I had someone throw handful of actual metal nails at me because because they ordered a drink and it wasn’t what they wanted.

Starbucks should issue us bodycams.


On a related note, I love coming across cell phone footage of crazy customer interactions, actually filmed by the crazy customers. POV you're an abusive prick at McDonalds screaming at a 15 year old girl about the pickles on your burger.

Insane is right, once had a lady come through our drive through and ask me if it was moral to murder if God was telling her to do so. The entire time there was a clearly heavily drugged lady in the back of her car. Very confusing and I was not paid enough to handle this.

One time I was on bar and a customer asked for a fork and knife. Okay. After receiving the utensils, the customer comes back up to me SCREAMING about how she wanted plastic utensils and not actual silverware (this was pre Covid obvs) and was going on and on and I apologized and then she took the metal knife and threw it at me like a spear.

Honestly since the pandemic happened, everything has been worse. People are getting meaner and I’m getting yelled at by customers multiple times a day, every day. I wish they would just treat us like humans. Don’t they get that we’re people with feelings? I’m someone’s daughter. What if they saw someone treat their daughter like that?

One time I had a customer at the window call me “a fucking idiot” and accused me of stealing money off of a card on his phone after I scanned. When I went to scan it the balance said 0.00 and then my screen said he still owed the $12 and change. I said I don’t think it worked and he just started yelling about how he just reloaded it and everything and called me a thief and other names. He forgot to refresh the page...

so everyone else had a fucking terrible day too because everyone was beyond rude??

Had a customer tell the rest of my partners and I that we’d work at Starbucks for the rest of our lives because we were sheep. He then started to get blatantly racist towards us. Why? We asked him to put a mask on.

To say the least my last day is Friday.
I’ve watched the corporate degradation over the last few years working for profits and not people. There was a time I loved this job. Now I can’t wait to put down the apron and never think about sweet cream foam again.
Former 186****.

I work at an NYC store that's heavily frequented by homeless people (I have absolutely nothing against homeless people and fully recognize that they are human beings who deserve compassion and support. That's something I would wholeheartedly support my tax dollars going towards. HOWEVER, I also recognize that I am not trained nor getting paid, nor have I signed on to be the person who is supposed to deal with severely mentally ill, drunk, and/or high individuals). I worked a couple of shifts at this location pre-Covid before transferring there for several months this past November. The shifts I worked when everything was "normal" were absolutely horrendous. One bathroom that regularly had a line 5+ people long, usually because someone would be locked in there for 10 full minutes because they would be shooting up. I'm talking literal blood and syringes would be left in this bathroom, and then I'd have to face the verbal abuse of customers getting mad that they couldn't use it. There would be people openly rolling blunts in the lobby, panhandling INSIDE the store, fights, etc. Remember: this is all stuff I saw in only 2 shifts there. Recently some coworkers informed me of the time that a mentally disturbed man threw all of the (completely full) milk carafes over the bar at the baristas. Thankfully one of the guys we work with is built like a brick house and blocked the significantly smaller barista who was there, but if any one of those carafes had hit someone in the head you would be looking at a serious injury.

I once had a grown ass man throw his empty trenta cup at me on my first week because we weren’t allowed to refill his tea that he obviously got somewhere else almost 9 hours before he walked in..

Early 2018, I was working with a baby bean and the SSV was awol (I was just a barista). Bean was doing DTO/DTR/warming and I was doing bar/cafe POS. Was about an hour before close so it was pretty quiet. Anyway, Karen comes through DT. She was super rude when she ordered, said she wanted two fraps and DEMANDED the extra in another cup on the side, complete with whipped cream and drizzle. I gave the bean a look as this lady was ordering and was just kinda like 'lol no.' I made her fraps before she even got to the window, measured accurately so there was no extra.

Bean handed the drinks out, takes her payment, and the lady asks where the extra is. Bean said there wasn't any, and this lady started SCREAMING at her about how she watched me throw it away and how she paid for it and she's entitled to it and how DARE we not give her what she asked for and how stupid she is to not understand a simple order like that. Bean was a 17 year old in an abusive home and literally cried right there. I sent her to the back to collect herself and went to the window. Told the lady there was no extra, and even if there was that she's only entitled to what fits in the size cup she's paying for. Told her she has no right to talk to my baristas that way, and closed the window. Called my SM to let him know what happened and give him a heads-up for any complaint.

No physical assault in that instance, but absolutely uncalled for and verbally abusive. My last corporate store I was at last year had a regular who was *known* for throwing her drink at people if it was wrong. Luckily it was an iced drink, but the manager treated it like a fucking joke. Even after multiple complaints from baristas, nothing got done about the manager or the customer. In my state, throwing anything at someone like that is legally assault; battery if it hits the person.

Before I left my original store, a couple were banned for harassing and cursing at employees at another store in the district. They came to our store. Do the exact same thing. But some of my coworkers at the time would break and give them anything they wanted. To the point the would come in 5 minutes before close about 4 nights a week demanding they get 1 Trenta iced coffee and 3 more as their refills right then and there (more like Splenda and half and half with a drop of coffee). They never got charged extra, people were too terrified to tell them that it was against the rules. If it tasted slightly off they would scold and curse and say it tastes like pure shit. If you dared go to the door at close to lock up, they will yank the door away from your hands to come in, just before the shift has the chance to close the registers for the night. One day they held up the drive thru for 20 minutes because their lattes at the time tasted like trash and called one of my shifts a piece of shit. As we were about to call the cops on them for harassment and now blocking our drive thru, one of the girls says she is going to remake the drinks yet again and give them a full refund AND gave them a recovery card. To this day, they still go to that store and I count my blessings I never see them or any of these horrific Starbucks customers again. Quit one year ago to the day!

I’m a 290 partner, employed since July 2020 and I‘ve had more mental breakdowns and have had to leave the floor because I’m a crying mess than I have at any other job. I can handle a lot in the moment, but once that moments gone, I crumble.

this happened today, and i’m relatively new so i had to cry after this while my shift manager helped me through it. We can’t take drinks back if we’ve already handed them out on drive and this lady said her order was wrong and that i messed it up (even though i know i didn’t and the 5 other people who had headsets on also confirmed that i had it right) and i said “Oh i’m sorry i can’t take the drink back but i can have someone remake it for you it’ll just be a second” and she said “i don’t have fucking time for this.” and tried to throw the drink at me but missed and hit the window 🙂

We have a lady that stalks one of our SSV any chance we get and always calls in to ask for their schedule and have sexually harassed them as well and one of our baristas who is a minor picked up the phone and very proudly following protocol said that she cannot give out personal schedules and that anybody in the store is happy to make her drink for her.....this 40-50 something lady berated a barely 4'8" little girl who was not even 18 saying that she needs to learn some respect. These customers are wack. she'd definitely clone our ssv if she could

I had a customer throw a drink carrier of four venti hot americanos at me.

I've been threatened so many times it isn't funny. I had two stalkers at me old store that would stare at me all night until close and I wasn't allowed to ask them to leave.

I ended up getting in a high speed chase with them and had to call the police while I was in the car.

My asm was very understanding about the situation but couldn't override my sm. While I was in the high-speed chase I had to get somewhere safe, so I went to my store and hid in the back.

Yeah so the other day this young buff guy threw a fit and then started getting super aggressive
So we asked him to put his mask on and he said he was sick of This bullshit and didn’t put his mask on and when we told him that he needed to leave or put it on he started cussing at us about how it’s all stupid and he doesn’t give a F he does what he wants and then he actually calls a barista a F-ing (offensive term regarding sexuality that I will not repeat) and then upon exiting he kicked the glass for several times
It was so frustrating and I wished so badly I recorded him and shamed him on the internet
People are just down right hateful
And there are a lot of older people who come in and treat the baristas like garbage insulting them,yelling at them and I’m sorry to say but sometimes I believe they are singling out people of certain races to harass. It hasn’t happened to me but I am 90% sure I have witnessed it happening to others at my store. I say 90% because it could be a coincidence but I know in my gut it was a deliberate act of harassment due to race.
It’s horrible! It’s a common occurrence for baristas to cry on their breaks at my store because of our rude and disrespectful customers.

The best way to put it is that a lot of our customers treat us as if we are their servants or peasants because they are “paying” for something. Entitlement.
I tell myself everyday that karma will find them but it is hard to not become discouraged at times.

Had a man tell me I’m going to hell for being bi...but I’m Christian tho...he told me I needed Jesus, well I told him I had Jesus.

A few months ago had a customer pull a bat out of the trunk of his car to beat up another customer for cutting him off in the drive through line. I yelled at him to leave and he threatened my life over and over again. Anxiety ramped up to eleven for weeks waiting for him to come back like he said I would. Or get fired. Neither happened but shit, dude.

No common courtesy anymore. Disgusting. People suck.