Everyone is very easy to get along with. The training system is good; they don’t just leave new employees standing around confused. Someone teaches you whatever you don’t know, and they are also very willing to teach when you ask questions. There is an operations manual as a standard (although, in reality, the practices differ among many stores, and some things have not yet been updated). I get along very well with my coworkers. Once you get the hang of the job, it feels very rewarding.

The company is opening stores very quickly, and promotions come quickly. If you are highly proactive and strongly believe in meritocracy, you can really advance quickly.

It is truly exhausting. I did take the job because the pay was high, but at the beginning I was so tired that I thought every day about what I was doing with my life. Once you get used to it, mastering the work can feel rewarding, but regular employees need to keep learning constantly.

Except at a small number of stores, there are still peak periods. However, when sales are not high, part-time workers’ afternoon shifts get cut, and having no one to close the store at night is truly dreadful.

Because it is a Japanese company, the rules are very detailed and fussy. When we opened a new store, everyone spent an hour wiping dust together. The black-hat senior managers have very strict requirements, but when they are not around, everyone breathes a sigh of relief, and the standards are relaxed to a normal level.

The store-opening pace is too fast, promotions come too quickly, and the training schedule moves too quickly. This is the part I cannot handle. I became a blue-hat employee after a month and a half, and while I was still learning, I was already in charge. I was lucky not to encounter anyone who yelled at me; everyone treated me very well. Supporting the opening of a new store after only two months was truly frightening. I originally thought that, since I had the least experience, I would need others to cover for me. But when I got there, I found that everyone was equally inexperienced. We gritted our teeth, learned from one another, and then trained the newcomers.

The turnover rate is high, and the training schedule becomes even more rushed. I think the main reason is that the company is opening stores too quickly, and staff development cannot keep up.

I really have seen people who are extremely serious. One person joined at the same time as me, learned the entire section in a month and a half (although they did not know how to do everything), and was very proactive and dedicated. I truly admire and respect coworkers like that. But there are even more people who have been driven away by the pressure, and that is something the company really needs to think about.