Starbucks Baristas: The daily grind
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trenta rant 💅🏻 (self.starbucksbaristas)
submitted by Quirky-Emphasis-250
my store is a nightmare right now.
hi guys this is a LENGTHY one so buckle in-
here’s a summary: we are understaffed and have a partner who doesn’t contribute/brings the whole team down and i want to bring it up to my manager but i feel like i’m not the person that should do that.
for starters, we’re incredibly understaffed and half of the partners on the floor are only half-trained and don’t know how to do most things.
we had a stand in manager when i got hired in june (my manager was doing something at corporate) and i was the first of the wave of new people he hired. he hired around 7 people and only 2 of us weren’t in high school so naturally when it came school time again we were once again- under staffed.
now here’s where the bigger problem comes in- i am the ONLY person to be hired that knows how to do everything (bar, warming, dto/dtr, and tasks when we’re not doing anything) the other guy that isn’t in high school is- to put it nicely- useless.
he started working about a month after me and has worked at a different starbucks before. apparently at that store they did EVERYTHING wrong, and he has made it evident that you can not teach an old dog new tricks.
what brought me to make this rant was today at work. i am usually on bar/dto, today i was doubled up on drive and he was on bar trying to get some practice in. our goal window time is 45 seconds, i had a car at the window for SEVEN MINUTES waiting on ONE LATTE.
i hate to be that person but it is NOT that hard, i used to work at a different coffee shop where we had a real espresso machine, grinding our own coffee, tamping and pulling our own shots, steaming milk checking temp with our hands, THE WORKS. never ONCE did it take me seven minutes to make a drink. starbucks is much easier in this aspect especially considering the espresso machine basically does all of the work for you.
this guy is literally making work so stressful for EVERYONE. i’m fairly new and on morning shift so we’re usually really busy and don’t have any “bonding time” so i don’t really know any of them that well, but 3 of the partners that have been there for 1+ years including a shift have complained to me about him.
he doesn’t clean up after himself, doesn’t put milks away when he’s done with them, leaves the steamed milk he didn’t use for a latte in the pitcher until he has gone through ALL FOUR of them and THEN he rinses them, he completely ignores the measurements on the shakers and eyeballs frappes and refreshers/teas, when he’s not on bar he will leave wherever he’s supposed to be planted and stand over your shoulder until someone tells him to go back, (another little bit of context: our store is TINY, literally no more than a glorified hallway, and our bar is maybe 3 feet wide at best, with the biggest being 6ftx6ft) this makes it SUPER annoying when people aren’t where they’re supposed to be. he also has zero sense of urgency when he’s moving whether it’s making drinks or just getting out of the way.
today my manager came in and asked me how i was and i told her that i was okay but i was stressed. when she asked why i told her that we had really high window times and i was frustrated because i couldn’t do anything about it, when she asked why i just told her that i didn’t want to say names but drinks were just not being made and when they were, they were wrong. she understood and that’s where our conversation ended because i had something to do.
i feel uncomfortable telling my manager that this one person is stressing me and everyone else out but i just can not stand working with him anymore, he’s been here for 2 months, with starbucks for over a year, and still doesn’t do anything correct.
how do i bring this up to her, if someone hasn’t already? if i was a store owner, and this type of stuff was happening they would easily be fired.
what should i do?
hi guys this is a LENGTHY one so buckle in-
here’s a summary: we are understaffed and have a partner who doesn’t contribute/brings the whole team down and i want to bring it up to my manager but i feel like i’m not the person that should do that.
for starters, we’re incredibly understaffed and half of the partners on the floor are only half-trained and don’t know how to do most things.
we had a stand in manager when i got hired in june (my manager was doing something at corporate) and i was the first of the wave of new people he hired. he hired around 7 people and only 2 of us weren’t in high school so naturally when it came school time again we were once again- under staffed.
now here’s where the bigger problem comes in- i am the ONLY person to be hired that knows how to do everything (bar, warming, dto/dtr, and tasks when we’re not doing anything) the other guy that isn’t in high school is- to put it nicely- useless.
he started working about a month after me and has worked at a different starbucks before. apparently at that store they did EVERYTHING wrong, and he has made it evident that you can not teach an old dog new tricks.
what brought me to make this rant was today at work. i am usually on bar/dto, today i was doubled up on drive and he was on bar trying to get some practice in. our goal window time is 45 seconds, i had a car at the window for SEVEN MINUTES waiting on ONE LATTE.
i hate to be that person but it is NOT that hard, i used to work at a different coffee shop where we had a real espresso machine, grinding our own coffee, tamping and pulling our own shots, steaming milk checking temp with our hands, THE WORKS. never ONCE did it take me seven minutes to make a drink. starbucks is much easier in this aspect especially considering the espresso machine basically does all of the work for you.
this guy is literally making work so stressful for EVERYONE. i’m fairly new and on morning shift so we’re usually really busy and don’t have any “bonding time” so i don’t really know any of them that well, but 3 of the partners that have been there for 1+ years including a shift have complained to me about him.
he doesn’t clean up after himself, doesn’t put milks away when he’s done with them, leaves the steamed milk he didn’t use for a latte in the pitcher until he has gone through ALL FOUR of them and THEN he rinses them, he completely ignores the measurements on the shakers and eyeballs frappes and refreshers/teas, when he’s not on bar he will leave wherever he’s supposed to be planted and stand over your shoulder until someone tells him to go back, (another little bit of context: our store is TINY, literally no more than a glorified hallway, and our bar is maybe 3 feet wide at best, with the biggest being 6ftx6ft) this makes it SUPER annoying when people aren’t where they’re supposed to be. he also has zero sense of urgency when he’s moving whether it’s making drinks or just getting out of the way.
today my manager came in and asked me how i was and i told her that i was okay but i was stressed. when she asked why i told her that we had really high window times and i was frustrated because i couldn’t do anything about it, when she asked why i just told her that i didn’t want to say names but drinks were just not being made and when they were, they were wrong. she understood and that’s where our conversation ended because i had something to do.
i feel uncomfortable telling my manager that this one person is stressing me and everyone else out but i just can not stand working with him anymore, he’s been here for 2 months, with starbucks for over a year, and still doesn’t do anything correct.
how do i bring this up to her, if someone hasn’t already? if i was a store owner, and this type of stuff was happening they would easily be fired.
what should i do?
GarbageValuable1888 13 points 1y ago
this is gonna be an unpopular reply, but honestly, that is the responsibility of your shifts. I’d be lying if I said I haven’t spoken with my manager about a partner similar to your situation, but, your shift managers should really be the ones handling this as if it gets out it can cause drama + tension + a toxic environment.
Quirky-Emphasis-250 [OP] 4 points 1y ago
i 100% agree with you, and i HOPE that the shift that complained to me today speaks to our manager about it but she’s a pretty nonconfrontational person so i don’t know if that’ll happen lol. there’s already a bit of tension between him and the other partners because of his attitude, he scoffs and rolls his eyes when we correct him and that’s lead to a few of the partners to be a little hostile towards him. it’s just a rough situation and it’s making work really miserable for us.
rio8envy7 3 points 1y ago
Ok first things first take a breath and relax. Getting worked up over it isn’t going to help. If anything it’ll make things worse.
Being with Starbucks for a year isn’t that long. It took me well over a year to even touch bar and over 5 years to be on bar and not get anxiety or overwhelmed when we’re slammed. Bar isn’t an easy place to be and they may not have been in a place where they were taught properly or given the opportunity to bar much. That was the case with me. Until I got to the store I’m at now I was never given the chance or opportunity to grow. Maybe see if they need help. Offer to coach and work with them. Maybe they need more practice because they weren’t trained well. There are shitty trainers. I had one.
Being with Starbucks for a year isn’t that long. It took me well over a year to even touch bar and over 5 years to be on bar and not get anxiety or overwhelmed when we’re slammed. Bar isn’t an easy place to be and they may not have been in a place where they were taught properly or given the opportunity to bar much. That was the case with me. Until I got to the store I’m at now I was never given the chance or opportunity to grow. Maybe see if they need help. Offer to coach and work with them. Maybe they need more practice because they weren’t trained well. There are shitty trainers. I had one.
Quirky-Emphasis-250 [OP] 3 points 1y ago
i totally understand what you’re saying!! when he’s on bar he usually has another parter there for support but he chooses not to listen, when we try correct him he rolls his eyes at us, and our stores thing is having ‘good vibes’ so we give him as much positive reinforcement as we can but it’s getting to a point where he just doesn’t care enough, and it’s not like we can MAKE him care you know? our manager isn’t on the floor often enough to see how he makes the rest of us stress so it’s just a difficult position to be in.
rio8envy7 1 points 1y ago
Maybe try and talk to a shift about it first. I see where you’re coming from because honestly for a while the not wanting help from anyone and eye rolling was me too. Only difference is I didn’t ask because I felt I had to prove I could handle it. It’s not going to make you a snitch or a bad person for going to your manager or shift. It is stressful and I totally get it because there’s someone at my store who’s like that with things other than just bar.
medusas-garden 0 points 1y ago
Our turnover rate is way too high to not be proficient in a year. I can see how at a time with a low turnover rate you were never put on bar and I even wasn’t put anywhere but window for the first almost 6 months when I was hired, but when you no longer have tenured baristas that’ve been here for 5, 10, 15 years, YOU become a tenured barista after just one year. You can’t not. There’s no one else to turn to and you’re forced into the role to make way for even newer baristas. There are times where I am the most experienced barista on the floor and I’ve only been here for a year and a half. So vastly different from when I first started and the floor was dominated by partners that worked for Starbucks for 5+ years.
ayrihanae 1 points 1y ago
Sounds like my store.
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