For background: I’ve been a partner for three years at this same cafe store which is one of the busiest in the state, I work 40 hours a week (we only have one other person who also does 40, but a handful who do 30), we used to have more full timers but they all quit or found new jobs and cut their hours, I’m not a shift, and I’m the only barista trainer in my store of 25+ people.

We’ve been super understaffed for over a year now but my manager is finally hiring more people. However, I’m the only barista trainer. There are other baristas who have told both myself and my manager that they want to become trainers, but my manager just will not assign them the modules to actually become one. This manager has been telling me for over TWO MONTHS that they’re gonna get these baristas set up to do it. But instead, I’m getting scheduled to train three people at the same time, who are all working the exact same shifts on the exact same days, even though they’re not in the same spots training wise. I’m trying to figure out how to balance having someone do modules and taking another to train on one position and asking one of the shifts if they can help with the third person. This isn’t fair.

When I come in I’m expected to balance multiple positions at once. For example, even if it’s a Friday morning during peak, somehow I’m supposed to do warming and customer support and third bar. Even if I get put on main bar, I’m supposed to help set up the other bar person and stock the floor, as well as make all of my drinks.

The reason this manager does this is because there are some partners at our store who just don’t have the hang of it. And that’s totally understandable for the most part; we do have a lot of people who work really well already and it takes time for new people to get the hang of it. My problem is that there is a person who has been here for almost two years who still isn’t getting it, and I’m expected to retrain them pretty much every month instead of my manager having a conversation with them about how it’s not working out and (it never had been).

This person in particular got formally trained and retrained by 5 different people initally because it was not going well. They still make countless mistakes and my shifts recognize that they can only be put on register or else it is detrimental to the floor. My manager knows this too, and when I’m not working they also keep them on register. But if I AM working, it’s my job to work at double speed and double my workload to set them up and/or fix their mistakes. When customers get upset about the quality of this person’s drinks or how long they’re taking, my manager doesn’t step in. This person is also not expected to handle it because my manager knows they can’t handle it. For some reason it’s MY job to deal with angry customers and try to fix any mistakes, process refunds, and continue to set this person up, in addition to already being assigned to another position to work myself.

Whenever my manager does this too, they get incredibly frustrated with the way this person is working. But they know that this person wouldn’t even be able to take one small correctional comment. So instead my manager snaps at me and gets upset with me for supposedly not doing enough. Maybe i’m not setting them up well enough, maybe I’m not doing my position well enough, but the truth is I’m doing MORE THAN ENOUGH, and I’m doing it PERFECTLY, they’re just misdirecting their anger towards me. Because I can “handle it” and this person can’t.

I’m tired and I’m burnt out and I’m overworked. It shouldn’t be expected of me to do all of this but if I don’t I have to deal with the backlash from my manager. And whenever I try to have conversations with them about it I just get immediately shut down. I’m about to break. Mentally i can’t keep doing this. Physically I can’t be doing this. Because everything is my fault somehow even though I’m doing so much. I’m glad my shifts can recognize that I’m doing well, but it doesn’t matter that much if my manager is coming down on me twice as hard.


Thank yo uif you read all this. I’m so sorry to put something so long and detailed on here I just really needed to get it off my chest and I’m hoping someone might have some advice (or even just recommendation on a way to cope at this point.)