Pros
1. Met a lot of cool people I became good friends with. 2. I got an excellent coffee education. The people who trained me are now working at places like Blue Bottle and Copa Vida so the training program today won’t be the same. But, if you apply yourself and they like you, then you should be able to pick up a lot of great coffee related skills and knowledge.
Cons
1. The Chino Hills store has microphones behind the bar area. Let me remind you—California is a two party consent state and recording audio without permission is illegal. It was speculated that cameras in the Fullerton location recorded audio as well as visual, however, I cannot confirm this as true. What I can say of the Fullerton location is that there are (or was, as they could have added more) three dome cameras in the back of house so that way management can keep a close and constant eye on their part time, minimum wage, coffee slinging employees. 2. At one point there were very serious accusations made against the owner, claims that went beyond a simple rumor. Whoever had knowledge of these accusations or talked about them was singled out. I knew about it and because of this the owner would rant to several of my coworkers about firing me and ask their opinion on whether or not he should do it. I do understand the delicate issue of not wanting your employees to talk about certain subjects, especially incriminating ones. However, I cannot turn a blind eye to behavior that goes past a certain degree of unprofessionalism and illegality and how I was treated simply for being aware of a possible problem bordered on harassment. I could go on, but I’d prefer to just make my point: you have to turn a blind eye to the shady stuff to do well here and keep your job.
