Starbucks Baristas: The daily grind
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so sick (and a little scared) of my store (self.starbucksbaristas)
submitted by KnownUnderstanding56
my store has a lot of third place issues. like A LOT. and sometimes, especially at night, i’m actually terrified to be at work for my own safety. my store is in a shopping center and closes very late at night, well after the rest of the stores in the center. the area we are located in also is not the best, and we have many homeless people who are clearly on drugs coming in every day, and unfortunately many of them cause a scene and we have to call the police several times a week. just off the top of my head, here are some examples of incidences:
•a man overdosed and was minutes away from dying in our bathroom
•a man literally took a shit on the wall in plain view of customers
•someone flooded our bathrooms and we had to call a plumber to get the water vacuumed out and use industrial fans to dry everything
•a man (clearly was on heavy drugs) was walking around our cafe with a very large knife we had to call the cops
•more times than i can count, people have been passed out in our bathrooms and we had to call 911
((this is not to mention the several extremely creepy regular customers that make all of the women feel so violated with their looks at us and comments that they make.))
i feel pretty bad, but i wish starbucks would allow us to make some rules or regulations that would limit some of these incidences (i.e. requiring a purchase before giving bathroom code numbers to reduce the amounts of times we have to call the police for someone who locked themselves in there and won’t answer). i also really wish the district or whoever would let us change our hours to close earlier so that we don’t have to leave so late. my district heavily focused on my stores hours since my store is the highest volume in our district, and often when we mention how uncomfortable or unsafe certain customers or situations make us feel, it seems like it gets brushed aside in the name of maintaining the third place for all and also making as much money as possible. my mom hates when i close at work because she’s concerned for my safety. honestly, i probably would take it off my availability if i knew it wouldn’t result in even more lost hours:// idk what to do. i feel helpless and anxious walking into my store every day knowing that the creepy regular will be there and there is a good chance that we may have to call the cops AGAIN. this is an extremely long rant, so thanks for listening if ur still here lol snd maybe give advice if u have anyway????
•a man overdosed and was minutes away from dying in our bathroom
•a man literally took a shit on the wall in plain view of customers
•someone flooded our bathrooms and we had to call a plumber to get the water vacuumed out and use industrial fans to dry everything
•a man (clearly was on heavy drugs) was walking around our cafe with a very large knife we had to call the cops
•more times than i can count, people have been passed out in our bathrooms and we had to call 911
((this is not to mention the several extremely creepy regular customers that make all of the women feel so violated with their looks at us and comments that they make.))
i feel pretty bad, but i wish starbucks would allow us to make some rules or regulations that would limit some of these incidences (i.e. requiring a purchase before giving bathroom code numbers to reduce the amounts of times we have to call the police for someone who locked themselves in there and won’t answer). i also really wish the district or whoever would let us change our hours to close earlier so that we don’t have to leave so late. my district heavily focused on my stores hours since my store is the highest volume in our district, and often when we mention how uncomfortable or unsafe certain customers or situations make us feel, it seems like it gets brushed aside in the name of maintaining the third place for all and also making as much money as possible. my mom hates when i close at work because she’s concerned for my safety. honestly, i probably would take it off my availability if i knew it wouldn’t result in even more lost hours:// idk what to do. i feel helpless and anxious walking into my store every day knowing that the creepy regular will be there and there is a good chance that we may have to call the cops AGAIN. this is an extremely long rant, so thanks for listening if ur still here lol snd maybe give advice if u have anyway????
krty98 3 points 1y ago
This kinda sounds like a location that’s not too far from me. Are you guys in Colorado?
KnownUnderstanding56 [OP] 3 points 1y ago
no, california! unfortunately i think that these situations are becoming more and more common everywhere :((( when i first started just a couple years ago, stuff like this was RARE. now, it’s multiple times a week, sometimes many days in a row.
krty98 1 points 1y ago
I take the train downtown to school four days a week. The last month has been more and more dangerous. There was a guy shooting up in front of me and another that got violent after a kid from my college told him he didn’t have any money. A guy that fought the fare police after they tried to drag him off for exposing himself. That was all in one direction in one day.
KnownUnderstanding56 [OP] 3 points 1y ago
literally right after i posted my last comment to you, i saw a homeless guy jacking off on the street right outside of my store 😭😭😭
Zealousideal-Star448 2 points 1y ago
My old store was like this and it’s why I didn’t apply to go back to that store. My best advice would be to first write an email to your dm and am stating your safety concerns and asking if you can have more security or a change of hours in the store. Some stores do have security guards standing outside here in Cali. (SoCal) really emphasize on your concerns for partner and customer safety, stating as many incidents in the past year with as many facts (dates times shift lead) as you can. Make sure you write these incidences down in the book or at least your shift lead does.
Next thing you can do is change the bathroom code every day, make it part of openings routine. And get a second or third timer to time how long people are in the bathroom for, leave a sign saying partners will do a check to see if your still alive every 10 minutes or so.
Be careful when walking to your cars, I don’t think technically speaking we are allowed to bring pepper spray (“weapon”) with us to work but you are allowed travel hair spray.
Next thing you can do is change the bathroom code every day, make it part of openings routine. And get a second or third timer to time how long people are in the bathroom for, leave a sign saying partners will do a check to see if your still alive every 10 minutes or so.
Be careful when walking to your cars, I don’t think technically speaking we are allowed to bring pepper spray (“weapon”) with us to work but you are allowed travel hair spray.
KnownUnderstanding56 [OP] 2 points 1y ago
i make sure to park right in front of my store or as close to telegraph front as possible everyday, and thankfully everyone at my store is really good about making sure at least one person stands by the door snd watches whoever is leaving until they get into their car if they are leaving after dark! its now just a habit at my store that started a while ago with a couple of the guys making sure that the girls leaving made to it safely to their cars. i will definitely be taking your advice and see if i can have a conversation with my SM and DM about everything that has been happening. thanks for the tips !!!!
Zealousideal-Star448 2 points 1y ago
Try to leave a paper trial! everything written in the book but also take personal notes for things to actually change! Good luck!
KnownUnderstanding56 [OP] 2 points 1y ago
my mom told me to start doing the same thing! will definitely start being mindful to keep track of dates and the shift leads/other partners when incidences happen. unfortunately, i think many shifts forget to file incident reports or take note of incidences a lot due to things happening so often that we’ve all kind of become numb to scary/crazy stuff happening. ill start asking them to file more reports now to make sure there is official log of everything
Zealousideal-Star448 2 points 1y ago
I think you can aswell in the book as needed. Especially do it if police are called, get badge numbers if you can. Get as detailed as possible for the next few weeks to months to get things to happen.
Zealousideal-Star448 2 points 1y ago
Part 2:
Starbucks with pay for Ubers or Lyfts home apparently if it’s early/ late at night. So talk to you manager about making that offer available for all closing staff. And I hate to say this but if your manager could even hire a few larger men to sorta scare off the creeps it might help. We had one that helped us girls out but he wouldn’t hurt a fly, but just him standing there made people think twice before doing things that are bad
Starbucks with pay for Ubers or Lyfts home apparently if it’s early/ late at night. So talk to you manager about making that offer available for all closing staff. And I hate to say this but if your manager could even hire a few larger men to sorta scare off the creeps it might help. We had one that helped us girls out but he wouldn’t hurt a fly, but just him standing there made people think twice before doing things that are bad
KnownUnderstanding56 [OP] 4 points 1y ago
we used to have a big ex-military dude at our store. he was the sweetest man ever. and there definitely weren’t any creepy dudes staring and make inappropriate comments at us girls when he was still working here lol
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