1. They should tell you up front which one you are, but if they haven't said anything, I'm assuming you're permanent.
2. The red and gold cards are like little progress reports almost. The fill out a red one when you do something wrong, and a gold one when you do something right. They don't mean a whole lot once you are done training. I suppose they keep track of how many red cards you get before seniority and possibly it influences whether or not they keep you. After seniority they may occasionally still give you a gold card. Here if you get one, your name gets put in a drawing for free swag like t shirts and water bottles. In other words they don't mean a whole lot.
-k