Pros
* I was lucky enough to work with good people * Was being paid decently above minimum wage (I was just a barista) * Since it is owned by Starbucks, you get an employee discount at Starbucks, and you can also get free coffee beans * Get to drink tea while at work for free (within reason) * Is a fairly social job, can be a fun environment
Cons
* General managers were frequently recycled. I suspect they were not being paid much more than I was and I was only a barista. * Since it was in a mall, everyone was required to be working at "prime time" for the mall---in the late afternoon and evening Thurs-Sunday. Say good bye to your social life on the weekend! * Brutal hours during the holidays (but that is how it is for all retail stores in the mall for the most part) * If your GM is under a lot of pressure to get the sales numbers up, they will be breathing down your neck to up-sell and pressure customers when you realize they don't want to buy anything--you may get in trouble for not trying hard enough * company assigns grades to every sales associate (baristas do not get grades thankfully) and if you are working hours that do not get much mall traffic (like on a week day) then your numbers will naturally be lower--and you get lower grades. No matter how good of a worker you are, if you get consistently low grades from month to month you are automatically terminated. I've never seen this happen in my store but some people had warnings.