice in the three years I've worked for AutoZone, and only three times in the past fifteen years total. Stores have good lighting and a decent overall layout, store hours are not horrible - most stores open around 8am and close around 9pm. Advancement opportunity is available and hard work can and will get you there. Transferring stores is easy and availability of stores is not limited, AutoZone is everywhere. District Managers are not nearly as "out-of-touch" with the store setting as some are in some companies. DM's make their faces and numbers seen often, and encourage you to come to them for anything you see fit. If you get above the Store Manager level, the money is good, the hours are good, and the benefits are better.
Inconvénients
Where to begin? First, and most importantly, store managers expect you (if you are full-time, or a manager under the store manager) to have AutoZone as your FIRST priority. They will not understand if you choose education, family, or your personal health over the needs of the store or the company. You will be expected to come in earlier than your scheduled shift, work later than your scheduled shift, work on your days off, and except last second change of schedules. Regardless of your position in the company you are be slave-driven to push their Key Performance Indicator's, or KPI's merchandise. These are things like "Check Out Challenge," Bulb Grease, Brake Grease, Air Fresheners, etc. Your hours if you are part time will be dependent upon your sales of these KPI products, and your management team will make no bones about it. Part Time employees receive zero benefits. You will be expected to run the store with, at any given time, two or three less people than you would actually need to do so. Hours are constantly being cut back during the week to make up for extra hours on truck day, and the weekends. Your store manager will be placed under a ton of pressure and stress by upper management. If you have a good SM, you'll never know this. If you have a bad one, you will feel every ounce of pressure. Be prepared for this. Don't expect time off on the regular. Even if it is unpaid time off, you will often be denied the ability to take it. The stores are not staffed nearly well enough, and because of lack of employees, your time off will rarely be granted. Pay is average at best. And I mean at best. You will start slightly above minimum wage in most areas. Full time gets you a few more cents, average is $.75 an hour. Entry level management will bring you another $.85 hourly on the average, although my District Manager has always negotiated with me often settling closer to my number than his. The company will rarely back you in anything, so be prepared to stand alone. The store employees and managers will also "run you over with the bus," not because they are that kind of person, but because often they must save their own skin. You will be expected and required to perform work on customers vehicles such as battery changes, light bulb changes, air filter changers, wiper blade changes, etc. This not weather permitting, and most of this work will come in excessive heat, rain, snow, or freezing cold. The elements cause all of these things to break, which means that is exactly when you will be repairing them. AutoZone is considered an "essential" business, meaning that they nearly never close. Not for extreme weather, not for holidays, rarely ever. Your only promised days off are Thanksgiving and Christmas.