Hey everyone. If you’re reading this, thanks for letting me vent.
I’m a green bean of only 1 month and let me just say... it’s been a bit of a wild ride. Firstly, my interview went better than I could have ever imagined (Confidence truly is key!) and I was offered a position on the spot! After that, my two weeks of training were great! I was at a different store for training and the general vibe there was really great. But now that I’m at my pertinent store, things have been rocky to say the least.

My store is a high traffic store that just recently opened. It’d be more accurate to say it moved, because the one a 5 minute walk away from my house shut down (I’m guessing due to the lack of a drive through lol) and they moved about 5 minutes down the street. This new location has been open for less than a year and I was brought on at the end of March. Things went well the first week after training but I get a phone call from my manager saying that she had found another job and that the following week would be her last. This came as a shock to EVERYBODY. The news also came about around the time I learned that the store is also VERY short staffed. Furthermore, we do block scheduling with an AM and PM block and I’m on the PM block because of classes. Unfortunately, the PM block has even fewer people than the AM block does. (11 people total, soon to be 10)

So, I’m a new hire at a brand new, understaffed, high traffic store going into summer with no metrics as to what it may look like with a completely new manager. ...Needless to say, we’ve had it rough.

And this new manager??? Truth be told, she’s the reason I felt the need to vent. I feel like I’m constantly walking on eggshells around her. One thing that threw me off was that I was asked a few days ago if I could come in early on Sunday. I told her I couldn’t because I have an exam and other obligations in the evening. But today she tried to get me to stay till close on Sunday instead, saying I’d have “plenty of time to prepare for the exam.” Like... why is she the one to decide how much time is “plenty”. It just rubs me the wrong way. She’s really pushy about getting people to work on their off days, not just me. But the thing that REALLY gets me upset is her CLEARLY altering the schedule without our knowledge and consent. It happened just today. My shift supervisor had been talking with the new manager about coverage for Sunday. My shift supervisor had made plans for Sunday and could not come in. After that, my supervisor went to print out the schedule to adjust it for the people who were calling off/couldn’t come in and- low and behold- there she was, scheduled 1-6:45 where she had originally had the day off. In what universe is that okay?? I think this happened to me, as I was not scheduled on Mother’s Day when the schedule first came out, but the week before I noticed I was on. I even have screenshots of before and after. I called her and she said that i was there on the written one... which leads me to believe she threw me on the schedule without telling me. From what I’ve gathered, this has happened to 2 other people as well which makes it seem a lot less farfetched. I don’t even know how to really go about it, because I’m so new and so is she. It’s just a lot to handle.

There’s also the fact that they keep stressing customer connections and such, but whenever any of the genuinely creative and talented staff has a really good idea as to how to improve connections, (I.E. A Polaroid wall of all the pets that we see) it’s immediately shot down because it doesn’t fit with the Starbucks vision. I don’t get why we, the cogs who keep things turning are asked to go above and beyond to improve relations, but when we try we’re shot down. Why don’t we have a say in creating the vision that corporate cares so much about? It’s kinda disheartening.

It’s important to stress- I don’t hate the job! (Yet) I’ve had pretty much nothing but positive interactions with people and I’m getting used to the flow pretty well. (it helps that I was a supervisor at my last job.) I like making drinks and interacting with the clientele. The highs are high, but the lows are REALLY low. I’m hoping this is all just growing pains and that in a few months from now this will all blow over somewhat. But for now all I can really do is strap in for the ride!

If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much. I just needed some place to vent.

TL;DR: I’m a green bean at a BRAND NEW store that’s understaffed with a completely new manager (who has been off to a rough start) in a store going into summer with 0 metrics as to what that’s gonna be like. It’s gonna be a wild ride this summer!