Pros
Do you long for the Triangle Shirtwaist days? Then come join Bluemercury's ragtag team of underpaid (mostly women) in this pink collar ghetto!
Cons
Watch your male colleagues fall up at a staggeringly rapid pace to upper management despite their lack of credentials and rotten work ethic. (What they lack in competence, they more than make up for in unearned confidence.) Meanwhile the qualified saleswomen that can be TAUGHT management (and have considerable experience) are constantly passed over. And the company has no compunction about dragging their feet while hiring, which means store associates have to run the shop themselves for no extra pay in the meantime. Normally in these situations in retail, it would be a district manager's responsibility to step up to the plate and come work in the store until a manager was hired and trained, but not so here. Don't worry your pretty little head about pay raises or promotions, even if your store is consistently hitting above LY. If you're lucky, they'll give you a 25 cent hourly raise every couple of years. Maternity leave? Nope. Sick leave? Forget it. But enjoy your gratis lipstick called "Giving Back"! It was created for working women on the go, just like you, except they're all white and rich. Better find an "Angel Investor", ladies! Get very acquainted with the store phone. You'll while away hours calling the same customers again and again for an event or some new product and annoying them incessantly. You're actually losing business in the long-term, but whatever. Management is convinced repeatedly calling people is the best way to make your sales goals and will not be told otherwise. When was the last time you bought a blush because somebody called you? Of course there isn't a text message system in place so clients could be contacted in a reasonable way that respects their time and privacy. Be grateful that you don't have to nag customers about spring fest via telegram or carrier pigeon. Because this pigheaded sales tactic is going nowhere. And good luck getting a client taken off the call list! The POS is not remotely useful and is basically running off of Earthlink still. Enjoy your customers' death stares when you're trying to ring them up and the system breaks down for the 8,000th time. Don't even start on how the schedule's made or how to get a client's presale sheet written up for holiday party. Both of these are done manually, so it's really fast and convenient, if you're Rainman. Your boss will explain to you that it's good to know how to do it this way, which, fine. As a backup method. But as a sole method it's time-consuming and keeps you from doing more important tasks like training your team and providing the best customer service on the floor. Did you know that credit card imprinting machines still existed outside of Pompeii? Good luck assuring customers their payment info is safe during holiday party! And god forbid there's a product you don't have in store for a customer, as there is no functional order fulfillment system, like most other retailers have by now. Upper management has questionable priorities. The secret to making an event successful? BALLOONS! Which you will pay for out of pocket. Or sad off-brand and weirdly colored nonalcoholic beverages and cheap cupcakes that nobody will eat. This somehow is supposed to translate to magical sales increases when in fact the customers would just appreciate consistent vendor support. If you ask upper management for basics like nail polish remover, oxygen for the spa, toilet paper, etc, be prepared for it to take an eternity. Instead amuse yourself with the painfully earnest clip art (YES, CLIP ART) in the daily emails that exist mostly to passive-aggressively berate every underperforming store in their district. If only you had annoyed your customer base on the phone more! Oh, and try to beat the online promotions in store. The Bluemercury website always offers extra goodies and incentives, but rarely will you get the same advantages in store. It completely cannibalizes the brick and mortar business. Just pretend you're the John Henry of lipstick and make it work. missy. So, okay, you'll "build your business" via the spa. Except the pay for estheticians is meager unless they work at Tropicana. There is no humanly possible way to retain a spa team when they're paid minimum wage hourly unless they are booked up 24/7, and they only have three months to build a very high client base to offset this. And if the spa protocols weren't ancient, maybe this would be possible. The spa rooms are grimy with disgusting thermal blankets last seen on your nana's deathbed. Mostly it seems the spa exists to grow MRSA. The promotional materials: we've been seeing Marla's mug on all Bluemercury advertisements since, oh, probably 1998. It's narcissistic, has very little significance to customers, and creates a weird cult of personality atmosphere. Hard not to feel those dead unblinking eyes follow you around the shop as you contemplate how to make a living wage off of reduced hours (company-wide, as a method of punishing any lower-volume stores), nonexistent pay raises, and zero maternity leave while you're desperately shilling Lune and Aster products with names like "Power Lunch". This line was created with modern women on the go, of all colors. But, actually, the BB and CC cream color range is whiter than Trump's voting base. In spite of all this, there are plenty of determined, motivated employees that work here and do a good job. And most of them eventually leave after being worn down by the depressing lack of growth.