i straight up refuse to use it. i’ve told my SM and my shifts that it makes me super uncomfortable and it makes my anxiety go off the charts.

If you didn’t sign up for it then fight. I feel like Starbucks has changed so much in the time I worked there to the point where I don’t recognize it as being the same place when I started three years ago. I quit recently.

I never turn it on lmao , I don’t give a fuck that they want us to do this extreme level of “customer connection”, it’s the most unflattering grainy camera ever so I end up feeling self conscious and hate myself lol.

I saw this for the first time at my local bux (as a customer) and I did not like it lol

Last I checked it was no longer required because so many stores did have it that it was creating a negative customer experience plus so many people were not liking it I would contact corporate

As a shift, I never force the camera - Half the time we only have one person on DT so there’s no one even on camera because they’re on the other side of the store heating up a Damon cwossant 😂

What to do about it? Fun fact; corporate has officially said that using the drive camera is not standard and you are not obligated to use it at all, you can find it on partner hub by searching drive through camera. It will explicitly say partners are not to be expected to use it. I learned this recently. So no, you are not obligated to use it, show it to your SM who should be comfortable showing it to your DM who will follow corporate orders. They probably missed the communication as I did before I discovered it.

If your SM says that it is the DM’s prerogative and refuses, your DM should be available to you to show them the evidence and get the SM to back off. If not, contact PRSC or ethics and compliance if you get flack, the DM prerogative is the corporate one and if they’re not following corporate, corporate would love to hear about it. The SM is motivated to obey DM wishes and has a hard time challenging them. The DM should be more open to realizing their mistake and if not corporate needs to know about it so they can do something. It’ll take your courage to stand up to the status quo to make the change. Are you up for it? It is one of the corporate values after all.

That’s SO weird! And imagine as a customer that would creep you out...corporate needs to stop it with these ideas

I didn’t even know this was a thing, but it wouldn’t even work at my store because 90% of the time DTO and window are the same person so they’re busy taking payments, putting sleeves and stoppers on cups, gathering the whole order for the car at the window together, etc while taking an order over the headset at the same time. Aka what I did all morning lol

I always angled the screen so it just caught the top of my head bahaha

They did that before I worked at Starbucks and I literally felt so creeped out ordering and even the barista said it was weird but that they had to do it

I was a daily drive thru customer for years before I started working at my Starbucks (still am honestly!) and I remember when they used the two way camera for a few minutes. I'm so glad they don't do it anymore. As a customer it makes me super uncomfortable. I don't know why, either. It's different than going in somewhere and talking face to face. Maybe because your car is your personal space and it feels like it's being invaded? Because you don't expect a face to face interaction at the speaker? It doesn't feel invasive at the window to talk to the person. So I'm not sure what it is. All I know is that it feels wrong in some way.


I think for me, and probably most people, I value authenticity. I don't like forced connections. My favorite customer connections are ones that happen naturally. If someone pulls up and they have a sticker on their car or a cool pair of glasses on or something, I enjoy talking to them about it and they can tell it isn't fake. Today a couple went through and they were both dressed up really nicely, and I joked that they didn't need to get fancy just to come to our store. That turned into a conversation about how they were on their way to a wedding reception, and how they have three more weddings in the next couple of months, and their own wedding is at the end of this month. The girl showed me her ring, and I'm still thinking about them hours later because it was such a nice interaction and they were such a cute couple, and I honestly wish the best for them in their future together. Those are the kinds of interactions that make me love my job. Not a forced face to face at the speaker, or asking someone's name in drive thru where it doesn't matter and seems creepy.

I went in the other day and literally had the girl talking on her headset for drive thru (hello thank you for choosing SB) while she was ringing me up. It was weird but I understand that they were short staffed. They should focus on being properly staffed before bringing that bs in.

At our store, we don’t use the camera during rush hour because it slows down the drive-through times. The customers want to chitchat about the camera, or it confuses them. It adds several seconds to the drive-through time.

The main time it is useful, is if we have a customer, or a partner, who is having trouble understanding. Usually due to language barriers. The camera helps improve communication in those situations.

I have guest who frequent my store location whom are hearing impaired and it helps them be able to read our lips while ordering. I turn it on for that reason. It did make me uncomfortable as a Barista when I was first required to do it, that was a couple of years ago, now it's not a problem for me. Just my personal experience.

[deleted]

There's nothing wrong with the camera, what the hell is the difference from using the camera and being in the lobby? Get over it and just use the camera.