Panda Express reviews

Where do I start? Horrible long hours. As a GM, you are required to work at least 50 hours. Yes, you clock in and clock out so that your boss can make sure that you're actually at the store. Your boss either will micro manage you or don't care about you. Either way, if an executive visits you, your boss will scramble like hell to clean your store. Stay up to 3-4am is normal. They expect perfection out of you because their bosses expect perfection out of them. It's very sad and I feel bad for ACO. They are good people it's just that in the Asian culture they have to obey higher authority. They are very picky when it comes to hiring. Yes, they do discriminate and rather select Asian people. But of course they will never admit to that. Why you may ask? Because asians are more submissive. They tend to not question or debate the higher ups. As for store associates, we as GM are told to hire only eye appealing people. They call it "hiring a face team". If your overweight, you can forget about it. I got in trouble because I hired an overweight worker. My aco told me, if I hire her, she will write me up. There is no work life balance. They claim we can work 5 days and take two days off but in reality it's impossible because someone always calls off and you will always be short handed. U must come in if your store is short handed. And if you got lucky and did get the day off your phone will be flooded with group texts from your store, and from your GM team. So you are not at your store but you will be on your phone texting, calling talking about work. You never truly have a day off. And if u get a text you must reply back. So if you have a day off, expect to clear out your schedule. Can't go watch a movie with your husband. Because you will get a text and u have to respond back or even go into your store. Company brainwash you by requiring you to take landmark courses. Just google "landmark forum cult" and you will know what I mean. Basically, they make u believe that everything in your life up to this point has been a failure because of you. And it's because of u that your life sucks. They beat you down mentally, making u lose all confidence in yourself. Then they turn around and say if you stick with panda, believe in panda. Panda will show u the way. Panda can solve all your problems. Surprising, they are correct. If you dedicate 100% of your life to panda, you will succeed. I'll say 90% of all managers and up are single or divorce. You better learn how to speak like a panda person. They redefine words like integrity, authentic, intensity. They use phrases like "she got beat up" which means she got yelled at like a kid. And yes, I've personally seen an ACO crying because her boss "challenged" her. Oh yeah they say "challenge" a lot. Which basically mean your gonna get yelled at. Good is not good enough. You can only take one vacation per year and you have to take all your PTO days at once. So take off one month and u work 11 months in a row. As a full time GM, you will slowly realize that you'll lose your friends and family. They will seem like strangers to you because they no longer speak your brainwashed panda language. Say goodbye to BBQs, sporting events with your kids, birthday parties, weddings etc. at the end, u will be brainwashed to believe that panda is the true way of life and that panda people are the only people you need to be around. And that's the ultimate goal. To make you a panda for life. Run the business, earn money for the CEO. And then retire a lonely person. And u can't quit, because honestly where else can u work? Taco Bell management?

The down side to all this, is managers, not employees are taken advantage of. Sure, the BOH and counter people work hard, and sure they have to stand on their feet, but so do teachers and beat cops. Managers are under tremendous, and I mean tremendous pressure to attend Landmark. If you research the history of Landmark, which used to be called EST, you may not be so enthralled about Landmark. You may also want to research news stories about Landmark as well. If Andrew Cherng finds Landmark useful in his life good for him, but he has to get past forcing it down the throats of his workers. He has said it is not required, but I have never met a Panda Manager who felt that it was not required, they all felt they had to attend landmark classes. I can tell you, and I have spoken to many many people from Panda who went to Landmark, that not one, and I am not exaggerating, found it to be of any benefit at all. Managers are under pressure to keep costs in line, and they should, but all Panda's training is Landmark and New Way of Being, and many managers are clueless and untrained about inventory management, To be honest, Peter is out of touch with his managers. His ACO's and RDO's are under the same pressure with Landmark and New Way of Being. There are endless meetings drawing three circles, nothing is ever accomplished, inventories are out of whack, overtime mounts up, or is avoided by understaffing, but everyone spends hours filling in three circles week after week. Managers all must have cell phones because that is how the ACO's communicate with them, but I have never heard of anyone being reimbursed for this. If the company insists on communicating in this fashion, they should be either supplying phones like other companies do or reimbursing their managers. The same goes with travel, managers should be reimbursed for the mileage they incur going to meetings, running errands to buy supplies for the store, etc, but to the best of my knowledge no manager is reimbursed for running errands for the benefit of the company. Overall, I feel Panda is a good place to work, their values of wanting to provide an outstanding dining experience and their emphasis on a clean environment is great but Landmark and New Way of Being have got to go.