Starbucks – “making drinks, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.”

Pros

Extrememly flexible schedule. At the store I worked at, management was very friendly, willing to work with you/help you develop within the company. Casual environment and very fun coworkers were a plus. Benefits were pretty good, I usually worked 30-35 hours a week and had full med/dental/vision coverage.

Cons

As with all corporate retail type jobs, it's kind of annoying to always have to push selling stuff you really couldn't care less about selling - example: VIA instant coffee. You always have targets to hit with beverage/whole bean coffee sales. Getting promoted can necessitate a lot of brown-nosing to management. And frequently even those who are promoted receive their new position due to people skills as opposed to leadership or competency.

Advice to Senior Management

I worked there for almost 4 years, with a 6 month break in the middle. It got extremely tiring always having corporate make decisions that changed out we operated within the store Frequently the manner in which employees were instructed to manufacture certain beverages would be changed for seemingly pointless reasons. Example: there was a period of time when we were not permitted to pull single shots -- only double shots were deemed to be of a high enough quality, which led to wasting mass quantities of coffee beans, all for what I can only assume was a publicity stunt.