Hi! I am teaching at Hobby Lobby, great store, I'm the sole teacher, etc. I have only ever taught for HL. Well, I was approached about teaching for Michaels. I was reading up on them and they seem to have alot more restrictions. At HL, I get to plan my own classes and schedules, but I think at Michael's, you have to follow theirs? Also, do you think it's worth it? It's a large store, great area, I would be the 2nd teacher. I like it that they offer more project classes than HL, but I saw that you HAVE to do demo's and project classes every other month.
Just having reservations, have not read good posts on them.
Any help would be appreciated!

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First of all, who contacted you about teaching at Michael's? Only a Wilton Supervisor should do this. And they should be able to answer all of your questions about the requirements for that account. The surest way to get correct is to call Wilton and ask for the person in charge of instructors. If you are the second instructor at this account it should be easier to work out scheduling.

Personally I find Michael's easy to work for. It all depends on the store, store manager, and fellow employees as to how pleasant the experience is.

thallo, I was contacted by a Wilton supervisor and I know that I can ask her the questions, but usually they are standard answers.
My question was for other WMI's as to their personal opinions from experience.
I did hear from some who said that HL and Michaels usually don't like teachers working at both and eventually I might have to choose. I did also receive more "bad" stories than good about Michaels.
I did make a decision and am going to stay where I'm at!
Thanks for your input!

It sounds like yuou have done your home work. You are correct that some stores don't like for you to teach at more than one account. There again, it depends on the manager. I have done it, but I definitely found myself liking one account more than the other. One account (Michael's) was just easier for me to work with. When I go to the WMI meetings every year, I still hear both good and bad stories from all the different accounts - Hobby Lobby, JoAnn's, Michael's, Independents, etc.

In my opinion it is of the utmost importance to be at an account you enjoy so that you can teach to the best of your ability. Good luck and happy teaching!!

The deal with teaching at both accounts is that when you are at one store the other one pretty much doesn't exsist. If you have two students at Michaels and can't fill the class, you can not mention to them that you have a class starting at Hobby Lobby.

In May I will have been teaching at Michaels for 7 years. I love Michaels, but I think alot of it has to do with my store manager and the employees. I've never had issues with them. You would have to work out when you would schedule classes, right now I'm pretty much the only classes we have, so I get free range of the calendar.

We do have demo's that are are required to do, this year there are 5 of them scheduled. Only one WMI does them, so if there are two at the store, you can work it out between you on which one wants to do them all or who does which ones. They do suggest that you do montly demos as well. You don't get put on the bad list if you don't do them. And if you do them you get paid for it, and also get to fill out paper work for extra incentives.

As far as Project Classes they will ask you to schedule certain ones now and then, but if they don't make that isn't the end of the world either. The 4 week courses are the main thing there, they dont' want you to pass up scheduling those to schedule a project class.

Another thing I like about Michaels is that you are a store employee, which means you get paid through them, taxes are removed when you get paid, so you don't have to deal with that at the end of the year. You also recieve the store discount.