Agreed. The funny part is, I am willing to bet that the shifts only give a shit because the manager is there and they want to promote. Which is ridiculous that being fake gets you further. The more ass you kiss, the higher you can go. Which makes those of us who don’t kiss ass, work hard, pull more weight than other, and do what needs to be done..look like shit. Kind of explains why there is a severe lack of leadership in the company. Those of you who have awesome shifts and managers....please realize how rare it is.

Our store got evaluated last week by the higher ups and they cracked down a barista for “missing customer connection opportunities” like ???? She’s literally new and a guy had JUST thrown a coffee at her so?????

I’ve been with the company for almost 11 years. For about 9 of those years I was “just a barista”. Couple years ago I wanted to start making a better pay rate so I started to ask about being a shift.
Where I live it’s a couple of dollars more an hour so it’s worth the extra work to do the job. I’m still a pretty normal barista so I get upset over the same things as a regular barista and now I’m also trying to promote because money is the root of all happiness. /s.

I’ve been overlooked for about 6 months because I still feel the same pains as a barista and not the the pains of the upper management. I understand the idea of growing our business and what’s funny is that our stores business has grown 20% despite our “low customer connection scores”. Despite being short staffed, we continue to drive business. When someone like me wants to promote? the answer from our upper management is to hire outside managers from other industries that have never made a latte or even yet, poured a coffee.
A manager in training at my store made a “joke” because she misheard me talking about a burr grinder and they thought I had said a “burn grinder” and she honestly had no clue what a burr grinder was. It’s upsetting to me to know that most of the people that are in charge of our future at Starbucks are not even coffee knowledgeable and for the most part have never been in our industry at all. My own DM was hired from outside as a SM and is the exact person to sit at the front store and criticize every wrong move we make in the middle of a peak. It reminds me of when a kid goes to war and is advanced to front lines because they did ROTC. Everyone around them as been through the shit and here they are in charge, as if they have the right to be there. I’ve been through it all and I STILL want to manage a store for my area and yet, someone from the outside still gets chosen. That person will probably never get the same respect as someone who came up through the ranks, lives through the Shit, and still wants to lead others through the muck. I do. And I am still willing ,but my upper management is still lacking and it makes me disappointed. I enjoy going to work everyday and I love being of service but I do not like being challenged to do more by someone who has never done at all. Rant over

Starbucks was the worst company I’ve ever worked for. The expectations they set on their baristas are far beyond what is realistically capable of any human being. Not that things are too difficult, it’s just the amount of tasks given to you and the time you are given to do them don’t line up. The job is literally impossible.

Yeah so a couple months ago we had a problem in our basement... READ: THE SEWAGE FOR THE ENTIRE PLAZA ERUPTED IN OUR BASEMENT. You could smell it in the cafe. We called it in and they responded quickly thank god. We had people in literal Hazmat suits working in the back (visible from the cafe) but did we close during this massive health hazard???? NO. Out amazing store manager was on vacation and our incompetent dm decided that we should stay open despite not actually stopping by himself. Despite multiple partners explaining the severity of the situation. This guy is the most incompetent ill-suited person for his position. I’ve been a partner for several years and every time he enters my store I want to quit.