oh 100%. they think because they buy a drink the cost of our hourly pay they can boss us around and make us feel like poo. its the reason im looking for a new job, no one deserves to put up with what we do. corporate just recently fired someone for standing up for themselves ( the rag story where the customer gave THEM a black eye) and they will do the same to you if you stand up for yourself. 244 here. i stayed too long. the whole situation is SCREAMING get out.

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Short answer, yes. Long answer, not only have they changed but Starbucks has practically encouraged it. I was a 284xxxx SSV and it is the main reason I quit. Switched to a more institutional culinary environment.

189: yeah. It was unheard of in my area for a customer to assault a barista. It didn't happen. Get a little aggressive sure, some people are in stressful living situations and unfortunately take it out on us, but I had exactly ONE "customer threw a drink at one of us" story I had witnessed over 7 years, full time employment.

In the past six months I've had 4 waters, 2 hot drinks, 1 frappuccino, and 2 iced teas thrown at my baristas or me while I'm on the floor. Straight up assault. We've lost staff over it, we refuse to take down the plexiglass because it thankfully stopped one of the hot drinks, and frankly it really hardened a lot of baristas in not great ways. Several of the throws happened when the barista had their back turned, usually when they're leaving because they feel unsafe and want to grab a supervisor, and its just... Its fucked up.

Yes. I started at the beginning of 2017.

People have always been shitty, but it’s become more prominent over the years as they got used to us bending over backwards for them.

It’s honestly Starbucks’ fault for breeding this type of toxic behaviour. They not only allow it, but reward it.

Corporate just told us that if customers resist masking don't push it, in fact reward them with free food and beverages. Of course they're going to be brats

274xxxx and this is the reason why I'm quitting.

271XXXX partner of two years here! I moved up as a shift supervisor ~three months ago, and I’ve definitely seen it get worse over the past year alone. I went on a few month LOA at the beginning of the pandemic, and I think that’s when the big shift happened from my point of view. Before that LOA I remember the worst customers just being the handful of older people who came through and were short about little things. Drinks were easy to make save for a handful of crazy ones that came through from time to time, but I still went home every day with a positive outlook. I loved the job, I had fun with it and it meant a lot to me. Then that LOA ended and I came back to a changed environment.

I remember the first few weeks seeming impossible and I remember coming home and crying after a lot of shifts because of how nasty people had gotten, it was an extremely stark difference between how nice our crowd usually was on my day part, it felt like no matter what I did people were mean and it was really upsetting to me. I was hoping it was just the stress of coming back to work after being away and that it would fade, but it never really did.

Older customers were drained and exhausted and dealing with the same stress of the pandemic as we all were, either from their own ignorance (more often than not) or from dealing with it from others, and from all of the loss that came with it. Younger customers either mimicked what they’d been taught, or were the few and far between that were that neutral experience buffer between the rest of them. This has changed people and I try to remind myself that they’re taking it out on me because I’m an easy person to take it out on, not because I’ve done anything wrong, but that doesn’t make it fair still.

It’s been a while since then, and now I cry when people are nice to me because of how bad the majority of customer interactions are. I’m not someone who cries a lot, or in front of other people. It’s happened three times on the floor now, and twice in the back because of other partners, because the day has been so rough and the kindness in comparison just hits me the right way.

Starbucks is the only place I’ve ever worked and I based my experience and worth there, at the beginning at least, on how people reacted when they saw me and what kind of connections I was able to make, because I wanted to be able to make people’s day better and get to know them. People don’t want to connect anymore, and with the corporate shift towards the “grab and go” mentality, it’s so much more of a fast food drive-thru type of place than the experience and connection they valued when I started, and the customer mentality has shifted with it. We’re a corporate cog, that’s all it feels like now, any thought or shine of “being a barista” is gone.

I’ve stopped seeing each customer as an opportunity to connect and make an experience for someone and now I focus on getting them in and out as fast as possible, and I’ve placed the pride in my work on how clean I can get the store at the end of the day and during clean plays, and what kind of experiences I can make for my team and the people on my shift. I base my worth on how much I can distract my partners from the awful parts of the job and every time I walk in, I ask myself what I can do for my partners and how I can make them happier while they’re here.

So, yeah, customers have gotten pretty bad.

I started in a kiosk during christmas 2019, my customers were always lovely despite our peak hour being 24/7 and we only had 2 or 3 people on deck. Now, I work at a corporate store and just put my two weeks in because I’ve never experienced disassociation and suicidal thoughts like this before having to deal with the customers at my store. It’s awful and without my shift leads or my manager having my back, I had to quit.

Oh honey. Former 291. Lasted 8 months, and yes, they just kept getting worse. Get out of there while you can.

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232 & absolutely agree. Folks are on the whole pretty awful & my store's tips are about a third less than they used to be... The best I can do is come in, focus on cranking out the drinks & keep my blinders on. I have no energy left to give for connections with anyone on either side of the counter. 🤷🏻‍♀️

218 here. Maybe it's the damage of six years of customer service, but they are definitely different. More aggressive and less understanding.

300 here.

I haven't been with sbux for more than 6 months, but I can say the customers have gotten infinitely nastier in the time I've been here. I get yelled at daily for things that are out of my control. Today, I got yelled at for selling the last Turk Bac sandwich before another customer could order it.

Sbux appears, per my manager, to be encouraging more customer interactions so I can only imagine it'll get worse. I'm deeply concerned because I need this job for the good insurance.

I started holiday season in 2018, 260xxxx. Yes, orders have gotten more complicated over the years. And people have gotten bolder with their complaints/expectations/demands. Definitely more entitled too because of the whole cafe seating being closed, and mask mandates too. It sucks.

100% i was a 279xxxx shift supervisor and i left in april. pre pandemic i was used to the usual customers with complicated orders and the occasional “secret menu” drink, but there was a more consistent “at 6pm things die down and 3-4 people to close the whole store was fine. but after we reopened (and people knew we reopened) everything exploded and the tiktok drink craze got even worse. people have the audacity to wait in the drive thru for 30 mins and still get upset at us for taking too long even though they clearly saw the long line they chose to wait in. i once had someone that didn’t understand how to ask for him latte no room and no foam and he opened his cup, stuck his finger in and got upset bc there was the appropriate amount of foam. and got more upset when i told him i couldn’t take back a drink he stuck his finger in.

223 here: customers have 1000% gotten worse. More aggressive, more verbally abusive. We’re having partners quit left and right and the management (at least at my store) doesn’t give a damn about us. One of my shifts got fired after a customer cussed him out and threatened him 🤷🏽‍♂️ this same shift had a knife pulled on him and our SM and DM didn’t do a damn thing about it even after the cops showed up.

It’s getting worse and we’re just expected to “be the bigger person”

I'm a 301XXXX with 9years barista experience outside of the Buxs. I came for the benefits but will probably be leaving next month to go back to my Mom&Pop shop because they are offering benefits. I want to craft coffee not fast food...

I had to call the cops on a lady and corporate gave her a gift card 🙃

280xxxx here, Consumers getting more rude after pandemic start. I worked for 2 years. I quit because I found other job that fit my passion and consumers really rude. I never like work in that environment.

I was a store manager there up until last April. Quit because of it.

278 here and yeah definitely. They keep seeming to get more and more impatient and rude. I was on Dtr and my till just shut down and I apologized to the customer and said it'll just take a minute and that the drinks weren't ready yet anyway. And the dude straight up rolled his eyes and said "computers are going down everywhere." Then screamed "It's because your company is shit" i didn't even know how to respond

Absolutely people are getting 100x worse

299 and today was my last day i lasted 6 months LMFAO and i was good at what i did but it’s just a terrible and toxic environment/company

Most definitely i was a 277**** partner before i quit (for the very reason you posted about). I absolutely loved my job at Starbucks but the gradually decline and then eventual plummet of customer behavior was the final nail in the coffin for me. Our SM did nothing to prevent such things from being commonplace and we shift supervisors had to run interference entirely on our own to protect our baristas. it was a nightmare, hence my resignation.

What does 290xxxxx mean? I’ve seen a lot of people mention their first 3 numbers.

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320 partner here. its very eye opening to look through this reddit and attempt to mentally put myself in the shoes of the partners active on this subreddit and damn im sorry that you guys deal with borderline brain explosion moments

100%. I'm a #209 and it's gone downhill SO much from what Starbucks was. It's literally any other fast food place now, there is no "third place"

yes they have gotten way worse