Starbucks Baristas: The daily grind
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Help with green beans (self.starbucksbaristas)
submitted by DirigibleUme
Hello all, my store had two green beans, they've both gone through their official training, but we're having trouble getting them to...move faster. Idk how else to put it. They don't seem to understand the "hustle" that working here requires. We aren't a super busy store, we don't have a drive thru, but have a fair amount of Ubers all day long as well as normal cafe traffic. I'm not even a trainer, but their trainer actually said to me "I don't know how to make them move faster". Unfortunately it's in almost all areas. Hot coffee/tea takes them like 2-3 minutes if it's anything but black, they're both slow and disorganized on warming, but bar is probably the worst. I tried gentle nudges today while I was on bar with one green bean, but I still almost ended up training them all over again, telling them how to make the same drink at least 3 times (It was a hot chai), as well as other super common drinks like vsc cold brew.
So two questions. A) Did training get worse or shorter or something? Other new beans in the last year seemed to pick it up faster/be better prepared after their official training was done. (Those were in the same age group, if not younger)
B) What can I do, as a simple barista, to help them be faster while maintaining my cool and not getting exacerbated with them? Cause it does not seem as though the manager or the shift that trained them are gonna step in to help more.
Thank you, my milk covered friends.
So two questions. A) Did training get worse or shorter or something? Other new beans in the last year seemed to pick it up faster/be better prepared after their official training was done. (Those were in the same age group, if not younger)
B) What can I do, as a simple barista, to help them be faster while maintaining my cool and not getting exacerbated with them? Cause it does not seem as though the manager or the shift that trained them are gonna step in to help more.
Thank you, my milk covered friends.
MathSmooth4506 30 points 1y ago
As a green bean I’ll tell you right now, the training sucks….
My training was all over the place. I got 30 min of hot bar training then never touched it again for 3 weeks. Never got cold bar training at all. I taught myself warming when I was just thrown on it in a lurch. Taught myself register during slow times on cs. I’d practice putting in drinks. It was wild.
If these gbs don’t have the drive to kinda fill in that training gap themselves, then yeah they’re not gonna be great. I studied the app and made flash cards so when I finally got trained on everything I could rock it.
I’m still not the best. I get overwhelmed being alone on bar so I normally get moved to just mobile or just cold bar for peak. But I’m getting there. It’ll be 4 months I’ve been here on the 18th.
My training was all over the place. I got 30 min of hot bar training then never touched it again for 3 weeks. Never got cold bar training at all. I taught myself warming when I was just thrown on it in a lurch. Taught myself register during slow times on cs. I’d practice putting in drinks. It was wild.
If these gbs don’t have the drive to kinda fill in that training gap themselves, then yeah they’re not gonna be great. I studied the app and made flash cards so when I finally got trained on everything I could rock it.
I’m still not the best. I get overwhelmed being alone on bar so I normally get moved to just mobile or just cold bar for peak. But I’m getting there. It’ll be 4 months I’ve been here on the 18th.
beajjj 4 points 1y ago
i’m so sorry you had this experience :(, would you like a quizlet a trainer at my store made? it’s for hot bar :)
MathSmooth4506 2 points 1y ago
I would love that!
[deleted] 1 points 1y ago
[deleted]
PaleontologistLoud37 1 points 1y ago
we started the same day!! also i went through the exact same thing, my store is higher volume and since i'm a senior in hs i had to train after school so it was crazyyy. i basically had my trainer explain stuff to me really well but we were so busy that i didn't really get any time to practice the stuff i was learning. idk if your store has them but mine has recipe cards that you can flip through and look at, maybe check in the office/by register for them? they were super helpful to me, i regularly am able to do bar (drive or mobile) and everything (except cs 😭)
Downtown0317 25 points 1y ago
It’s differs from person to person. I was a good bean and everything came to me really fast, some people don’t. We just fired a guy that was mid training because he really couldn’t get a handle of things, his training was 20hrs/wk for three weeks. Still couldn’t and then called the trainer a n*zi for the way she was training. She’s the best trainer ever.
DirigibleUme [OP] 13 points 1y ago
Big yikes there. We had a someone over the summer who was just way to anxious, straight up not built for the customer service life. They were super nice, just not cut out for it. I wish these kids got that amount of training 😭
lesbiantolstoy 18 points 1y ago
Ugh, I’ve been in that situation before. I’m sorry I don’t have anything I can say to help—the only thing that got mine to speed up eventually was how busy we got as a store, and how understaffed we were, so we couldn’t be slow. It was incredibly stressful, though, and I don’t think anyone should be subjected to that, lol. I hope someone else here has better advice, but good luck with them! :)
RegularAsk143 12 points 1y ago
Sadly...you cannot teach a sense of urgency....you either got it or you dont got it!
todaytrip 12 points 1y ago
Yeah so what are u doing hustling lmao they pay us minimum wage
DirigibleUme [OP] 9 points 1y ago
Lol I'm not talking about moving at the speed of light but moving at a relatively normal speed that we don't end up with a line out the door and angry Karens verbally abusing us for being late to work.
Them being slow stresses everyone else on the floor out. It's not about "making the moment right" bs it's more about just the flow of the crew, yk? Idk, like 3 minutes to make a venti pike with 2 Splenda and a bit of half and half seems excessive.
Them being slow stresses everyone else on the floor out. It's not about "making the moment right" bs it's more about just the flow of the crew, yk? Idk, like 3 minutes to make a venti pike with 2 Splenda and a bit of half and half seems excessive.
cbcbstargirl -6 points 1y ago
this is the problem… new workers are saying “minimum pay minimum effort”. that’s bullshit. you don’t start work at a high pay. you have to start somewhere. and if you are lazy and have bad work ethic you will never get promoted. and you will never learn the proper skills for if you ever get a better paying job. I started working my ass off for student wage and it’s just the right thing to do. Idk why being lazy at work is the new norm. It’s work, it’s hard, you are getting paid minimum wage still better than nothing
DirigibleUme [OP] 3 points 1y ago
They don't seem to have that attitude, it's just a disconnect between the line out the door and the pace they go. Tbh theres a happy medium between not giving a shit and putting your all into a minimum wage job. I try to find it myself, but more often that not I end up putting everything I have into this bs job. Especially now with the pandemic, we don't get paid enough to deal with the shit we do. I'm not saying these beans need to give their all, but like the pace they go screws literally everything up. Happy medium, guys, happy medium.
BeardiesRule112 2 points 1y ago
No… it’s not bullshit, it’s the truth of life.
seanoregano 2 points 1y ago
Maybe in Canada this pays off, but this is America 💀
todaytrip 2 points 1y ago
Lol yeah get back to me when your hard work pays off
They’re using you dude
They’re using you dude
Saint-enance 7 points 1y ago
I was a 320 and did not at all feel like I was trained properly. Over the course of my three months with the company I got maybe 15 minutes of training on cold bar and maybe an hour of training on hot bar. All they ever did was stick me on CS or DTR (which is fine if it’s busy or peak) but when it’s 5am and we just opened why can’t I practice making orders? If it’s 10am and the peak crowd is gone why can’t I hop on bars to practice different recipes?
Overall, I don’t feel like I was trained adequately at all. I didn’t get to do the thing that Starbucks is known for. You know, making coffee?
Overall, I don’t feel like I was trained adequately at all. I didn’t get to do the thing that Starbucks is known for. You know, making coffee?
booboobradley 7 points 1y ago
Fuck hustle, management!
DirigibleUme [OP] 2 points 1y ago
True. Specifically one of these green beans just doesn't seem to get the needed sense of urgency for customer service or counter service jobs, yk? I work somewhere else at a counter service place too and some of the younger kids also just, don't get that you can't take your sweet ol time getting someone's order ready. But also you right, the management regarding these green beans has been real bad. The other day they were both scheduled at the same time, and we usually only have 3-5 people on, so I ended up doing warming, second barring/coaching and cs for like an hour or two while the shift was on their half and doing the order.
FfierceLaw 5 points 1y ago
If you are unsure of what you need to do and how to do it, what’s the point of doing it wrong faster? These beans need repetition and lots of it to gain confidence. Can you assign one exclusively to refreshers and teas so they can nail that down? Then do the same with Frappuccino/foam bar followed by mastrena bar? I’m both a Starbucks partner and an Amazon Associate. At Amazon they told us to take 5 weeks to learn to be accurate then try for speed. But accuracy first.
Also don’t you think they’ve picked up on your negative vibe concerning them? Hand them off to someone else who hasn’t soured on them. No offense, but a different trainer/mentor made a huge difference for me as a GB. Even that term is a little demeaning. Try New Partner. Only one more syllable
Also don’t you think they’ve picked up on your negative vibe concerning them? Hand them off to someone else who hasn’t soured on them. No offense, but a different trainer/mentor made a huge difference for me as a GB. Even that term is a little demeaning. Try New Partner. Only one more syllable
BlindHIllCorpse 2 points 1y ago
In one of my supposed to be supervised shifts during my training someone who’d been there longer than me was on bar (painfully slow) and we had a huge rush and I messed up one order on drive through and got thrown under bus for the horrible wait time despite every car ordering like 4 fraps per order and his slow pace.
Could literally sense the jaded energy towards me for the rest of my shift and it sucked. I was supposed to be supervised the whole week but couldn’t really help but just jump in and do my best because we were understaffed
Could literally sense the jaded energy towards me for the rest of my shift and it sucked. I was supposed to be supervised the whole week but couldn’t really help but just jump in and do my best because we were understaffed
FfierceLaw 2 points 1y ago
I read the post and just felt empathy toward the new partners they are complaining about. I’m no longer new, I’m fast and capable but I remember those unkind disparaging “partners” who seemed to have no memory of being new
BeardiesRule112 4 points 1y ago
Minimum wage, minimum effort.
honourarycanadian 4 points 1y ago
I’m a former partner that’s returned recently and I was okay, but the training objectively isn’t good. It focuses on way too many areas for way too short a time.
What worked for me was just throwing me on bar and letting me figure it out. You said you don’t work at a drive through so you don’t have to worry about drive times at least - it may be the best option in this case too. They should be put on bar when there’s a consistent flow, nothing too busy.
What worked for me was just throwing me on bar and letting me figure it out. You said you don’t work at a drive through so you don’t have to worry about drive times at least - it may be the best option in this case too. They should be put on bar when there’s a consistent flow, nothing too busy.
discopriscilla 3 points 1y ago
302, started in june ‘21. my training Sucked. the online training modules cover everything but how to actually perform the job. instead of explaining warming or drive, the modules focus more on safety or health procedures. when i worked with a trainer, i essentially shadowed them for a week but didn’t get a chance to actually do the tasks until i was on my own. i fell into the same boat, constantly being told i was moving too slowly. obviously if the store is understaffed, they green beans will (hopefully) eventually understand that they can’t move slowly, or nothing will get done. don’t be too hard on them though! no matter what they’ll get it eventually, it just takes time and patience.
hashbrownnie 2 points 1y ago
As someone who was a gb not too long ago, I found that studying a cheat sheet here and there really took my stress away from memorizing stuff and now I’m out fastest barista :) $1
[deleted] 1 points 1y ago
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QuietCity333 1 points 1y ago
the training is… not great. at least on the ipad. there are a lot of outdated questions (like questions about the protein powder, which we haven’t had in… 3+ years?). and then when telling how to make the drinks it pretty much just says “this size drink gets x amount of shots and x amount of pumps” and then will immediately “quiz” you on it. there’s nothing that really helps to memorize it. you read it once, answer a question and that’s it.
the truth is the ipad training with the ~4 days of training on the floor is not nearly enough to expect green beans to remember how to make drinks (even “simple” ones) and do it quickly. other positions may be a little easier to pick up but starting at starbucks is very overwhelming and it should be expected that new employees will need some time to adjust, even if it can be a little annoying.
the truth is the ipad training with the ~4 days of training on the floor is not nearly enough to expect green beans to remember how to make drinks (even “simple” ones) and do it quickly. other positions may be a little easier to pick up but starting at starbucks is very overwhelming and it should be expected that new employees will need some time to adjust, even if it can be a little annoying.
chaysejennings 1 points 1y ago
all i can say is that it’ll come with time. they’re still getting used to everything. i’m sorry i couldn’t be more help :/
oliveee_oil25 1 points 1y ago
I’m still a green bean (2 months in) and had great training and picked it up quickly, but a fellow partner who has been around a little longer is still struggling and what I’ve noticed is if he works a longer shift he gets more comfortable and then speeds up but if it’s just a 4hr shift he’s slow. So maybe timing of shifts? We also have a separate sticker machine for just drive cold bar and typically we are put there first as a mini bar position and that teaches you to speed up because of all the multi step Frappuccinos and teas.
I know every store is different but I know those things were helpful in my speed up process.
I know every store is different but I know those things were helpful in my speed up process.
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