car wash attendant

assistant manager

supervisor

cleaner

entry level associate

Charlies Car Wash

They have health plans and are really good at giving raises per position learned, but the kicker is that the car wash is either REALLY busy with no staff, or its REALLY slow with a lot of staff there. There is no in between, it gets really bad on rainy days when they send everyone home and then it stops raining and the car wash is under-staffed and gets hit with a lot of service. They have monthly meetings (that counts towards your paycheck if you show up) that usually has pizza.

Scheduling: They are very good about being flexible. If you can't work a day, talk to a manager and they will try to find someone to cover, and regardless they won't have you come in. They are understanding about family issues and other related stuff. Even when the car wash had the shooter come through, they gave the staff there a couple weeks off. All in all, they are top-notch about their scheduling.

There are 4 main positions.
SA (Service Advisor): you're basically stuck in a little booth all day selling car washes to customers. It's not so bad when the day gets busy, but you will have nothing to do in that crammed little box when it's dead. It's a good time if you can occupy yourself, but you are held accountable for the money made and management will ride you if you're only a dollar off.

Bay: Inside cleaning. This is a position they will start out a lot of people in, and it's simple: vacuum cars, spray the windows, wipe down any excess water on the outside. They will send these people home first usually. On busy days, the Bay will have cars loaded up in every bay area and waiting outside the Bay too. On the slow days, you will have a list of things to clean, restock, and tidy. There are Bay Leads and Bay Sup's (basically Shift Leads and Supervisors), and those positions will count for the raise per position deal.

Ambassador: There is only one Ambassador working usually. They handle calls on the phone, running the convenience store, and talking to customers. There is not much to say about the position, it's the same on slow and busy days, cleaning and ringing people up on the register. Think of Ambassador as SA Lite.

Prep: This is part of where the magic happens. Most people that work Prep either love it or hate it, there is no in between. There are usually 3 workers that work the position at a time, and they lead the car into the wash and prepare it to go through with pressure washers (expect to get wet). On busy days, you can get managers to cover you for bathroom breaks and to have to do a lot of car prepping. On slow days, it will be you and two other people not having to do much of anything, which is nice.

This is a job that requires you to work well on a team, you will get to know the people you work with. They will become your family, management included.

Charlie’s will subject you to 50+ hour weeks as a “norm” for salaried managers. You’ll be expected to be a coach, Human Resources expert, damage claim adjuster AND a plumber, mechanic, and electrician all in the same day for the same amount of money you can make as a librarian. The terror lies with home office leadership though… you’ll be subjected to three different types of on-site evaluations where your score determines your bonus, and raise potentially. Don’t try to do any leg work though for these evaluations. Your score will just depend on how the field reps or director are feeling that day. Or if they have a trainee in position that they want to make look good and you’ll get a perfect score with your eyes closed. The home office is a laughable attempt to organize a small family owned car wash business into a corporate machine and they fail. You’ll feel miserable, get hot, go home drenched in grease, ruin clothes with hydraulic fluid, spend all day in wet shoes, and never get close to a positive work life balance. In all professional seriousness, this company is poisonous and ruined a lot of peoples lives in the salaried Operations Manager, and general manager positions. Almost any other company is guaranteed to make you feel even a tenth more valued than Charlie’s will. I personally won’t miss going in at 6:00am to open, having a list of maintenance issues accumulate throughout your shift, then staying overnight for a whopping 21 hour shift to fix it all because that’s the “expectation.”

Depending on your job (I was a service advisor and ambassador) you have very little social environment. As a service advisor you work in a small concrete room separate from the store, usually working by yourself. You must wear a microphone at all times with or without customers. There is very little you are allowed to do when it dies down and you are forced to stand there alone for hours with little to do. You are allowed to quietly listen to the radio, color, and read but that sums it up. The managers appear nice but some will guilt trip you for calling in, even when you are very sick or have a personal family matter. 

Additionally you are not allowed to express your personality, no colorful hair, no colorful socks, no exposed tattoos, etc. 

Overall the pay is pretty good but it gets very boring, isolating, and a constant feeling you are being watched. 

Working at Charlie's was challenging at first as it is a fast-paced working environment. For my daily, I was cross-trained, so I would be ringing up customers one day and cleaning cars the next which is nice to have a variety at your job. Management here is awesome as they are all great people who treat their employees with respect. As for the environment, it is really friendly and of course, you meet people who you like and don't like, but I was able to meet and make so many friends working here which made work fun. As a first job, although I didn't realize it at the time, I wouldn't have been the same person I am today. At least for me after working there for 2 years I would most definitely say I have developed skills such as a strong work ethic, managing my time, and cleanliness which has transferred into my professional and personal life.

At first, I didn't mind working at Charlie's; however, over time, I began to hate it. They don't pay enough for the amount of work you actually do. They cross-trained me in another position and I told them that I didn't enjoy it but they wouldn't move me because they didn't have anyone else for the position. It was a lot of hard work and the weather conditions are brutal. There is no AC during the summer so you just sweat through your clothes, then they have you outside in the freezing cold during the winter. The first year that I worked there, the management wasn't too bad. During the second year, management changed and they were AWFUL. 

The pay is alright. Around 10.80 for an SA. My experience is that some managers are always rude and some managers are always happy. It makes you hope that only certain managers are working. It’s very chaotic and management doesn’t seem to follow the rules well. Some people can also mess up all the time and not get fired, which really hurts the whole operation. Also, SA’s have to stand outside in temperatures from -16° to 103° (real temperatures I have dealt with) and still have to serve rude customers. Also, you have to deal with dramatic coworkers that don’t take their job’s seriously and that slack off and vape in the bathroom. Seriously, don’t work here.

Working at Charlie's Car Wash is often viewed as a positive experience. The position provides a strong opportunity, particularly for those starting their careers, and the work environment is often considered positive and enjoyable. The atmosphere among coworkers and managers is consistently positive. The team often works well together, making even busy days more enjoyable. Management is often approachable, fair, and understanding. Schedules are often accommodated, which can be a significant benefit for balancing work with other commitments. The fast-paced environment and cross-training across different roles can help develop a variety of skills.
Good benefits and flexibility: The company offers benefits such as free car washes for employees. 

Great job for the summer, other then that it's a nightmare. Spent a year there, schedule was never constant, got heat exhaustion and stroke in summer and frost bite and hypothermia in the winter. They make you do grounds work, and are often understaffed or overstaffed so they send you home and you get like, 12 hours in a week. Management picks favorites and if you aren't a favorite then your work day is terrible. Constantly changing polices and short breaks. Although the other employees are amazing, met some of my best friends working at charlie's. Just wouldn't recommend the job to others. 

I didn't even last almost three weeks working here. The upper elite managers were so demanding and always expect you to do everything completely right a lot of the times. You also don't get a lot of breaks because cars keep coming and going especially on sunny days. My mental health also took a huge toll on me because I would get constant panic and anxiety attacks just from moving from one car to the other. Ended up calling in and quitting after I went home from my shift. Overall just do not work here if your mental health is not prepared for all the work you are about to get into.

I have been at this job for a quite a while, great family owned company. But for how long a I've been there it would be nice to have extra vaca time then 2 weeks even being Hourly, also the cell phone policy needs to be updated, nobody is going to leave it in their car. Management can be up an down they sometimes help a lot then other times expect the Hourly Sups to do all the work. every position is fun, but can get tiring because of it always about numbers, save money on staffing, efficiency needs to be in the 100%+ range.  Expect to work weekends, wish Sundays were either open later for church reasons or closed on Sundays

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Car wash attendant 6 salaries reported	$15.92 per hour
Assistant manager 3 salaries reported	$65,333 per year
Supervisor 3 salaries reported	$16.00 per hour
Cleaner 4 salaries reported	$14.33 per hour
Entry level associate 2 salaries reported	$15.38 per hour

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