Ah yes. Fall at Starbucks. I was in your exact position and I’ve learned to do this: take alllllllll the CSR cards out and when you first clock in, do your store walk. We used to do that every single shift and I’ve kinda seen it phased out but I want to bring it back, and I did at my store.

On your store walk, after you note how the lobby looks and the bathrooms, flip thru each card that is supposed to be done by now. If you got in at 3pm you’re looking at open-2pm cards (a hefty stack). Now go look at each area the card talks about cleaning and see if it’s been done yet. Then capture that in your notes. Here’s an example:

“Chilly fall evening. Lobby is clean. L RR needs Toilet paper. 3/18 CSR cards complete from open-now so we are running behind schedule. Abby making great connections on bar and we are running low on pumpkin loaves, I’ll pull extra tonight.”

Last step, reset the cards before you go home but leave out the ones you guys couldn’t get to (only from the 4-close cards) PLUS the open-11am ones. In two different stacks. Make a note like “hey! We did our best but here’s what we didn’t get to. Thank you guys <3”

The purpose of this is to remind the better-staffed part of the day that they have work to do too, and to remind you that you’re on a big TEAM! A stressful messy close means small failures thru the entire day, not all of them are on your back. Sure, it might seem passive aggressive to the wrong people. Sure, they might just throw them back on the wall for the first 3 months.
It will save you when they complain about your closes. Your manager and others around with common sense will see, well, uh, we haven’t really been setting them up for success. And don’t be afraid to write that down too. I have!
A mid shift had it out for me and she would send 1/2 of my closers home every day at 3pm when we had a slow hour right before I came in at 3:45. We closed at 9pm! Girl! And nothing was made, floors not mopped, SYRUPS not even done… horrible. I would write “I feel unsupported with the staffing, two closers were sent home one hour into their shift that I could really use right now. I feel like I’m not set up for success tonight to deliver the best customer experience because we can barely keep the drive time below 4min”

Ok last tip, if you’re busier than you are predicted to be, write that ish down! Look at the DCR and see it predicts 12 customers for that half hour, but you guys got 16. Or 18. Or 23. In the “sales” category in the book write a “predicted” column and a “actual” column for each half hour that you’re above predicted by, eh, 3 customers. When your boss asks why you can say “I have suspicions that the predicted customer count is off by a significant amount so I wanted to record it. Also so they can understand in the morning why the close was kinda messy”

i’m just a green bean but maybe you could ask your SM if you could get like one more person on staff for night shifts? maybe not a closer but like a 4-8, 5-9 or something? or talk with other SSVs at your store and see how they do their closing shifts?