If you want an eye opener, go to the websites where employees can rate their company and give feedback on it. Costco may have been wonderful in the beginning, but now they are trying to force the long term employees to leave. Additionally, they don't really want anybody with a lot of other experience so they hire college kids and keep them on 20 hours as long as possible, sometimes four or five years even if they are actively trying to get full time. They are even more understaffed than HD or Lowes and place greater pressure on their associates. They only promote from within, so management skills are haphazard at best, and cronyism is rampant. The only way to get ahead there is to hire on at a new store, where you can go full time almost immediately.