optician

retail assistant manager

sales associate

customer service representative

retail sales associate

Warby Parker

We get to work with customers to style them into glasses that will work with their lifestyles and their prescriptions. Working in a doctor store is great. The longer you work there you get more familiar with the styles, names, color ways, etc., which makes it easier to style folks. So it’s retail + a bit of a medical/doctor element. I enjoy working with customers for the most part and it’s really gratifying when you can find something that they’re excited about and sometimes they even come back and you get to see how it turned out. 

Of course you sometimes get challenging customers, that happens anywhere. 

Management is frustrating.

Having been at my store’s location for 14 months, I’ve now had 2 store leaders; ~7-8 months in the store leader who hired me (who was fun, encouraging, and accommodating) transferred to another location in a different city. We got a new store leader who’s mostly been a nightmare.

In the 14 months I’ve been there we’ve cycled through (not completely chronological):
2 advisors who left around when I began;
1 optician who moved store locations a few miles away (who eventually also moved out of state);
2 advisors who who started after me (one was let go for being a total flake and the other left after 6-8 months for another optical job that paid several dollars more;
3 different supervisors who were also opticians/apprentices who were with the company 2+ years (for 2 of them) and 7 months for the 3rd one;
And ann optical manager to got promoted to a store leader at a WP store across town. 

After a year, I have still never been given a raise, not for merit or anything because I’m “part time.”

The new SL frequently tries to schedule me as little as possible.

I was training to become a supervisor and it didn’t pan out, because the new SL had to consider the “team she was building.” As if I haven’t been here this whole time and have gained lots of skills, product knowledge, and was doing lots of things above and beyond an advisor. All this, too, despite me regularly being among the top 3 in many of our metrics despite not being full time.

Warby Parker doesn’t value their advisors and they don’t pay advisors (or supervisors) enough considering how much work they expect from them and how much money we bring in. 

The attitude from upper management is “if you don’t like it, feel free to leave” which is a very counterproductive approach. Pay for advisors is only minimum wage, so turnover is extremely high. As a supervisor, you will spend a lot of time training new people. There are no qualifications needed for working here, they will literally hire anyone that’s willing to work there. 

There is an intense focus on metrics. Each team members individual performance will be posted every week for the store to see. However, there is no incentive to have good metrics. No commission, very meager bonuses. 

They hide behind their values as a way to avoid accountability. If someone does something unprofessional or inappropriate, you have to “presume positive intent” — even if it is a repeated pattern of behavior.  Management at my store was petty and immature. Constant walking on eggshells, fear of retaliation or ostracism, and even ableism that caused people to quit. I felt valued for the first month or so, but the facade quickly slipped and the manipulation tactics crept in. Upper management (district/regional leaders) within the company only visited for a few hours every six months or so, which made it difficult to really make known the dysfunction and unhappiness. Basically everything is up to your individual store leader. 

Scheduling is all over the place — 5 hour shifts, 8 hour shifts, working until 8:30pm then opening at 9:30am. They do not let you have a set schedule or a consistent day off each week.  There are no benefits for part-time employees except a free pair of glasses every 6 months. 

I would only recommend taking a job at Warby Parker if it is a viable career path for you, such as a certified/licensed optician role or an optometric technician. Other than that, it’s really just a stepping stone onto better opportunities.

Advice to Management:
Actual compassion and humanity for the people that work for you. People are not walking metrics that are disposable when they’re no longer useful.  If you manage a small store that typically only has a 10 person team, and you’re losing 8-10 employees every year, there is probably a reason.

When I first started working for Warby I was a little overwhelmed with all the medical terms and info I had to learn, that was the hardest part. however at my store the team made learning easy they were very helpful. In the beginning it was based on customer needs. towards the end of my time there they shifted the focus towards sales goals. it became really competitive amongst staff and because of that the nature of the store changed. 

My store was the most diverse. There were specific managers that made it a point to hiring more people of color and that improved the experience for us tremendously, as well as customers. Those specific managers did care about our work life balance and supported us with any issues we had. They made us feel like they cared. I definitely enjoyed that while working there. Those people made it very enjoyable. 

once those managers left the company the store changed a lot. there was a lot of micro-managing going on, a lot of favoritism, a lot more tasks were added monthly and we weren't compensated fairly for it. 
The job is advertised as just a  sales position. However it's really sales and medical. You have to learn a lot about the eyes and how glasses prescriptions and the product offerings perform. You have to be able to articulate that to customers easily while still styling them in frames suitable to their personal style and their prescription. All while working in a fast pace environment. 

A lot of customers don't understand why certain products go with certain prescriptions and we educated the customers daily. We built relationships with them because of how informative and personal the job actually was. The people in store are the face of the brand and the pay wasn't adequate. 

Overall my time there was enjoyable. However they definitely needed to keep the good managers and remove the bad ones. As well as increase the pay for the advisors. 





If you have previous experience you're going to be annoyed by advisors who are taught very basic skills and think they are Gods gift to the optical world when in reality when push comes to shove they're useless. They have no real knowledge or skill in the field and couldn't adjust a pair of glasses or even take a manual PD if they tried. You'll get a work culture of complainers who secretly hate each other and take every opportunity they can to talk about each other behind their backs. Meanwhile in the interview process you were assured that this is not the norm there. They baby certain individuals and put undue stress on other members of the team. If you express frustration with theses scenarios you'll be labeled aggressive or not a team player or coached on the Warby way which is to basically find excuses for bad behavior. They put out a front that they're different from everywhere else because they care but lets face it you're just another cog in the wheel. The optical tools are subpar in some stores. Sometimes doing your job can be hindered by who does and doesn't like you and if you're not the favorite and you disagree with the favorite be prepared to be told you need to apologize for hurting their feelings. Even if you respectfully disagree you'll be pulled aside. They're so worried about making certain groups feel okay that they alienate others while they preach about inclusivity and respect out of one side of their mouth and alienate out of the other side. You're forced to stand all day something they don't tell you so if you're used to sitting down with a customer for measurements and options or have chronic pain think again. Also you have to wear their glasses while working so if you prefer contacts be prepared to be ostracized if you don't enjoy wearing something on your face all day. 

If you're looking to pay your rent or have another job that can help, forget it. First, you are required to have 20 hours available per week, and commit to two 8-hour shifts every weekend. However, not only will you not be promised those 20 hours, you definitely won't get paid enough. Period. It's minimum wage with no commission, only "bonuses" that sales advisors never see. Only ONE of those quarterly bonuses made it to my paycheck and it was only $50. After being the top sales person the entire quarter. It's also expected that advisors do additional work for no compensation. I was once asked to refinish a table for free. We are constantly asked to learn more and more responsibilities with no raise to compensate.

 Company policy has gotten so strict it makes everyone feel like their essentially robots. We couldn't even have our own locker to store our things, making it seem like we could get fired at a moment's notice. Advisors are treated like children by management, even though those hired into management are all outside hires with very little education. Management goes unchecked by HR, a department we were never told existed and no access to. If you told them you were leaving, management would give you the silent treatment or threaten to punish you for tardiness despite there being no violation to late policy. The company used to hire from within, care about advisors, understand the level of work that's expected from minimum wage workers. But now it's all lies. They will speak about things that happened years ago and try to sell it as the current state of the company. Do not fall for it. My advice? Don't fall for it. There's evil that lies behind the "Do Good" facade.

The work life balance is an absolute nightmare and employees call out from work often. It's a harsh environment - the company will work you until you cry and not flinch. There isn't even any hazard pay commensurate to the health risks of working within breaths range to randoms who walk-in off the street.

The incentives promised are via unachievable monthly/quarterly expectations. The ceos have even changed their yearly lens guarantee to six months just to save a buck and removed entirely their employees' lens guarantees.. sigh. 

The proximity of each store is close, since the company went public, it's been opening so many locations that it oversaturates its own market. There's also this dread of knowing HQ workers work comfortably from home while us retail employees have seen a covid proximity/outbreak and have continued to do so such since July 2020. Warby Parker offers zero benefits for P/T employees and would choose to lose quality talent rather than convenience you at all or offer you F/T benefits. 

I feel that they truly don't care about employees and force them to stand all day like a they've removed chairs. Raises? Forget about it because they are 25 cents at most yearly and the turnover rate is high even for retail. Prepare to have your feet hurt as you're constantly on them all day, with non competitive pay, and terrible hours even on holidays/weekends. 

It's literally a Cinderella story.. they have made me feel like an expendable customer service robot  just to offer affordability and make the customer feel welcomed, helped and catered to weekend day or night.

The day-to-day tasks are super easy once you get the hang of everything. It's pretty mindless work and can get monotonous. You'll go through an intensive month long training which really prepares you to handle anything that's thrown your way. 

You'll spend your time answering phones (80% of the job, it's a call center--don't let anyone tell you otherwise), or communicating with customers via texting or live chat (very coveted and you'll only get assigned a couple shifts per week if you're lucky). Plan on abusing the exclamation point in all customer interactions. 

The culture is quirky and they like that. Expect lots of costume parties and fun themes with snacks. Also expect to be babysat and coddled.There is always talk about feedback, but it's almost never constructive because it doesn't seem like anyone at this company wants to come off as not being "nice". Helpful for some, but I prefer the straight forward approach. Upper management can sometimes seem robotic. 

There isn't a lot of room for growth in the Nashville office unless you want to be a manager, which isn't everyone's ideal career path. Lots of talent going to waste in Nashville because all other positions in other departments are in the NY office.

The pay is enough to get by if this is your first job out of college. It could be more considering CX'ers are the literal lifeblood of the company. Also the cost of living in Nashville has gone up since this role was created but the pay hasn't matched. 

The most enjoyable part of the job is the friends you'll make in the office. Warby doesn't skimp on hiring all the gems.

The job itself is an extremely fast-paced environment (at least my former store was). The pay was decent and the manager gave us free food which is definitely a plus.  Some of the customers are actually a blast to be around which makes styling them even better. I'll never forget an instance where I fashioned a customer and they came into the store just to thank me for helping them. That was the rare gems when I worked at WP. But that wasn't the experience all the time. There's a lot of customers that shop at WP, and the team had a habit of giving me most of the customers. This led to extreme exhaustion and frustration for me. This job is also only good for climbing the ladder into Opticianry. But as a current student, this was too much stress with no merit. The team also had a habit of micromanaging everything I said to customers, which led to them continuously vocalizing my mistakes which is incredibly unprofessional. Employees are continuously joining the staff, only to quit in a matter of months which says alot about the environment and how the team isn't really there for you. The team has a tendency to also talk to each other about things you only told one person, making it feel like your privacy doesn't truly matter. If you're a person who is thinking of becoming an Optician - this is the job for you. But for a student or young person looking for a fulfilling job that isn't so high maintenance - this job will just frustrate you constantly with no increase in pay or help from the team. 

optometrists are expected to be sales advisors
sales advisors are underpaid and made to do managements jobs 
severe optician understaffing 
pay does not match store volume
la metro area leader is aggressive and unprofessional 
toxic positivity. any sort of complaints are dismissed as “negative” and not actually taken as feedback despite the company pretending to be so feedback oriented 
hiring from outside instead of promoting from within 
feedback is not actually taken by management 
company is not truly solution oriented but only interested in bandaging situations 
micromanaging and too much talk about metrics constantly with no talks about pay increases  
management watches us on camera and makes us very uncomfortable 
favoritism 
constant mistakes coming from the lab which makes it hard to have pride in our jobs and is embarrassing when customers are constantly coming back with issues with their glasses 
attendance policy is extremely unclear, confusing and too strict and not inclusive of people with neurodivergence that may have a harder time with time management and no consideration for locations in highly trafficked metro areas 
consistently adding responsibilities and more to the work load without adjusting the pay, and when you give feedback about this you are gaslit into thinking you’re causing problems
profits over people 
they like to keep people around who don’t ask questions and follow blindly
pretends to be diverse and accepting of disabilities until your disability becomes inconvenient to them 

I love the company as a whole. They do a lot for the surrounding communites with their community service projects and even do great work outside of the USA. Management is split up into four different areas and every employee reports to a different manager, depending upon their role. This can be annoying especially if your manager isnt there that day and you need to discuss something important. Some of the managers spend most of their time in the back of the store on their laptops but will peek their heads out occasionally to make sure the store isnt on fire! They do this all while demanding that the employees are greeting every customer that comes through the door. If we ALL are supposed to be a team, i feel they should leave the back area and lead by example. The store leader and asst store leader lead/coach through the other managers to the rest of the team, so when you hear feedback/criticism and you know it's from them, its very off putting because they wont relay the same information to you personally. The advisors hours get cut tremendously! They extended the store hours for the holidays and didn't tell anyone,  but expected us to stay late to cover shifts.
On the contrary, there are some really great people that work there. All come from different walks of life and you learn so much from them. They (not management) encourage you to want to do better for the customers. They are all professional, friendly, and truly good people that give the customers a great impression of the company and the Atlanta location in particular.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Optician 4 salaries reported	$28.41 per hour
Retail assistant manager 16 salaries reported	$22.09 per hour
Sales associate 1 salary reported	$15.00 per hour
Customer service representative 3 salaries reported	$17.67 per hour
Retail sales associate 22 salaries reported	$16.41 per hour

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