That’s exactly why I’ve began to resort to using that type of a reply whenever I can tell a customer is frustrated—it lets them know I’m far more irritated about this than they are since it’s my entire job, whereas it’s just one moment for them. Plus I try to slip in a joke or something which also helps diffuse the situation.

For incident reports:

Depends on the situation. If you really want tog et petty, any time a customer curses you could file a report (there’s a heading for yelling/swearing”), and if it’s directed at you specifically, you could file it under “harassment.” You could easily say “I was on register, customer asked for X, when I informed customer that we’re out of X due to delivery problems, customer said [insert foul language here] directed at me. It made me feel unwelcomed and unsafe while on register.” If you want to get exceptionally petty, after 3 or so times in a shift write that you’re not comfortable being on register because of the frequent level of hostility displayed by customers over their frustration with our constant shortages. You could easily play this out and be as petty as you want…just make sure you’re reporting accurately and to the metrics defined by the Incident Reporting app.

i am recently no longer a barista (very bittersweet!) but if i were still at my job i would’ve saved this and used it as a script

I had many instances similar to what you describe.

I arrived at my current store in Oct 2019 and became a SSV just before COVID hit. When we began to reopen our store, our then-SM refused to let us remove the chairs from our cafe-only store, despite seating being closed and then limited. Every 15 min I would have to step off of bar, register, or otherwise stop working to kick people out of the store who were eating/drinking at our tables. They’d argue, fuss, make a scene…but my then-DM didn’t care. She insisted that the chairs were way to maintain “normalcy” and create a positive customer experience…that directly led to me kicking our customer out completely unnecessarily had we just removed the chairs.

New DMs arrived later…I tell them about how our menu boards have a tendency to fall on us. I showed them the scars on my arms, wrists, and even forehead (I was closing a menuboard when it slid down and hit my forehead causing me to bleed for about 15 min). She said nothing could be done because it would “affect the aesthetic of the store.” I had another encounter with a that DM describing a recent spate of sexual harassment reports I had to file regarding my underage female partners….nothing…silence, oh, but my solid-color T-shirt was too light a shade of blue. *priorities*

I argued with my DMs over our bathrooms. My store is located a few blocks from a homeless shelter, so we have excessive bathroom misuses problems, including drugs, smoking, alcohol, bathing in the sinks, and other hygiene problems. It wasn’t until I showed the DM pictures of toilet-height piles of feces-covered toilet seat covers that something was done about just the toilet seat covers. It took someone being arrested for using heroine in our bathrooms and then leaving the blood-filled syringes on the floor for bathroom code locks to be placed.

I’ve had a partner loan money to another partner who was experiencing homelessness…only for the lender to never have the money returned. Then the lender began to have the other partner’s friends come to the store and threaten to assault the lender partner and even call our store asking for the manager and proceed to make fraudulent police reports involving the lending partner. Partner Assets and Protection and our DM both said nothing could be done since it’s a “personal issue” yeah…as I have individuals coming to my place of work threatening to assault my coworkers…sure, it’s a “personal dispute.” *priorities*

Sbux doesn’t care. They only care about the appearance, the aesthetics of being a “good company” while full-time employees go homeless…