I’m having a lot of trouble with my store. We only have 11 employees, and 2 of them (baristas) only work once a week. So basically, we have our 1 store manager, 4 shift leaders, and 6 baristas. 4 baristas (including myself) that work more than one shift a week, because the other 2 are in school.

We are a busy café store but nothing too crazy.

My manager has really bad luck with hiring for some reason. She has tried hiring 5 people and one left a week into being hired, two went for a couple days of training and never came back, and the two others never showed up for training at all.

I’m having a lot of trouble maintaining a balance in my life because my schedule is so inflexible.

There is only one other barista that can open other than myself. We usually open on opposite days, so I’d open M W F and he’d open T T S or something like that, and then I’d work at 5:00am or 6:00am the days he opens.

(I know this is not how all stores work but my store has two openers, one shift leader and one barista, at 4:30)

I have expressed to my manager that I can’t open that often. It’s physically and mentally exhausting trying to balance the rest of my life when I have to wake up at 3:45am most days of the week, and when it’s not 3:45 then it’s still at least 4:30 or 5:00 to get there at 5:00 or 6:00.

I asked if I could work mid day or closing shifts most of the time but said I could open or go in early once or twice a week. She agreed and said it would have to wait until the new schedules were out, which is understandable.

When we got our new schedules I was so happy to see that I didn’t open or work super early besides 2 or 3 shifts. Yay! But then all of a sudden the next week I am scheduled to open or go in super early every day after having one week of what I asked for.

I’m going to have to talk to my manager again about this, but I’m trying to figure out what to say. Something like: “Hey SM, I noticed on the newest schedule you put out I open almost every day and when I don’t, I work at 5 or 6. The past week and week before you were scheduling me for mids and closing which was really helpful for me, so can I ask again if I can work later in the day?”

I’m thinking about trading shifts with baristas from other stores in my city and trying out new stores in hopes I could maybe transfer.

This isn’t the only reason I’m having challenges at my store, my list could go on but this post is already long enough.


SO what I’m really asking is..


1. How would I go about transferring stores if my store doesn’t even have enough employees as is?

2. I feel bad for wanting to leave, but the environment is too exhausting. How would I go about leaving without fucking them over?

3. How does the transferring process go, and is 3.5 months long enough to work at a store before asking to transfer?

4. How would I get trained on drive thru if I’ve only worked in cafe?