Best advice I ever received from one of my favorite partners:

1. It’s just coffee.

People will act like it’s the end of the world if they don’t get their drink, or if it isn’t “just so”, and they’ll try to make you believe that lie. But stop. Breathe. No one’s life is on the line, the world will not end, you will get through this rush. You’re doing your best, and the customer is in a bad place. It’s just coffee, my dear.

2. Trust yourself.

Just because you have to act like the customer’s always right, doesn’t mean they are; remind yourself of that when Karen is mad that her skinny vanilla latte has sugar free vanilla. This pulled me out of it when I would get stressed, and it helped me unlearn the weird self-doubt mantra I got from training. While you have to act like they’re right, it doesn’t mean you have to believe it.

3. Hydrate.

With water. Not coffee. It allows your brain to concentrate on something else, it forces you to breathe and stop, and it’s good for you!

I hope that helps!

For the past couple months while I’m headed to work I decided I’m going to have a great day no matter what. When I walk into the store and my coworkers say good morning or how am I, I say I’m great and it’s going to be a great day. I’m determined to have a great day no matter what.

Also my trainer told me when I was on bar, to focus on the first 3 drinks and don’t stress yourself out over the line of drinks you may have. I’ve applied this idea to other positions on the floor. If I’m on register help the person on front of me and smile and the next one and so on. For warming same idea, focus on the next 3 orders and so on. My goal is I can’t make everyone happy, but if I try to make the person in front of me happy then I’ll be fine.

I’ve been feeling the same way. I’m relatively new and I’ve been working 39 hours a week non stop since May. Not to mention a fellow barista and I don’t get along at all at my store. I’ve been feeling very overworked and just annoyed with the job in general. I usually just try to power through, clean, make conversation with other coworkers. When I go on my breaks I go outside for some fresh air and to get away from the general atmosphere. The breaks outside seem to help me from going nuts lately.

Stop worrying about the coffee and think of it as a community nexus.

People aren’t paying 5 dollars for caffeine, they’re paying 5 dollars for the service.

Whenever my store gets slammed, I just force myself to be more calm, and that actually calms down the customers. It’s really easy to slow down the line by being nicer. Everyone sees you being busy, they’re not going to hold that against you.

What they will hold against you, is not making eye contact, and appearing slow and chaotic.

I had a really bad period of being constantly over stressed bc of a bad relationship with one of the SMs and it got so bad that my eye was twitching nonstop for several days. I took up meditating before work and spending my breaks listening to relaxing music and it helped a lot!

CBD! You should definitely give it a try, I’ve recently had some major changes in life and constantly felt anxious and stressed. I popped into a store that just opened in Tampa, Natural Life— super helpful staff and they helped me find the perfect oil to help with the stress but and not make me sleepy.