service technician

team member

computer technician

junior service technician

product manager

Canada Computers Inc.

Honestly it's a great job if you don't take yourself too seriously but prioritize others.You need to know a lot about everything and at the same time be a team player. The hours are long but can be rewarding and time flies when it's a busy day and you are helping customers. 

1. A typical day would be regular housekeeping, keep things tidy and clean, restocking shelves, fulfilling customer orders, updating tags, answering the phone, oooing over new items when a shipment comes in and most importantly of all, greeting and helping customers that come into the store. 

2. What I learned: Laptops, desktops, gadgets, networking, security cameras and cameras, printers and toys, drones, phones, more toys and cables, cables, cables. Lots of cables.

3. Management: Honestly I have to say the management here are superheroes, they have x-ray vision (can find that cable you are looking for when you swear it wasn't there before), they possess a photographic memory, they have a great sense of humor, they are hard working and set a very high example, they do all the same tasks your are requested to do but more. They care about the staff and try to help you. It's to be admired because their typical day is all of the above but multiplied by 10 with lots more responsibility. Plus, they handle the difficult cases which I don't envy. 

4. Workplace culture: I like the team spirit. I have gotten to know great employees from other locations too. Generally I find everyone working together to help each other out.

5. The hardest part of the job: long hours, people (retail isn't easy), difficult customers, not being able to help a customer, when you can't find that thing they don't know how to describe, when you can't find that one cable......

6.  The most enjoyable part of the job: meeting people that come into the store, helping people find solutions and seeing that look on their face when they find just what they are looking for, seeing a kid get his/her first laptop, learning new things about products, working with a great team, meeting great people everyday.

A typical day at work was one that was overloaded, understaffed, frustrating, too often unsafe, and even just entirely nonsensical. What made it bearable were my fantastic co-workers, and a sense of satisfaction from helping grateful clients. During my time with CC, I honed my 6th sense for customer satisfaction, learned about operating a store, and learned to run a company like an evil corporatist!

Reconciling my personal beliefs with the head office style of operation was my greatest difficulty. In essence, the company is run much like an authoritarian dictatorship turning a profit at the expense of the physical and mental health of its employees (especially managers). Not only did most staff have little to no means of contesting their crazy policies, poor attitudes, and general disrespect and inattention (other than threatening with legal action), they were dismissed and even somewhat shunned people for pressing matters further.

The stores are typically understaffed, workloads are defined by impossible standards, and if certain criteria were not met the punishment was either severe to one's standing or compensation was cut. For example, even though most factors about certain store issues were out of my store hands (clientele demographics, store location and size), my bonuses were stripped away based on what was a biased and convoluted grading system by HO-designated individuals that had no previous reason to be involved in those operations. Plus, even though the end was customer satisfaction, I was repeatedly met with bureaucratic red-tape, conflicting policies, and a lot of full-circle "talk to this person" looping.

Moreover, not once in the 2+ years did HO send out any from HR to check on health and safety standards of their stores, truly campaign to better relations between them and the rest of the stores, and resolve their arguably illegal aspects of their operation. Instead, they ignored our repeated calls for help until we broke policy and took matters into our own hands, they made it more convoluted to earn commissions and bonuses (and easier to lose them), and I doubt the owner would be making millions if he paid a fair share to those he owes.

Depending on your location management will micromanage almost every minute of your day. Head Office is next to useless and makes nonsensical policy that regularly creates confusion. Policies update all the time and unless you are there all the time it's hard to follow week to week how things are supposed to be done. Inventory and organization is very messy and takes awhile to get used to. All of these learning challenges are compounded by the fact that there is no formal training and they expect you just to learn as you go. This culture puts burden on the full timers and veteran employees to train and inform new and part time staff and really creates a workforce who has no direction and is usually bewildered about what's supposed to happen.

Some of the people you work with are great and very friendly and helpful. Others have this elitist mindset and are very arrogant about their knowledge or product preferences. 

Wages are meh and benefits are non existent in your first year. Expect minimum wage with some commission bonuses. 

Expect customers to be regularly frustrated with policy, although the company has made strides to improve returns and transparency it still needs a lot of work. 

Work life balance is adequate depending on your manager again. Some managers are very flexible and will give you time off. Others will make you feel bad for asking for any days or change to availability. Fairly typical for most retail settings coming down to the personality  in charge. 

Overall this company expects a lot of its minimum wage workers. The product knowledge and ability to counsel customers in addition to organizing and maintaining a large variety of inventory and product pricing. All with no formal training and confusing directions makes this job frustrating at times. If you are working part time or need a temporary position this place is suitable for a time. If you are looking for a career with growth that promotes from the bottom this is not the place for you, unless you fit head offices inate culture and are willing to kiss behinds to get to the top.

I'd avoid working for the Company all together. it is a very boring place to work for and you are forced to sell and follow every customer in the store to increase sales. Most people coming in the store don't need to be upsold on items as they are coming in for basic cords and just need direction and basic information.

Personally, I don't mind having to interaction with every customer in the store because i enjoy making connections and networking with people. If you make a connection with the customer that'll increase your sales alone and help bring them back into the store it also helps the dreadfull 9 hour shift go by fast. But Unfortunately by doing so causes other coworkers to think you are stealing sales because you enjoy talking to people. 


There isn't much to do if your on the sales floor and the merchandising is a sloppy. if they focused on that maybe their sales would increase. 
If you work behind the cash its easy because you can sit on retail edge all day and just talk to customers who come up to you. Which most of the time customers walk straight up to the cash because of the layout of the store which also sucks. 
The management refuses to take responsibility for their tactics and denies any innovative ideas in the store. 
The sales staff were very negative as well. Constantly having something negative to say about each other or talking about previous arguments had with coworkers who were employed there in the past. They were constantly fighting over warranties and complaining. If you looking for a full time job without high school drama I wouldn't recommend this place. Because as soon as someone who has proven their sales tactics and through their sales numbers gets hired they start to get hot headed and cause arguments over things as simple as answering the phone. 
Many of these arguments were caused by lack of training and mismanagement because new rules were being made up everyday.

Typical day includes facing the store and turning on displays of products before opening. Normal sales driven day, pitching DRPs and ERPs whenever you can and initiating in courtesy 'welcome to CC, what brings you in today' greetings. There is really no designated cash anymore (as of 2023) so be prepared to be asked to cash people out. Presently in 2024, it is dead in terms of traffic so you'll be relegated to moving around, doing stock counts and waiting for the next customer to come in to bide the time. Occasionally helping shipment if there are a lot of products to be put out. Pros are if you can get a customer doing complete computer builds vs. a patron just looking for USB printer cables and ink.

Advice: Keep to yourself, your co-workers aren't snakes by nature, but do not engage in any drama for your benefit. Do your job, small talk, be friendly but keep away from the rumour mills. You'll thank me later. Provide ample time if you want to take time off/vacation. If you are even considering asking within 2 weeks time like a normal profession, be ready to be denied. Blackout periods are heavily enforced, you will not be approved for post Halloween vacation plans until end of January of the following year.

A great workplace to start, but no where to the level where you can sustain a good living in this 2024 Canadian economy. Live with your parents and pay no or minuscule rent? Sure this job works. Have a car to pay off, long commute and paying rent more than $1000 month? Unless you consistently make warranty targets every month, I'd look for non-retail, or higher profit sales. UNLESS you are a manager or higher, even then, you're still RETAIL in the end.

When I started, employees were assigned their jobs and trained with experienced staff members. In addition to the hourly compensation, there were also a number of opportunities for making extra money via spiffs and commissions on a wide variety of products and services offered. My store had a good number of staff, particularly in the more specialized roles (appliances, CSR/Returns, home theatre, PC components, etc.). Over time, that slowly degraded as some staff left for other opportunities, and they weren't replaced, but instead the existing staff would be expected to cover those roles in addition to their "normal" job. On top of that, most of the commission and spiff opportunities were taken away, leaving us with essentially our base pay. 

After that, there was much more frequent staff turnover, as there were fewer benefits to entice staff to stay, and the employee quality dropped, as those with the experience and knowledge left for better opportunities, and those who stayed were typically under trained and over worked, or they cared solely about making money regardless of whether it was of benefit to the customer. 

My biggest issue came with COVID and how inconsistent safety guidelines were being implemented, and with how dismissive they were about my concerns when I brought them to management. 


(To preface I was not kept on after my probation so take my review with a grain of salt)

A typical day at Work:
-Assuming you were opening you would arrive at 930-945 AM to turn on Displays and have a short team meeting.
-Assist customers with whatever they may want or need providing help and guidance
-Then close at the end of the day which consists of cleaning the store making it presentable for the next day.

What I learned:
- How to take pride in my work (regarding what I can control)
- How to build rapport with repeat customers building a foundation of trust which leads to repeat business and referrals to new business.

Workplace Culture: 
- Everyone was friendly and was always willing to help me or teach me something new that I would then be able to pass on to the customer: Being knowledgeable and providing more info makes you more trustworthy to the customer.
- Often if one employee left for break they would ask me if I'd care for something and they would get it for me. (Which I had never previously encountered)

Hardest Part: Perhaps both the Moving day in which all the stock was moved from one location to the Newer one. Approximately 12 hours of non-stop Physichal Labour. Not much else I found too difficult.

Most enjoyable: This one was a bit more personal but I enjoyed building a rapport with customers. The pride that I was able to take in my work and the friends I had made.

I was a sales clerk when I started, the company stresses the importance of selling their DRP plan, and yet my superior denies me the chance to sell them by not allowing me to go behind the counter to sell the more valuable hardware like CPU, Motherboard, Hard drives, etc. all of which the plan is catered to. My colleagues ends up getting a hefty commission bonus and praise, and all I got was a berating

No respect for seniority. During my time there were several new employees whom came after me, one of which I personally show him the ropes from scratch, in no time he was promoted over me and starts to boss me around.

The hours are long and the schedules are inflexible, missed many social events and gathering with family and friends. Lunch break is short, they expect you to get back to work even if you still have some time left, so as long as you're done eating. The rotation is also ridiculous, it's often 3pm before I get to eat lunch.

Management is lacking in giving praise on a job well done, yet quick to point out and berate you over the smallest mistake.

Bottom line, I could have become a good worker if management just put some trust in me and allow me to sell those expensive merchandise that warrants the need of DRP plans, instead they relegate me into doing menial chores. Not the best prospect for a new employee.

Working with my team and the customers in the goal of helping them was the most satisfying part of the job. Seeing my team get high comissions was very satisfying.
There is multiple unrealistic goals to the location of those stores. Those goals doesnt always turn into good customer service. Selling certain services which are very advantageous to the customer then changing the policy and denying part of the services and when the custer provides a proof management is blocked by the system to hounour those promised services to the custermer and has to ask customer to come back. (Customers time and gas is wasted on a product)

When we help customers with discounts but customers are very happy and returning = company too happy and watches us though surveillance and sends pictures of what staffs are doing and why the manager didnt intervene. How the CEO would get very mad and possibly fire you on the spot. The CEO has certain expectations of the store's look which is reasonable. Multiple good managers were let go after the CEO's visit. Due to miscommunications mostly by the upper management to the CEO. There is always a lot of stress when the CEO does a surprise visit.
Don't get me wrong about the CEO. He is very nice and supports you for the right reasons. He also wants you to work and think as him, you own your store...


Staffed by some of the hardest working people I've ever been around, but managed in a demoralizing, "chicken running around with its head cut off" kind of way. During my time there, departures of middle management happened sometimes on a monthly basis. The HR department is so overworked and understaffed they can take weeks getting back to you, if ever. The core of this company's business model is designed around hunting down talented, driven and desperate people with a passion for computer technology, helping customers and expanding their knowledge bases and paying them as little as legally possible, while at the same time placating any frustrations they may have about this practice with coffee, monthly free lunches and by dangling pay raises or promotions in front of them, but always just out of reach. In other words, they want all the hard work you can give them, and they want it as cheaply as they can get away with.


Only work for this company if you need the experience. Be prepared to work with smart, hard working and friendly people at minimum wage (the majority of all roles at the company pay at this rate, regardless of job postings listing otherwise) and for your hard work to matter only at other companies when you start applying for other jobs. This is very much not the place you want to build a career at. 



Top Job Titles	Average salary
Service technician 4 salaries reported	$18.75 per hour
Team member 31 salaries reported	$17.71 per hour
Computer technician 24 salaries reported	$22.50 per hour
Junior service technician 19 salaries reported	$18.75 per hour
Product manager 3 salaries reported	$71,638 per year

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