Hey guys! I posted this on r/Starbucks as well but wanted to post this here also!

Don’t EVER feel bad for being a partner!

I’ve seen a lot of people feel bad about the fact that they work for Starbucks...like they are losers and are working an unskilled job. I’ve seen posts about partners being belittled by loved ones and friends because they work at a coffee shop rather than an office. Let me provide some context as someone who is a partner (barista) AND works in Human Resources. Don’t ever feel bad for working here. Starbucks teaches some really valuable skills that you will need in life and if you ever choose to move on to another job. For example, as a barista, you learn how to give excellent customer service, work with people that are different than you, resolve and manage conflicts, prioritize tasks and manage time, and how to use a routine to get tasks done. These are all VERY important skills that you will use in your future jobs and in life.

A large part of being in HR is recruiting and hiring. Everytime I’ve interviewed someone from Starbucks, they were well spoken, articulate, and clearly demonstrated that they had the soft skills needed to be successful in the role I was screening them for. But whenever I interview engineers or someone in a STEM profession with no prior customer experience, they had a hard time communicating with me and couldn’t properly tell me how they would resolve a conflict or fix a problem. They never moved on to the next step in the hiring process because I could tell they were smart, but organizationally they were a bad fit. At the end of the day, you can teach anyone the technical aspects of a job, but you can’t reach them to be a hard worker, how to have a positive attitude, how to adapt to change, and how to troubleshoot tasks. These are all things Starbucks teaches you and that other customer service jobs will teach you. So my advice to anyone who is getting shit for working here is to say fuck those people that look down on you. They are just narrow-minded and at the end of the day, that attitude will only hinder them and stunt their growth. It could even get them fired from their job. Those people are the real losers, and those are the people that myself and other HR professionals click “reject” on since we know they won’t succeed. These are the people that I have to terminate because they couldn’t work with personalities different than their own and refused to learn.

Being a partner is HARD and not for the weak-minded. Take what you learn here and succeed in your next role when you eventually move on.