As a closer, I feel like the Morning Vs Night thing kind of comes from the top down. My SM (in my opinion) loves the openers. I think this is a because she's only in the store in the mornings, because of the block schedule. They are like little angles to her, and theres so many of them. We have about 12 "openers" and 6 closers. (dont even get me started on how short staffed we are). The second thing is a really picky opening SSV. Ive been pulled aside and scolded because I left a bottle of Raspberry syrup unopened with the pump right next to it. I explained that I did that cause every month I throw out basically full bottles of it, and I wanted to wait for it to be opened in hopes that we could use more of it. In addition, the block schedule has caused the morning crew to just up and walk away at shift change. Im talking like drinks half made and shit everywhere. Because management doesn't want us to interact for more time than absolutely necessary- the shift change is a shit show, and as a closer that really rubs me the wrong way. I have to come in, immediately deal with all the orders, clean up, restock, and then get started on everything I have to do at night.

A tale as old as time. Or about fifty years.

I started with Starbucks in 2005, and it was a brand new store, and it started out that way there too; no prior history. I think there are just some people that innately want to place blame on others when they become frustrated with their current situation. That said, there are definitely instances where there’s a full on they hate us/we hate them kind of thing happening. I covered a shift at a store years ago, after I had recently been promoted to shift, and closers did nothing on a regular basis. I asked the barista where their backups were, and she was like, ‘uh, we don’t do that here’, and basically told me that closers there would serve customers and that was about it.

I’ve worked in stores where there’s snarky comments are made all the time by openers. In those cases, the SM will intervene and sort of mediate. In most cases, it’s usually due to a lack of perspective/experience in what they’re complaining about. One particularly annoying partner was a regular part time opener for years, availability had her out by a certain point in the morning due to kid-related things, which I get, being a dad. ALWAYS complained about the closers. Meanwhile, at the time, I was a shift that didn’t have a fixed schedule, so I’d open, close, and do mids. I talked to her and then the SM about it, who tried to get some openers to close a couple times to help them get a feel for what it’s like, and everyone but her would do it. At the end of the day, she was just a miserable person that’s was happiest being miserable.

The moral of the story, for lack of a better term, is opening and closing can be very busy and labor intensive, just for different reasons - opening is faster paced, higher customer count, etc., while closing is slower paced and more task intensive.

It’s never a good situation to have an us vs them mentality in the store; it doesn’t benefit anyone, and weakens the team in the long run. Anything that can be done to put things into perspective for them to be able to better understand one another should be done.

When I worked at SB I did all the shifts. Open, close, mid. Also worked at a store that was near a middle and high school so we got hella afternoon rushes.

Afternoon/closers defiantly got the short end of the stick. You're burnt out from a full 8hr day and you still have to clean/prep. Not to mention you only have 2 people for the last one to two hours to do ALL that closing work and you're both chomping at the bit to GTFO.

And yeah there is usually only 2 morning people (one being the shift lead that does money) and they have to open and set up but once the work day starts all they have to stress about is making drinks and serving customers. No worries about keeping it clean, or that if a group comes in right before they are off that they will have to stay even later to shut down/clean up.

I much preferred the overwhelming sat morning rushes to closing, no question.

I’ve been in the food industry for almost ten years now and let me tell you this rivalry is in every place I’ve ever been.😂 it doesn’t get better lol.

I’ve griped at myself for things I did wrong the night before. Lol.

My favorite is my boss at a hospital kitchen used to fan the flames by keeping a baggie of dirt and tell us the morning crew found it in the morning.

Like ma’am I was the one who swept at 8 last night and I’m here again at 5 am. Try again. ☠️☠️

Ugh yes I totally agree I hate the block scheduling I feel like it’s making us so much more divisive.... plus what’s the point of this when you have the SM doing both shifts anyway and people interacting when we turn over. I just really don’t see the logic in this type of scheduling

“Why I left Starbucks pt.1-10000”

This. This is quite literally the reason that my store had a mass exodus of ~8 people and was left with no one to train anyone. Our manager was perpetuating an “us v. Them” mentality and the night crew was being belittled over and over and over because the manager worked mornings (our usual peak is mornings but were busy all the time.) I was one of the people that left. It’s freaking terrible.

I'm now in a group text chat with the other shifts so we can chat and try to bridge the gap. There is a HUGE divide between us right now and we're trying to stay unified so the baristas don't lose respect for one or the other team. Block scheduling has really divided us... but with hope and open communication, we can slowly start to bridge the divide.

If I was an SSV I would leave a note every night for morning crew saying "You're purposely setting us up for failure when you got 8 people working at one time as opposed to 5 of us until closing time. If you're not setting us up properly for the mids constantly, why should we set you up for morning? You got 3 extra people for that. Do better."
I'm not a partner anymore, but the bullshit I had to put up with with the morning crew not setting us up for mids/closing is ridiculous. There were times where I would tell night SSV to not do any prep so they can see how we feel during our shifts. Petty I know, but them not prepping us up for mids is what causes all the stress and angry baristas/customers cuz we're constantly behind, despite them having 3-4 extra people who they sometimes end up sending home anyways. It doesn't make sense. Never worked a morning because the morning partners are actual
hot garbage.

Sounds like something a morning person would say...