I'm a barista, I started as a starbucks partner back in January. So I've got a bit of experience under my belt at the moment. And I've been trying to move up in the company. I'm interested in becoming a shift and I wasn't all too confident at the beginning of this decision. But I had the support of other people who encouraged me and told me I'm ready. Even my manager said I was ready! But we will get to that..

I'm not sure how the rest of you work in your stores, but in my store, we're all pretty open and even swear. We will not swear in front of, to, or loud enough to customers. That is the overall rule. Even our shifts swear. Even our MANAGER swears. Well, I didn't get the position, which is alright, I knew there was a chance I wouldn't get it. But we're supposed to get criticism on why we didn't get the shift position. But the criticism I got.. doesn't make sense.

I approached my manager (he doesn't like confrontation) and asked about it. We went into the back to his little desk space and he sighed and looked at me. The first thing he said,

"you need to be a shift, you know the material you know the stuff-" etc.. "but you know the other week when you swore.. you didn't even catch yourself.." etc.. "so I guess it's just your professionalism.." ... wait what? You guess?? "But-! You know I'm really proud of you, yknow?? You went on and applied, you showed up to the interview- and that's pretty f**k-fricking hard!"

I didn't really say anything to him, but I don't understand how this is criticism. I don't understand how a manager can hold standards up to all of us, but not hold them for himself. It doesn't make any sense to me. I'm just torn and really wanted to talk about it. Maybe even frustrated.

And for some context, I didn't swear out of any frustration, it just slipped out in a conversation I was having with another coworker. I've never sworn to a customer, or anything like that. Just in conversations with coworkers. But everyone at my store does it, so I don't understand how I, one person can be expected to stop, but he may continue to do as he wishes.

I could give a list as to what's all wrong with my manager but I wont today, another time maybe. Just venting out some feelings.. thanks for reading this far if you did <3