Okay so we have a regular named, let’s call her Joan. Joan gets a very specific and complicated Caramel Macchiato. I started last summer when we didn’t have caramel drizzle, but she gets the dark caramel anyway but I didn’t know that and she practically yelled at me about it. One time I was trying to be more friendly and and joke with her, so when she ordered a caramel macchiato and I said, “Oh shocking! Alrighty anything else?” Ya know, a joke, not a jab.. Anyway she comPLAINED TO MY SM ABOUT IT? I ended up apologizing because I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings.

So a few months later I become an SSV, and Joan—who normally comes like twice a day, hasn’t come by in weeks. When she does return, we find out that she had a stroke. She had a ton of trouble ordering due to her resulting aphasia. So those of us who did have her order memorized made a cheat sheet to reference for any barista DTOing when she came thru.

Over the last few months, she’s been doing better and better. We got her a card, and everyone tries to really connect with her. We train our new baristas on her order. I suspect that she gets defensive because she thinks everyone is against her, so I try to show her that we all support her and are rooting for her.

Well, I found out that the other day, from other DT customers, Joan kept throwing her empty cups out her window/door as she was in the DT lane waiting to come to the window. Our SM went out to get them and picked them all up, and didn’t talk to her about it.

I’m so flabbergasted by this from her, after everything we’ve done for her to minimize any embarrassment from having trouble ordering. It’s disrespectful! She knows we go out there for our trash runs and that WE have to clean it up.

I want to talk to her about this, but I don’t know if I should let my SM handle it (she probably won’t) or if I should say something to her.