Pros
Honestly I loved the job itself. I loved being busy all the time as it helped the day go by faster without any dull moments. I became the fastest cashier in my store and built a good reputation to be able to travel to other Aldi stores to help out and get extra hours or make up for hours I lost out at getting cut so much at my own store. It's a very physical job, especially the morning shifts, so it's a lot like a free workout when you're "throwing truck," putting products on the shelves.
Cons
Where do I begin? Eventually the negatives outweighed the positives working here. I was constantly losing hours getting cut all the time, even though I was hired as part time. There was one week specifically where my hours were cut down to 15 and I had to waste a sick day just to hit 25 for the week. When I confronted management on this, I was told there was never a guarantee for 40 hours as a "full time" employee, as "full time" according to the Aldi handbook is actually an average of 25 hours or more per week in order to maintain full time status. My store had three new district managers during the time that I was working at this location. Also if you intend to quit, they don't let you finish out the final two weeks of a two weeks notice, you're just done and walked out. I knew this, so I waited until I had a new job secured before turning in my keys and walking out the door. I honestly haven't missed all the drama from having to do my shift managers jobs for cashier pay. I was often told how I was doing such a great job, but then right afterwards was heavily criticized for silly things that prevented them from choosing me as a shift manager. Instead, two newer people than me, who weren't even performing tasks to standard, were promoted instead. The drama felt like high school with the favorites and secrets and gossip behind people's backs. But the biggest thing, you'll never have a life outside of this job. Hours were never consistent and even though I and others didn't live close, a lot of us were scheduled for close/open shifts, working until 9-10pm and then having to come back in at 6am the next day. If a shift manager made the store manager mad, they would get less shift manager shifts and would have to work as a cashier more throughout the week. And speaking of favorites, I've seen people get fired over the stupidest things before, and then let others get away with heavily marking down product to buy for herself without letting it be available to the customer to buy. There is no consistency in fairness in how management treated those below them. They may have a lot of policies that are supposed to make sure everyone is treated fairly, but they failed many times to keep those policies. Time and Time again I saw and experienced people and myself doing extra work because a manager wasn't in a good mood or didn't like how someone did something, or didn't think they did a task right or fast enough, so extra work was given to certain people on purpose. One night towards the end of my nearly two years with the company, even though I had never seen anyone have to do this before, I had to get on my hands and knees and scrub the cooler's grates/catchers at the bottoms of the doors for two hours without any help. Ended up staying over an hour after my scheduled shift to complete this, too. I ended up doing a ton of things I didn't even sign up for, and would often get reprimanded for not being good enough and was even yelled at for talking on the radio incorrectly (because I didn't say someone's name twice before talking on it). I tolerated the people I worked with despite how they treated me and others, but eventually had to find a better job.