I wish we could speak truth to these people as equals sometimes rather than having to try to soothe them.


We were in a similar situation at our store yesterday. All week it has been a shitshow. Insane numbers of people. I always go through my store for breakfast a few hours before my shift, and when I went through yesterday, my partners were telling me how bad it already was; we were down three people and it was nonstop. So I went into my shift ready. By the time I got there, they had shut down mobile orders, which almost NEVER happens at my store. A couple hours in, they closed the cafe too and went to drive thru only. We were handling it pretty well; I was drive bar and we had a green bean doing cold bar, and I'd support with that when she'd get behind. From what I could hear over the headset customers were dealing with it pretty well for most of the day.


Then toward the end of my shift, this guy rolls up to the speaker and right off the bat he was condescending. He was ordering pike, and he wanted it fresh, and he knows we always say it's fresh but he wanted us to be sure it was fresh. Then instead of moving along after ordering, he took the opportunity to lay into the girl on DTO about how Starbucks is falling apart at the seams and we don't know how to serve customers, and it's ridiculous that we closed the cafe and were closing early that night. This poor girl is a one month green bean (if that) high school kid. The shift jumped on the headset and told him we are extremely short staffed and we are all working as hard as we can to stay open for our customers, and he goes off about how he's not a drive thru kind of guy and he likes to walk in to order, etc. He ended up pulling out of line.


I wish we could just tell people like that how it is instead of kissing their butts. Like dude, we are still in a pandemic. Every business, everywhere, is struggling. Other stores nearby have had to close and we're getting those customers as well as our own. We do not have the staff nor the product and machinery to keep up with these numbers of people. Was it a poor decision on starbucks' part to go ahead with fall launch under these conditions? Maybe, I don't know. It seems like the rabid pumpkin fans are happy to wait as long as they need to to get their fix. Regardless, not only did closing the cafe and mobile orders reduce the flow to a manageable degree, it increased customer and partner safety. Before they closed the cafe, there were times where there were at least 20 or 30 people out there, the vast majority unmasked. We are doing the best we can under conditions we have no control over, and maybe if all you're getting is brewed coffee and you want the freshest possible, this would be a great time to brew a pot at home if you aren't a drive thru guy and we are unable to serve you in the manner in which you'd like to be served. Normally I'd say call corporate, but in this instance it wasn't even an issue of poor operations that corporate could look at and address. It was literally a perfect storm of being short staffed, other stores being closed, and everyone in apparently a 50 mile radius of our store deciding that yesterday was a great day to get Starbucks. Even a store that's over staffed with only seasoned baristas has a limit of how much they can do and how many people they can serve in a given amount of time. Everyone needs to do a personal cost/benefit analysis. How badly do they want Starbucks, and what are they willing to give to be able to get it? If the cost is too high (the wait is too long, they have to go through drive thru, we don't have the ingredients to make what they really want, etc), then maybe go another time. There's no point in complaining to a barista who is just trying to do their job and has no control over anything in the store.

"Please call corporate and tell them we need more staff"

I’m blatantly honest with customers, because I quite frankly could not care less. I would have told him that there are only two people being spread thin for several super stressful hours, I have no control over how many people are here and this is also an inconvenience to ME, and I do not get paid enough to not only be in this situation, and also have to deal with customers berating me over it at the window. Thanks, have a great one! :)

I would have said, "You're right." Hand him the bev and try not to spend more time because there's other customers behind him. You and he are the bit players on the big corporate stage and his rage at you is misdirected. Sometimes there is no "making the moment right." Just agree.

I have been waiting for someone to go off on me because I have been rehearsing the following for weeks. "Please don't speak to me that way, we are having stocking and staffing issues and are trying the hardest we can." And if anyone has a problem with me saying that to a customer then that's the day I'll walk out.