Starbucks Reviews in Chicago, IL Area

Pros

Tips
Insurance
Free pound a Coffee a week
Free Food
Free Drinks
Some Nice Customers
Some Co-Workers

That's a list of the good things. Over all, I was a very optimistic person when coming in to work. For me, the best time to work is in the afternoon because people are less cranky and more chill. I have meet some pretty amazing co-workers that I still keep in contact with. Some of the regulars knew my name and it was pretty nice. There were days that I really like my job. Also there is a mandatory raise every 6 months in the job. I believe its from 25cents-75cents more and hour. You get evaluated every month. One of my favourite parts was that i would go in early eat my bagel and drink my coffee before my shift, so I could start off at a good day. I miss that.

Cons

4:45am Shift
Throwing out the trash
Crazy Homeless people
Insane Line in the morning
Bad Manager
Selling stuff

Here's my list of the bad. I only lasted for Starbucks for 2 years and here is why. I transitioned from evening to morning shifts Really bad mistake. The lines at Starbucks in the morning are crazy long, but it makes time go ALOT faster. Same people, same drinks, same thing everyday. Oh, and when VIA first came out, we had to SELL it or we would get in trouble. Stupidest thing ever. And you get some really mean customers. One Homeless man threatened to beat me up after work. In a way its sorta funny now, but at the time it wasnt. I also had a manager who was lazy and never liked to do the dirty work. OH and don't let me get started on the sanitation. Some lady would go into the store unexpectedly and rate the stores sanitation. This is the reason why I quit. I remember my shift manager made me feel worthless bc she was in so much pressure. Just like any other job, it has its ups and down. If you want to work at Starbucks, go right ahead.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat others the way you like to be treated

Pros

THe benefits, rebates on drinks, free drinks on shift, a markout of 1 lb. of coffee per week. Getting to know customers and meet interesting people. Fun, busy work environment.

Cons

Bad managment can make your life miserable, especially when it comes to scheduling and milk orders. Rushes can be pretty miserable , especially when understaffed. There are cranky, rude customers as well but my experience hasn't been as awful as I've heard it can be. Confrontations between morning and closing shifts and pettiness can be a problem as well. Avoid drama at all costs!!!

Advice to Senior Management

Don't treat your support with disrespect, being stressed out during a rush gives no excuse to give short attitudes to baristas (and vice versa). Study when the rushes will be and plan ahead properly for them, and make sure that you maintain an updated status with community events in order to better predict customer influxes. DO NOT SCHEDULE CLOPENINGS. Leaving late and getting in early is miserable for the employee and shows simple lack of care and respect

Pros

Great benefits, good when having to balance work and 'life'

Cons

When looking to move up at Starbucks there's a lot of politics involved. If you are not 'in' you're not going anywhere, it's as simple as that.

Pros

Insurance. Flexible hours. Free drinks.

Cons

Manual labor, lifting gallons of milk, excessive cleaning of the store, includes cleaning bathrooms, floors, and the whole back of the store, taking out the garbage, cleaning after customers, doing loads of dishes. Hearing damage from grinding coffee beans. Chemical from the store's warming oven after someone cleans it with chemicals and warm food in it afterwards. Free outdated saturated fat and high sodium foods that makes you feel sick afterwards.

Advice to Senior Management

Slow to promote individuals and slow to train to management, if not at all.

Pros

great benefits flexible hours, 401k, discounts competative salary

Cons

early hours, high pressure work enviroment!

Pros

Great benefits. Just work 20+ hrs/week and you are eligible. Tips CAN be good (but they can be awful). Relatively predictable work level. Consistent knowing of what needs to be done. Free coffee!!!! Most of the time, you have fun coworkers. Some can suck, but what place doesn't have those people?

Cons

I've worked at 4 different stores, 6 different managers and management has been hit or miss. I've had great managers who actually care about your life and others who will hold you down simply because you question their logic sometimes. If you are a proud person or want to hold onto your dignity and integrity, be weary. You're told to smile your ass off and not be a person, be a robot. No tattoos can be visible (although some managers are more lenient) or facial piercings besides ears. Diversity cannot be expressed. Ever. Management can sometimes encourage racial profiling. Have to get up god-awful early if you open (who gets coffee at 5:30am?!) and always be walking on eggshells in case you get health code inspected (a ploy they use to scare us sometimes) or god forbid Howard Schultz himself is in town (usually he won't ever come into your store). Rules on how to do things are CONSTANTLY changing. "Don't call them smoothies" "ok, now you have to call them smoothies", "Don't steam milk with the spoon inside", "ok now why do you have the spoon in there?", etc.

Advice to Senior Management

Understand most people are in this job to just pay the bills. Recognize we are HUMANS and should be allowed to express emotion within reason. Starbucks is not a way of life, it's simply a job for most of the young baristas. Get all your workers on the same page. Some work too hard (pick up the slack) and others get away with working too little. Let baristas express some form of individuality!! The tattoo/piercing policy is soooooo dumb!!! What are we, in the 1950's?

Pros

The pro and con of working here are the same: providing a great product in a great environment at first seemed fulfilling, but like most horror movies, it went south quickly. I began to realize that we were feeding the addiction to caffeine and I more or less felt like a drug dealer. I guess you can say morality got the best of me.

Cons

Coffee should be classified as a narcotic. It's just as addictive and behavior modulating. Never in a million years would I have thought people (customers) could be as rude and obnoxious over coffee as when I worked there. And to condone it as well as continuing to serve them was beyond ridiculous. It's not that serious.

Advice to Senior Management

All training should be performed by superiors not subordinates. When trained by and with subordinates, there's a loss of professional respect and courtesy that would otherwise be present under a different training regiment. It also erroneously promotes a sense of equality, which unless Baristas are Managers, shouldn't exist.

Pros

It's fun to work at a Starbucks Coffee shop. Even when the customers are mean, they go away in a minute, but most are friendly and nice and appreciate a good drink. The place smells great, the music opens your mind to new forms that you might not have listened to otherwise, you get some free drinks and a great discount. Also, Sbux used to have terrific health benefits. They aren't quite what they were years ago when I first started. You also get a free pound of coffee per week.

Cons

The longer I worked there, the more they changed. When I first started, baristas used to get comprehensive training, by the time I left they only got in-store training mostly from a book and computer along with OJT. Earlier, supervisors got comprehensive training, by the time I left, again, it was just a book and a computer program. I earned my 'black apron' and really got into the coffee master education, but my managers were very lackidasical about doing the things THEY had to do to help me with it.

Also, you're told how you should do coffee tastings and machine demonstrations but they don't really give you time to do that. I had to push to be allowed to do a few extra hours to host a coffee seminar congruent with us trying to sell the machines at Christmas. They are very strict on not wanting you to go over their allowed hours for the store.

Additionally, it used to be a wonderful part time job, but when I checked back in later to see how things were going in my old store, I found out that now they only accept people who can promise them 40 hours a week even if they don't schedule people for that many.

Advice to Senior Management

Go back to the "old" way of doing things when Sbux focused on quality. We were trained that we could be fired if we didn't smile when we greet the customers. There were high expectations of baristas back then but we were all given good solid training and plenty of staff to cover all the work. The cutting of corners done with the staff is reflected by the inconsistent drinks, the sour faces and the lack of enthusiasm when someone comes in the door.

Pros

Opportunities for development and internal career advancement.
Flexible scheduling.
Rewarding, close-knit work environment.
Great benefits!

Cons

Dry skin due to constant hand-washing!

Advice to Senior Management

Upholding strict confidentiality in regards to needs/accommodations for employees with disabilities.
Favoritism and personal relationships with subordinates are damaging to store morale. This leads to poor support for lower management by fracturing the chain of leadership.
Managers engaging in slander with other employees create a counter-productive, toxic work environment. A policy should be put in place to enforce corrective action for such activity.

Pros

-Great benefits and you only need to average 20 hr/week to get full benefits
-Excellent resources for advancement
-Fun and friendly environment
-Good recognition and communication with management
-Store discount, free beverages during shift, and take home free coffee or tea weekly
-Flexible schedule and you can work at any Starbucks. If you need more hours or if you are going out of town and want to work just call the store and ask if they need hours covered. Also there is a network for Starbucks employees where you can post shifts that you need covered if you are scheduled and can't work or if you are are just looking for more hours.

Cons

There were 3 cons in my option but all can be justified for the best interest of the company.

-smelling like coffee (it's a coffee company so thats expected so you gotta get used to it....all the benefits will make this of no concern)

-understaffing (this wasn't an issue until the economy went downhill....when that happened hours had to be cut to save the company money which was understandable for business purposes but it did make the job very stressful especially if you work in a continuously busy store)

-drive thru (luckily my store was not a drive in but the drive in stores take away from the customer connection and the warm home away from home feeling in which Starbucks was branded for. However I understand why it had to be done based on the surrounding competition.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep doing what you are doing. I believe you are making the best decisions for the success of the company and everyone who works for the company.