What It's Really Like To Work At Panda Express, According To Reddit

In the world of fast-casual restaurants, Panda Express dominates the U.S. as the most popular Asian food chain (per Eat This, Not That). The restaurant's atmosphere and dedication to serving "Chinese regional cuisine" (via Panda Express) keeps its customers coming back, and if you find you are one of those contributing to the "70 million pounds of orange chicken" (per Delish) the restaurant sells per year, you may be wondering what it would be like to work at your favorite Chinese chain.

No matter how much you might adore Panda Express' Cream Cheese Rangoons, being a fast food employee is hard work. But restaurants can still create a good working environment for their employees by making sure workers earn benefits and that their locations have proficient managers.

While chains may make a lot of claims about how great of a workplace their restaurants are on their websites, there are ways to figure out what it's really like to be under their employ. If you're curious about what it's like to be employed at Panda Express, there is one Reddit forum where employees of the Panda Express have told all about their personal experiences.

On paper, the home of Orange Chicken seems like it'd be great to work at. The restaurant has been reported to seriously invest in its employees. Panda Express workers are given benefits like healthcare and a 401(k) and, according to GlobeNewswire, the company even created Panda's Dream Maker scholarships to help qualifying employees pay for college.

On Reddit's r/pandaexpress, however, people revealed all kinds of opinions about working for the brand, and many were mixed. The user who started the thread, @PartyRockerzzx, was asking for employees' experiences at Panda Express because they had been offered an interview with the company.

One user seemed to have had a negative experience, replying "Just don't show up thank me later." However, another Redditor reported that their time at Panda Express had been mostly positive, stating "Personally after being a panda for year I never meet such great coworkers at the same time job is straightforward while being hard at times. The availability for me is unmatched especially compared to a movie theater. I'm glad I took the job at panda and yes like you said the pay is great." In the end, whether or not Panda Express is a good place to work "depends on the panda," as noted by one commenter.