Today is my last day. I haven’t even been with Starbucks a full year, and I came in full of good intentions and excitement to finally be a part of the team. I had heard so many good things about being a Starbucks Barista.

Unfortunately my time here involved three different SM’s, a lot of broken promises, and all kinds of abuse from both customers and (certain) coworkers.

Listen, this is a food service job. So many of us carry all this weight on our shoulders-we gotta make good drinks crazy fast while connecting personally with customers. IMO it’s ridiculous. Customer Connection scores are meaningless. Batching fraps does not make the quality go down. All of this is bullshit that Corporate cares about that just make our lives as Baristas harder. I’d like them to come to one of our stores during peak and try to keep drive times low *while* making ten individual fraps without batching *while* making a customer connection. They definitely wouldn’t be able to do it. And we shouldn’t expect ourselves to do it either.

So when your shoulders are up against your ears and your breathing is too quick behind the mask and you’re stressed and dropping things because you’re going too fast... allow yourself to take a breath and remember that you are a human and you’re doing YOUR BEST. And screw the people who try to make you feel like you aren’t. You are literally not being paid enough for this shit! Don’t let them have your soul.

Okay, stepping off my soapbox now.

I believe in all of you. I really wanted this to work, and I’m sad to be leaving. But on to bigger and better things!