Pros
I appreciated the culture the company had to offer. I learned a lot about tea and I was proud to create drinks with what the company stood for. Learning at the UniversiTEA was an exciting experience. I met really amazing people to work with. I had the fortunate experience of working with a woman named Staci who was the manager at the time for the Randolph Street location. She was a very caring, encouraging, and charismatic individual.
Cons
Unfortunately, the company did not follow through with their values. I felt that it was all just an image. I worked at the Randolph Street location with the corporate office. Arsen doesn't smile at you or anything. As a barista, you would think he would acknowledge people working for his company. He'll just come up, request his cup to be refilled with white tea (no smile, please, or thank you) and goes on his way. I've had other coworkers that complained from other locations that their equipment was lacking, broken, and they aren't paid attention to. In fact, I've had more shared unfortunate experiences with other coworkers than good ones. I had poor management from all my shift supervisors. I had a shift that made me do all the dirty work just because I was new and no one else wanted to do it. There was obviously favorites being played in the team from a day to day basis. I transferred to a Woodfield location. We weren't paid attention to and we even came across e-mails that weren't supposed to be sent to us by one of the founders named Simon. In it, he was discussing how he doesn't know how Woodfield Mall survives. It was discouraging to see founders ridicule our location instead of supporting it. There was no help from a lot of upper management. There are high turnover rates and I don't know a single person that still works for Argo Tea when I was with the company. Everyone has left, been fired for unfair reasons, and found that there are other companies with WAY BETTER BENEFITS!! You get Argotea money which runs out quickly and isn't worth it quite frankly
