There will be many people who will treat you as lesser than for simply being a barrista....don't ever take it personally. Customers will constantly project onto you and you can never take it personally.

For me I have bad anxiety issues and customers being rude to me causes me a lot of issues. I try to take a few deep breaths and just remember that it’s more a reflection of them than it is a reflection of me. Depending on how your managers and shift supervisors are they might step in if a customer is crossing a boundary. If a customer is downright verbally abusing you, yelling at you, calling you slurs or other stuff like that the other partners will most likely hear it if they are wearing headsets but if they don’t then feel free to go grab your shift/ manager to deal with them. In that case it’s totally acceptable to step off the floor and take a breather to calm down. Also a lot of shifts try to just say “kill them with kindness” and while that can be hard it has its perks. If you are being maliciously compliant it’s funny to see them get annoyed about it. At that point you are being compliant with them in a passive aggressive way but like they can’t complain to corporate or a manager cause you were being compliant and doing your job. Idk if any of that will help you but maybe it will. I wish you luck!

Honestly like the other comment, do not take it seriously. I was also hurt when i was a green bean but now i just go like wtf and just let it go. Im sorry about what you had to go through but just try to become a better person than those people and believe in karma!

Today I had an older gentleman custy who placed a mobile order and I was pretty busy dealing with both cafe and mobile orders. He told me he has a mobile order (we hand out the drinks/food to people even if it’s mobile). I asked for a name and he said “X” so i told him I do not have yours ready yet, so I will call you when it’s ready. Then he starts yelling at me saying that I gave his drink and food to other customer when his stuff was sitting there. I told him, no sir, that was for “Y” your name is not “Y” and that was not your drink and food. Please wait and we will call you when it’s ready. He kept saying something and telling other baristas I gave his stuff to other customer. So I checked the stickers and his was not even pulled out. So I told him. Sir this is your order. I did not give it to anyone else, your order has not been ready yet. You do not need to yell, all you have to do is ask us or let us know nicely that you are still waiting and we will happily assist you. And he said ok sorry and waited. After he left, me and my other partners just talked about it, how rude he was and shit and left it. I feel like thats all you need. It’s just another typical ‘starbucks customer service’ thing that you go through every single day.

But at the moment if you can sense that custies are gonna be rude or you can’t handle it, always seek of help or advice from your ssvs and managers!

Exactly. People are so consumed with what's going on in the moment they very often aren't cognizant of our (barrista) existences/emotional state...and if they are it's because they have done similar work behind the counter as us.

Im a fairly new barista as well and while I would like to be ahead of rude customers Ive learned to bite my tongue.

I had a chick question why I had charged her so much for the “Black and White mocha drink.” I explained that its not an actual drink and that i had to build the drink for that.

She throws a tantrum and tells me im “overcharging her.” I get a little stern and tell her that drink isnt a menu item and tell her Ill bring my manager for further clarification if she needs it.

In other words, yes stand your ground but dont be disrespectful. But as soon as the customer is being rude to you, youre in ALL YOUR RIGHT TO REFUSE SERVICE AND CALL SOMEONE ELSE TO ATTEND THAT RUDE CUSTOMER.

I would say I’m fairly seasoned, I’ve been working for Starbucks for almost 2 years now and there was one person who stole our ribs at drive thru and one person got mad that they whipped there coffee into the ground while there was a long line