team supervisor

site manager

retail assistant manager

store manager

retail manager

Magic Memories

This is a company where hard work goes unrewarded, where good people are regularly let go, and where incompetent corporate managers reign supreme. 
The turnover rate of ten to twelve local store managers in less than a year should indicate to everyone loud and clear this is a company to avoid.
If you do plan on applying, please allow for up to 4 to 5 weeks from the time of your interview to hear back from anyone, then please allow another four to five weeks before HR can properly process your application, background check, and put you into their always seems to be broken payroll system.
There is a severe disconnect from upperc orporate  management (based on the Mainland) as they have no concept of Aloha, nor do they care about Hawaii, having blown through hundreds of employees in the past few years.  
This company will treat you as disposable - irrelevant, and with a complete lack of respect. 
The SharpShooter business model is to bring you in at a low wage, provide zero training, expecting you to work ten hour shifts, and expects you to teach yourself through trial and error, in front of hotel guests expecting a professional portrait session, which they don't want to pay for in the first place.  You will be given little to no support.
Depending on which hotel you are based in you will also have to deal with the use of exotic birds in portrait sessions, which is dangerous and irresponsible, since no one in the store knows how to handle or care for the parrots. They bite and are aggressive.  Not to mention these birds are not native to the Hawaiian Islands and are being used to perpetuate a stale, tired, inaccurate, and generic stereotype of Hawaii as a mainlander's method of boosting revenue, despite all of the wrong surrounding such a tactic.
The sales photographers are great, attempting to rise above a company that endlessly devalues them, consistently under trains them, and requires they all work for low wages.
The dangling of a commission or bonus to lure people in is a fraud, since this earning potential requires your commissions pay for your base wage paycheck before being supplementally added onto the base wage. 
If you want a photography job, look else where.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Probably the people you work with. Most coworkers were really friendly and everyone kind of bonded over how stressful the job could get sometimes.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The constant pressure to hit sales targets while dealing with rude guests, especially for the pay being offered and little to no commission. Staff are expected to keep pushing sales no matter how guests respond, and management focuses heavily on KPIs and conversions every shift. After a while it becomes mentally draining and doesn’t feel worth the stress

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
The culture can feel very toxic and draining at times. There’s constant pressure from management about sales, KPIs and conversion rates, even on slow days when foot traffic is low. Staff can feel replaceable and underappreciated, and the focus is more on numbers than creating a positive workplace. Communication from management is often poor, morale gets low quickly, and the stress from rude guests plus unrealistic expectations makes the environment exhausting

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
A typical day was greeting guests, taking photos and handling difficult situations with very little support from management or supervisors. Staff were expected to deal with rude customers, long lines and complaints on their own most of the time. The work itself became repetitive quickly, and the lack of support plus constant pressure from supervisors made shifts feel stressful and unmotivating

Working here was any amazing experience,  I regret on how it ended after 6 years with the company. However that was there choice. 

I became a leader, some one to turn to in my years working here.  Starting out a a faint hearted and quiet person, to out going, strong and proven sales generation. 

Really Flexible hours for all of you students out there or to some one who needs a secondary income. Full-time during the season is optional.  

Typical day is going out and photographing guest coming back to you supervisor who prints out you photos and then you go sell them. It sounds easy but you actually have to work for it. 

Workplace is fun for line-level but the moment you step up they as in corporate make you life miserable. Trust me I've never seen a management turnover rate so high. The longest one stays is 3 years but 90% leave after a few months. Also in the long run they end up getting paid less than line level due overtime and not being paid for that.

Best experience, was your co-workers if it wasn't for the I would have left years ago. Yes back stabbing is in the territory, but it the connections with other, Having your back, fighting for you when, your targeted. 

Oh as for management, you get some of the best people but then you get people who are just jokes. Which causes for no structure. 

Part of me wants to tell you to work here, the other saying do you really want them to go through what you did. So I'm just putting Caution.

I worked here for a few months and there was never a day where there weren’t a million and one technical issues and systems not working. These issues were never resolved, and when attempts were made to fix them by doing something different, the new system would end up being just as useless. The tech team is slow and inefficient.

Customers are often rude here in comparison to other places, and the assistant site manager was particularly rude and entitled. 

Management is disorganised and unskilled, rostering and scheduling is always inefficient and often incorrect.

Bonuses aren’t paid correctly, sometimes not paid at all, and most workers don’t even know that some bonuses exist. Training is inefficient and doesn’t help a new employee much in getting their bearings; very little actually useful information is given to you when you join, and important things such as details of receiving paycheques and how to sign in to systems are not explained. Methods of conflict resolution and complaint making are non existent. All in all  bad communication. 

Lots of people often quit in big flurries, so a cycle of hiring new people is created, which causes inefficiencies. Magic memories should really reflect on their retention rates.

Small positives were that most coworkers were nice and good to work with, and you get to walk through the attractions for free.

I worked at Magic Memories, and it wasn’t a great experience. The pressure to upsell was constant, making it feel like we were there more to hit sales targets than to create meaningful memories for guests. The management was often a group of young, inexperienced supervisors who seemed more interested in asserting authority than in supporting the team. They’d frequently make you 'file notes' to correct your behavior over minor issues, but when managers made mistakes, there was no accountability—no one to address what they were doing wrong. This double standard added unnecessary stress and made the environment tense and frustrating. The manager at the Sea Life location in Melbourne, in particular, took his job very seriously for what it was, creating a micromanaged atmosphere.

Schedules were often manipulated to keep shifts short enough to avoid mandatory breaks, which meant working for hours without rest. This lack of breaks made an already exhausting job even harder. Overall, the pay wasn’t worth the long hours on your feet, constantly dealing with all types of guests, plus the pressure to do everything exactly as the manager wanted. If you’re looking for a job with a supportive team and good work-life balance, I’d recommend looking elsewhere.

Typical day was opening, handling the cash for sales later, setting up shop, taking photos of guests, printing out photos, selling the photos to guests when they finish.

It is a very flexible job for whatever schedule you have, the management is always friendly and nice.

I learnt a lot of things such as talking to customers from all around the world, learning new languages here and there, learning more about different cultures. I learnt a lot about sales through the two years, and how to talk to customers.

Hardest part of the job is during peak hour times (E.g. sunset, new years times, holidays, peak seasons) where it can be really really crowded and a lot of people come through, making queues longer and makes people more frustrated. Customers can also be demanding angry but it is out of our control to fix it as it is the same for everyone else. Tour groups are also a hard thing to get through as you will get many throughout a day and they do rush a lot which makes your job harder.

Enjoyable part is only learning new parts of the world and having kind staff members to help you through the day.

- being awarded only minimum wage for efforts in a role that is often so emotionally & physically demanding, by a big company that overworks, overlooks & underpays
- manager can be always on your back about changing your effective & efficient method even after you have improved it, and always have been & still are bringing in great sales
- contract forbidding movement from MM to being an employee of our partner location, even if we didn’t have the intention of transferring, but just need a second job
- During busy periods: worked 8 full days in a row. During empty periods: shift hours reduced (by up to 4 hours sometimes) the day, night or even morning before the commencement of shift, even though contract says notice must be given earlier. Yet I could not even get a public holiday day off for a family member’s birthday
- having double the workload if they are understaffed and you can communicate to visitors in more than one language - you are just expected to run around nonstop & lose your voice

The pay is so minimum considering what they ask you to do, which is a lot.
You are there for a non-stopping, high volume job.
Mostly 5 hour shifts. Longer shifts will be reduced by one hour for break. 
I know people who work as “part time” work 5,6 days of 5 hour shifts, waste of time and money going for work for short shifts everyday.
You need to arrive early and leave late.
Managers constantly teaching you how to sell with new, extreme ideas treating you like a child, even if you are a old staff and already doing well.
You do not have time to eat, and the shifts are usually during lunch times, I feel so hungry my stomach hurts sometimes.
Environmentally.. they print so many photos every second it’s scary. And they are down in the trash so quickly as well.
So called commission... maybe 20 dollars fornightly when you sell a ridiculous number. So I won’t count.
The co workers are extremely friendly and loving, that’s the plus side, but you can’t just work for that.

I initially really enjoyed working at Magic Memories, meeting new people and friends that I still keep in touch with. When I started it was an enjoyable place to work and team morale was consistent. With changes in management frequently it made it harder to get consistent results and it was mutually agreed upon by other employees at the time that some of the innovations trialed didn't work and made it even harder to perform even when management was told. Having managers and supervisors come in from other sites also made it even harder for initial staff because it meant having to adapt to new managerial ways. With two managers being  there less than three months. If ,incidents did occur in the workplace it was often overlooked especially if it involved a supervisor or manager. I did really enjoyed the people I worked with and the atmosphere of the job and it is good for uni students as it is flexible.

General information:
5 hour shifts mostly given (during lunch time)
No place to put bags 
Must provide own black uniform (during winter have to use one out of five leftover jackets from attraction staff which have been left behind and are often smelly so if all are in use no jumper for you). 
Unreliable staff/high turn over.
A lot of rude customers but you get some nice ones who get into the poses while taking entry photos.
Have to be prepared for things to go wrong, equipment not working etc. 
Poor arrangement of staff at all attraction sales areas daily, not fairly. 
Time goes fast when its during school holidays or during busy periods of the year.
Definitely recommend having a bottle of water with you during shifts as you'll be speaking to customers every few seconds as you take photos and serve multiple groups at once at sales.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Team supervisor 8 salaries reported	$26.70 per hour
Site manager 3 salaries reported	$75,264 per year
Retail assistant manager 1 salary reported	$31.00 per hour
Store manager 3 salaries reported	$62,500 per year
Retail manager 1 salary reported	$77,500 per year

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