Pros
- Free tea, great co-workers, interesting product, learned a ton about tea and tea culture, required more knowledge than a typical retail position
Cons
Working at Teavana was an extremely disheartening experience. I started out optimistic because I like tea and was interested in learning about it and getting to impart knowledge on customers. It very quickly became clear that customers are not what is important at Teavana. Neither are the employees or the product. It is seriously all about money. There is an extremely aggressive sales model that feels absurd and unnatural and leads to pressuring customers to spend far more than they want to spend. I was constantly treated like an idiot by upper management. My GM was nice enough, but she had so much pressure from the regional manager that she became difficult as well. Senior management and people from corporate were constantly "dropping in" on us to make sure we were carrying out the full sales model. The other thing that was horrible about Teavana was the sampling process. We would stand outside sampling tea to customers, even when it was absolutely freezing outside. Our store doors also had to remain open at all times. I worked there during the fall/winter and so I was freezing and had to work wearing my coat, gloves, and hat.