I’ve been opening at my Starbucks since July ‘19, and my last day is Saturday (yay!!!). Over time, our night shift kept sloughing off responsibilities to the morning shift. At this point, my own morning routine consists of:

Brewing (of course), cleaning out clogged and flooded sinks, assembling pumps, making mocha, chai, kegs, lemonade, VSC, whips, and caramel drizzles, and now SAR, and replacing anything that expired the night before. After that, I have to finish any dishes left out + mocha and other things that had expired, fill up espresso beans, wash any exceptionally dirty syrup towers, fill up fridges/sleeves/stoppers/straws/sugars, and take out trash.

And this is just what I normally do. Other partners also have to clean up the lobby, do the display case, clean out drains (no one does floors anymore), and other essential morning things.

A new SM has been overseeing our store because my old SM mysteriously disappeared and we are extremely understaffed with around 13 partners, 2 shifts, and very few morning people left willing to open. This new SM sat me down and wanted to know my take on things, saying I had seemed stressed all morning. I spilled everything, how I felt taken advantage of, how the night shift would shirk off responsibilities to me so they could get off early, etc. FINALLY, after two years of management telling me to handle anything I had a problem with myself, this new SM said she noticed all of this and is going to make sure this doesn’t keep happening. Apparently, we now have mice because of the fact that they dont change or take out trash at night and the store is just overall, dirty.

I came home and cried. After two years of an SM that only cared about badgering morning shift about DT times and dress code and never working past lunchtime, I finally was heard by someone. I finally don’t feel crazy about thinking its not normal for everything to be so disgusting and for no one to care. It’s very validating.