I’ve been a partner at Starbucks for a little over four and half years. I still work as a barista at my home store, which is the only cafe store in town. I’ve worked with countless baristas and under three separate store managers within my four years at Starbucks. The first two managers I worked with worked well within our store, but I can’t say the same about the third. She’s been a manager for about two and a half years, and is a VERY nice woman, but in my opinion has little managerial experience after working for the company for over TWENTY years. She still has trouble making schedules, following routines, and is a manager who isn’t entirely involved in what makes our store the second best store in the district, but takes all the credit for it. Since working with her, I’ve tried my best to go along to get along, but when I voice concerns or opinions, she gets aggravated that I question things for my partners and I. She once told me “I like that you’re vocal, but sometimes you’re TOO vocal”. I tried my best to be the best barista I could be (is one of the longest working baristas, as well as a customer favorite) until an incident this past February.

A new partner had been there for a couple of months, and the first day I worked with him, I could tell that he was not going to be easy to work with. This partner worked at a location else where years ago, and had come back to the company to work at my store with the attitude that he would walk in and be in charge (even though he was hired at the same position that I am). He would constantly speak down on other partners, and developed the mentality that he could take charge. He was rude and tried to control the floor, and then would try to involve himself in small talk between the other partners and I. When he realized that I did not want to be he friend, he started to call me names like a school child. I have no problem being vocal at the work place in an effort to make it better, but as I voiced my opinion, he started to call me a “cry-baby queen” and he would address me as “her majesty” to the delight of my co-workers who thought it was funny, although I visibaly did not. We had a couple encounters during shift I worked him where he would say something rude I would say something back, but that was always handled by a shift on duty. One day as I was working in the front, the partner had walked from the back of the house to where I was pouring coffee for ancistomer, and grabbed my thigh, then preceded to pull on my shorts and ask “What material are these made of?” In a state of shock, I Iooked up at him and said “I don’t know” before pulling myself away. There was someone else working with us who hadn’t seen, so for days I kept it to myself, and kept complete distance from the male partner who touched me. About a week after, one of my shift supervisors asked me if I had a problem with the partner because he had mentioned to her that I didn’t talk to him, and didn’t seem to like him. After telling her, she told me to report it to our store supervisor. The next day, I told another shift about it and she told me the same. The day after, I went into work and the only shift I hadn’t told gave me a heads up our store supervisor needed to have a serious discussion with me because she was told that I was making the male who touched me uncomfortable by not talking to him during the shifts we were scheduled to work together. He also told her that he would apologize to me if he did something wrong on his part. I worked my five hour shift, and before I left, I was asked to stay to talk about a matter that needed to be dealt with ASAP. After she told me his concerns, I revealed that I hadn’t talked to him because he verbally and physically sexually harassed me. She responded by asking if he called me those names “seriously, or was he kidding?” and asked if I felt “uncomfortable” after he groped me. After telling her I absolutely felt uncomfortable, she asked me if I would be willing to have a discussion with he and she together, with I told her I would not, and I also told her I would prefer not to work with him anymore
She then told me he would apologize to me, and I told her I didn’t need an apology for something that wasn’t done on accident. She asked if I wanted to write a report about the situation, and I asked her what would happen in that situation. She stated Human Resources would send someone to speak with us both as well as other partners (I was sure he would lie, and I was sure that other partners wouldn’t be able to recall name calling, and there was no witness to him touching me) as well as looking over video footage to try to find proof (he touched me in a spot that our cash register camera doesn’t catch). I told her I didn’t want to waste people’s time, and that was that. She dismissed me and told me she would speak with him about the matter. She waited four days to talk to him, even though he had worked twice within that four day span. He denied touching me, and after that, I was then scheduled to work with him at least twice a week until he found a new job and left. I’m not sure why noting was done (either she didn’t know how to handle it, or it really wasn’t a big deal), but my thoughts have weighed me down at work everyday since then. I’m constantly being told “Thank you for all your help. I couldn’t have made it through the shift without you” or “You’re so important to our store”, and in my forever conflicted head I think “yeah, but not important enough to have done something when I said I was being harassed”.

Since he’s left, a female shift who transferred from another store in town has begin to question my sexuality after asking if I had “ever dated a guy” and when I replied I hadn’t, said “That’s surprising.” And here I am again, contemplating if I should embarrass myself once again and say something, or say nothing because nothing will be done about it anyway? I had a bad experience working with this shift today’s and after she tried to scold me like a child in front of customers, I was taken to the back to speak with her and our store manager which led me to start CRYING and venting about my experience that was ignored and swept under the rug before leaving four hours before my shift was over. I’m not saying I’m always 100% happy or nice like I should be, but this shift is CONSTANTLY degrading to parters, and isn’t even very friendly with customers. I just find it aggravating that my manager has yet to have a serious sit down conversation with her about her behavior towards MULTIPLE partners, yet was very quick to have a sit down with me after I ignored my harasser at work.

I’m thinking about contacting our district manager to tell him all that has been going on (because I believe a lot that goes on in our store isn’t told to him), but I still question if anything will get done. If anyone can give some advice, I’d greatly appreciate it. Thanks.