photographer

sales associate

sales representative

team leader

hub manager

Jostens

I , for the most part, enjoyed the job despite the early mornings and long days (I've clocked in 110+ hours in the first 2 weeks alone). I absolutely loved my team (minus hub manager -- loved regional manager tho). You have to go in every day preparing yourself mentally to deal with different types of people (both kids and adults) because some people will make your job much harder than it needs to be, but for the most part you'll encounter mostly cooperative and kind people. You will be mentally and physically exhausted at the end of the day. There is no work - life balance during the week at all, by the time you get home you won't want to do anything but shower and go straight to bed because you'll have to be up early in the morning and do it all over again. The company gives many incentives but the pay itself could be better especially considering the amount of work we do and also the price of gas (I spent over $400 in gas in just 2 weeks -- I'm in California). I dreaded the days of getting off late and being stuck in traffic for 1-2 hours especially when I only had to drive 30 miles back home. Headquaters was horrible at providing us with needed supplies in a timely matter but we made due with what we had. Overall, the job was enjoyable and I made some lifelong friends within my team that I'd otherwise would have never met if it weren't for this job (because we live in different cities). 

The Denton factory is run by inexperienced management having no real jewelry trade experience.  Their egos and animosity rank the highest of any job I have ever had.  They run the factory very much like a sweatshop from the early 1900s where they only care about upper management.  Upper management gets huge payout annual bonuses where the average worker has to work two jobs to put food on the table and pay bills living paycheck to paycheck.   For a company that puts so much focus on caring about customers, the Denton management team puts no focus on caring about their employees.  It's very much a double standard.  The Jostens culture is to work the factory floor until they drop and, then work them more while upper management barely works 40 hours a week.  Don't ever try to plan to spend time with your family including weekends as they often will call you into work at a moment's notice due to a lack of management skills, lack of scheduling, and lack of care for you.   If you are thinking about working here, think again and don't make the same mistake I did.  You will get no respect from your management and there will never be any growth both on a professional and on a personal level.  There are many companies out there that will treat you right, don't settle for Denton's Management empty promises and harsh work environments.  Do yourself a favor and find a better place to work and spend your day.

So, I did this job for 2 years, and both years I did not have proper management of my hub.
I am not going into the full details, as this year was, a lot. It was miserable. 
You're going to wake up early, you have to be at schools typically at 6:30, the schools will some reason put the business number rather than a personal number for the contact, so you will have to sit outside and wait until someone comes. Or if they put their personal number, they most likely will not answer, or be there. I feel like this could be better managed.
We had some employees that should have been fired, but some reason they kept them on just because we were short, even though we had some people doing questionable things. 
You drive a lot, I would suggest working it 4 days a week so you can have a 3 day weekend to recover. 
The job is very easy if you just do your job right the first time.
The pay this year for normal photographers was $18 starting, last year it was $17. You have the chance to be a lead photographer, which the pay was $19 I believe. The pay raises are in increments of $0.25, same goes for pay based on experience. Mileage this year was $0.35 a mile, last year it was based on a category. You get a hotel only when you are driving before 4am, last year it was if you were driving 90 miles one way, which I am assuming people may have taken advantage of it, which is why there was a change. 
You have a clock in system both for your hours and for when you drive, so they track your mileage and location when you drive. 

You have the chance to make good money.


Spent a lot of the season stressing over fixing hub management

I am a Senior Sales representative.  I am responsible for everything that takes place in my territory across the greater Houston area.  I cold call on prospects and work different channels to discover the decision maker.  I then establish a time to meet face to face to discover a pain that my product can minimize.  I give presentations in front of individuals up to entire school boards.  Once I have asked for the order, and gotten the business, the servicing begins.  I make a custom marketing plan for each individual campus.  I then sit down and help the campus come up with a theme to support the publication for the school year.  I am responsible to maintain a balanced budget at each campus through monitoring sales, and predicting sales to come.  I train staffs on our custom online creation site along with InDesign, Photoshop and any other tool they may use in the creation of their publication.

The hardest part of the job is to sell, and keep yearbooks relevant in a digital society where most parents are limited on their income. 

I have a great manager, although he is spread thin, so I feel like I am on an island most of the time.

I enjoy the thrill of the battle, and each individual win!  It is also nice to make my own schedule, and not be trapped in a cubical 10 hours a day!

Typical day will include email inbox management and plentiful meetings. Expectation is related to task management, vs time management. In other words, stay until the job is done, not when the clock strikes 5. Not a huge amount of flexibility when it comes to working remotely because meetings are crucial for project management.

Little to no development in process improvement, operations team is lean to non-existant on an enterprise level. Only certain areas of the business are enabled with software to support workload and cross functional communication. This is a potential pain point if a candidate is not used to getting creative for resources.

Culture is hard to explain. It can depend on the project and the day. This was what I found to be the hardest aspect of the job, stress and pressure runs on high most days. However, there are great people in this company that are loyal, supportive and understanding of this pressure. It can be detrimental to productivity if it goes on too long, I have found. This seems to be a source of why I have had colleagues leave.

Overall Jostens is full of opportunity if you are able to operate within the company politics and don't mind working long hours throughout certain times of the year.

A typical day consist of pulling files, working on Mac and IBM computers, scanning photos and graphic designing. As far as management is concerned, the supervisors encourage workers to do their best. A couple of things I liked abut Jostens were their weekly quality control meetings, and the opportunities for advancement.

A few things I learned about Jostens are, computer knowledge, learning to work patiently with co-workers who, of course, shared different personalities, and meeting deadlines with quality work. I loved working at Jostens. It was a place where, I learned the importance of having good work ethics and being a dependable team member.

Jostens is a place where, if one person doesn't do their job well, then it interferes with the work of many. Working in a team environment felt to me, more like a family away from home. I truly enjoyed it.

The hardest part of my job at Jostens, was leaving. Honestly, when I had to leave due to relocation, I missed it. The detailed work kept my mind active and the inner drive for quality completion kept me eager. Jostens is a place, I would say helped develop me as a person as well as my professional office skills.

1. Jostens was very American, like baseball & apple pie. Now it's a shell of it's former self with most jobs outsourced to the Dominican Republic for much less money. Any of the few jobs left, were given to the cigarette smoking inner circle by the group's call center's supervisor. 
2. When COVID hit, we at the call center had our hours slashed and were left with a very small crew with absolutely NO guidance or help from any sort of management. 
3. Most employees are treated like Pre K students and even followed to the restroom.
4. Jostens follows a point system as a deterrent for a missed day, tardy, or a late punch from lunch or break. Gives verbal warnings and a threat of firing. Not everyone with points are treated the same.
5. To many confusing processes to follow causing many many many mistakes and very upset consumers.
6. Difficult to get time off, need of the call center ALWAYS comes first.
7. Very poor communication. 
8. Given more responsibility with no increase in pay.
9. Some cut-throat coworkers.



I would come into work sweep, and wait till the operator came in let him start up the machine, turn on the glue pot and load in the glue.Then i would turn on the computer and logged into CRM, put the job number in the search and click it and opened it, then I would load the board feeder and the belt depending on the size of books we were doing 7 8's or 9's different board thickness 98 pt 120 and 145 pt. coverboards. then they would come out of the machine 25 out of the times i'd flick through them and make sure there wasnt any color issues, scratches, different artwork in the job we were doing. put them in the boxes and stack them on a pallet count my numbers ov covers in each box and print out a label which told the job number, how many per box and the total number in each box, then the partial and i would put the labels on the box and take it to the cover rack area.

what i learned, how to load the glue, change the spine widths, format the machine and clean it.

Hardest part of the job was staying in my area because other people would ask me to do stuff for them and i had to listen to the team leader. so i didnt ask questions.

Most fun part about the job learning about the cleanup process, and format the machines,

The majority of employees have worked for Josten's for many years. This is not for the stellar leadership or advancement opportunities.  It's strictly to have a job.

The job is mostly seasonal with its peak from mid September to mid December. Overtime is mandatory, causing the shift start times to change depending on how much overtime first shift requires. This causes second shift's start time to begin later and later. It is common for second shift to get off work at 3 am.

The facility manager did not obtain his position through hard  work,and staff development. He is the son-in-law of the regional manager. Many supervisors who earned their positions were pushed out of the company or forced to step aside to make this happen. 

The work environment is a few steps up from a sweat shop. There is very little appreciation for the dedication it takes for the amount of attention to detail one has to put into each and every ring. 

I worked there for five years and stayed because at that time, Supervisor was my next step until the nepotism began.

The rest of the staff are wonderful, dedicated, and hard working people who keep each other going throughout the day. I would say  this is reason enough to work for this company.

Absolutely loved everything about a long career with this comany who gives you every opportunity to excel and plenty of recognition and financial incentive. The people are wonderful in every respect, but the organization as a whole... is suspect.

The only problem JOSTENS has and its is HUGE. They are cuthroat with both reps, employees, and competitors. ANY time they want they can make it difficult (and they do) for a rep to succeed through numerous channels and issues. Many times its over petty personal issues, not business. If they see an opportunity to screw a long-time loyal HIGHLY successful rep over LARGE money... they have ZERO, I mean ZERO scruples and forget loyalty and many great years.

Problem is many REPS are smarter than the whole of management combined. They allow a good ole boy network to proliferate at corporate where effort and effectiveness is a moot point.

Once again... what makes JOSTENS are the great individual people, not the machine.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Photographer 65 salaries reported	$20.30 per hour
Sales associate 10 salaries reported	$18.70 per hour
Sales representative 53 salaries reported	$70,283 per year
Team leader 17 salaries reported	$27.47 per hour
Hub manager 33 salaries reported	$23.97 per hour

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