So, our store has two espresso machines, one for decaf espresso and one for blonde.
I was on the blonde espresso bar (bar 2; mobile orders + cafe orders) today, and we got like 3 blonde drinks in the drive thru consecutively so I had to prioritize drive thru drinks over cafe and mobile drinks.

As I was trying to gather my bearings this customer at the hand off plane uses their stern voice to ask me where their friends food was because they hadn’t gotten them yet and demanded to know what was taking so long with their drink bc I was backed up with drive thru orders. I was already frazzled as is, so I sort of stammered out “I’m really sorry for the wait; I’m really backed up for the moment but I’ll get to your drink soon—“
Something inside me broke and I was just like “I can’t do this. I can’t do bar anymore. I just can’t” over headset and my store manager was like “why are you freaking out [note: their exact words]? What’s wrong?” and I mentioned how I was getting yelled at by a customer and I was told to go to the back and calm downs
I can’t seem to handle it when people use the Stern Voice with me. It brings back bad memories as a kid. I was already barely holding it together because for some reason the new manager stopped scheduling enough people so that we would have a CS person during peak, so we run out of tons of things during peak. We’re lucky to catch enough of a break to restock on milks and lids if the business slows down at ALL.

So, I was sobbing in the back and really contemplating just saying, “I quit,” and finishing my shift and never coming back. But I talked myself out of it, because we already have one person who just straight up texted the manager saying they were quitting and they weren’t coming in the next day bc of how stressful it is for them, and they were continuing to be disrespected by the One Shitty Coworker that everyone in the store hates, but nothing has been done about said coworker because the manager considers it “just drama”.

I’m already trying super hard to transfer to a less busy store that’s closer to home but Starbucks has done these labor cuts all across the country and my hours have gone from 30+ to 20+, so because of those labor cuts, the store I want to transfer to is finding it hard to add me to their schedule because they’re already stretched thin as is.

I’m just in a godawful situation now; I figured things would get better after our last manager resigned, but NOTHING has gotten better. Every day I come in, the vibes are horrible, and when anyone is put on bar (or literally any other position in the store), they’re stuck on it for more than 2 hours (which is apparently against standard; positions should be swapped every 2 hours to prevent burnout). There is little to no communication going on between our new manager and the rest of the team.

Everything is on fire and I can’t just quit because I have bills to pay. Sorry for the rant and sorry if I seem whiny, today was just one hell of a day.