Starbucks Baristas: The daily grind
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Glove Policy?? (self.starbucksbaristas)
submitted by shipssiren
I've complained about this many many times in my store, but essentially we get told not to wear food safe service gloves while cooking because it deters you from washing your hands.
And I took a course in Food safe service, and that's not at all true. If we had a serious health inspector we'd be shut down within minutes. We have two baristas that touch food with their bare hands and no one corrects, and they're told not to wear gloves.
But I know for a fact anyone handling food has to both wash their hands AND wear gloves frequently. But we're coached to not have them when handling food, and I want to know if anyone has been told this and if that's even a policy.
Edit: Thanks for the help!
Double Edit: I completely understand now that gloves DO deter washing and the policy on handwriting, glove use, anf how to handle food! Thanks everyone for the help!
And I took a course in Food safe service, and that's not at all true. If we had a serious health inspector we'd be shut down within minutes. We have two baristas that touch food with their bare hands and no one corrects, and they're told not to wear gloves.
But I know for a fact anyone handling food has to both wash their hands AND wear gloves frequently. But we're coached to not have them when handling food, and I want to know if anyone has been told this and if that's even a policy.
Edit: Thanks for the help!
Double Edit: I completely understand now that gloves DO deter washing and the policy on handwriting, glove use, anf how to handle food! Thanks everyone for the help!
rtsneedshelp 138 points 9m ago
We do not *have* to wear gloves, but food should only be touched with tongs or the warming papers when not wearing clean gloves.
$1 is a link to the Serv Safe guidelines which state “Wear single-use gloves whenever handling ready-to-eat food and alternative: use spatulas, tongs, deli sheets, or other utensils”
$1 is a link to the Serv Safe guidelines which state “Wear single-use gloves whenever handling ready-to-eat food and alternative: use spatulas, tongs, deli sheets, or other utensils”
shipssiren [OP] 34 points 9m ago
That's so crazy to me, but I know watching the other baristas like actually grab the food with their hands just erks me
rtsneedshelp 73 points 9m ago
They should not be touching food with bare hands.
shipssiren [OP] 12 points 9m ago
I know, trust me. But they're not corrected
rtsneedshelp 53 points 9m ago
We are more than free to correct our peers. If speaking up to your managers isn’t correcting the issue, say something directly.
IdoItForTheMemez 1 points 8m ago
This is considered a critical health code violation; not just major, but critical. If you're up for it, I would go to managers or even directly to DM if you don't want them to know the conflict came from you.
Fantastic1357 3 points 9m ago
I would make them throw out the food. That’s so nasty.
[deleted] 1 points 8m ago
[removed]
Icky138 2 points 9m ago
how come we can’t use our hands and touch a customers personal cup. it seems so silly to stretch your arm over with a coffee cup to set it in. we touch every other single cup, i don’t get this
rtsneedshelp 2 points 9m ago
It’s to protect us from their germs/prevent cross contamination from their cup. People are gross, even pre-COVID I’ve seen people bring in cups they had just rolling around in their car with literal mold/mildew in them. While those cups should be refused, who knows what nasty stuff is potentially on them that we can’t see.
Icky138 1 points 9m ago
i have to take their old school starbucks cards right out of their hands because it will only scan directly on the POS. and gift cards they hand us? we have no other protection or barriers around register.. it just seems like a huge production for something we do anyways.
IdoItForTheMemez 1 points 8m ago
It's because you take the cup to the food/drink handling area, where cards stay on POS. You're also supposed to wash your hands between any POS task and any food or drink handling task, every time, but basically nobody has time for that when they're running registers and warming or bar at the same time.
rtsneedshelp 1 points 9m ago
Yes and we touch cash, but we don’t put it on the bar area where we keep small wares that touch the actual beverages or handle cash then rub our bare hands all over the cutting board.
chipqueen2532 51 points 9m ago
you don’t need gloves when making drinks or when using tongs to touch food, but I would go ballistic on anyone who touches food with their bare hands w no gloves on. you wash your hands before you put the gloves on, touch the food, and wash your hands again after.
shipssiren [OP] 3 points 9m ago
I was told the oven will kill the germs
violaaesthetic 16 points 9m ago
Yeah you know how consistent our ovens are. Always warm things all the way through every time. Definitely reliable /s
shipssiren [OP] 4 points 9m ago
Lolllll
chipqueen2532 14 points 9m ago
absolutely not. do not touch before or after being put in the oven and especially do not touch any pastries or anything
shipssiren [OP] 4 points 9m ago
I don't! But when I did say something on it that was the response
chipqueen2532 5 points 9m ago
nope you gotta stick to it. tell them it’s literally a food safety thing for every restaurant and every food service place in the world. you cannot touch rtd&e food without gloves and I would never touch something that just gets toasted in a mini convection oven for like a minute without gloves on either. it’s not worth the risk. I would talk to your SSVs and SM and ask them for some help because a customer is going to see it at some point and either be nice and say something, or they’ll just be quiet about it and report y’all to the health department lol.
canidieyet_ 2 points 9m ago
I don’t know if I’ve missed a comment but who is telling you this? If it’s a shift, tell your SM. If it’s your SM, tell your DM.
Late_Pomelo_999 2 points 9m ago
Lol that’s a good one
TransposedApophenia 1 points 9m ago
lmao
bigghostb00ty 0 points 9m ago
No, it could potentially, but dry heat (aka the oven) takes a long time to kill microbes, like at least 15 minutes. And that’s a rock fact.
Ordinary-Theory-8289 14 points 9m ago
There are plenty of studies that show food workers who wear gloves don’t wash their hands as often and most people aren’t changing them as often as one should.
maidofpuns 1 points 9m ago
That can be true alongside the fact that you should be wearing gloves or using tongs/other utensils instead of handling food with your bare hands.
Ordinary-Theory-8289 4 points 9m ago
Nobody is saying that anybody should be handling food with bare hands.
maidofpuns 2 points 9m ago
From the way you wrote your comment it sounded like you were implying those things were mutually exclusive. Just wanted to point out that you're right, but that without additional context it kind of sounds like you're just agreeing with OP's managers.
Ordinary-Theory-8289 1 points 9m ago
Well I’m disagreeing with the part where OP said wearing gloves doesn’t deter people from washing their hands because there’s many studies that shows it does. They literally said “that’s not true at all” and it most definitely is lol
shipssiren [OP] 0 points 9m ago
That makes absolute sense!
diphenhydranautical 5 points 9m ago
i would never ever touch food with my bare hands, i feel like that’s just common sense, but i get really frustrated because they stopped sending us gloves in our order and then someone will order something with no cheese and like…wtf do you want me to do then?!
maidofpuns 5 points 9m ago
You can take the top of the sandwich off with the tongs and then gently slide the tongs around the cheese and just pull it off! Sometimes the cheese gets a little flaky but I've never found it very difficult to just sort of bat those off with the tongs before reassembling the sandwich [:
Pillsburyhoeboy19 3 points 9m ago
A manager letting people get away with bare hand grabbing food shouldn't be in a management position. Shoot a text or call to your district manager imo
shipssiren [OP] 1 points 9m ago
That's even the half of it, but I'd need a throw to talk about that 😅
lea-oppalove 3 points 9m ago
The training guide says to show the new partner how to handle food from its wrap to the oven to the bag while stressing the importance of doing so without ever touching it. The gloves are there as an option and I've been asked to wear them by customers to which I happily complied... but there is no policy that says you cannot wear gloves. Thats just crazy
Aliciarox11189 2 points 9m ago
If you have band aids on .. if you should be wearing gloves
Fun fact I recently learned
Did you know that technically ( its in one of the guides i think safety amd security maybe?) you shouldn't wear the gloves when putting your hands in and out of the oven cause the heat could melt them to your skin
Fun fact I recently learned
Did you know that technically ( its in one of the guides i think safety amd security maybe?) you shouldn't wear the gloves when putting your hands in and out of the oven cause the heat could melt them to your skin
shipssiren [OP] 1 points 9m ago
I couldn't imagine how painful that would be, but I definitely use the tongs to get food out! Never my hands!
Chahanler 2 points 9m ago
ok but make sure you’re doing glove policy correctly. you can not let the gloves touch your apron or anything else without getting a new pair.
shipssiren [OP] 1 points 9m ago
Yes, thank you so much!
szhou009 2 points 9m ago
I've been told this but that's just incorrect. The truth is they gaslight you into not wearing gloves because you do have to change your gloves regularly and that's costly to the company.
Having said that i wear gloves because my hands get dry.
Having said that i wear gloves because my hands get dry.
sweet-cream-hedgehog 2 points 9m ago
Thats so stupid. Every thirty minutes, partners should be doing their best to set time aside to wash their hands. There are also processes with gloves! You change them if you touch something from, say, another station, or you cash a customer out. Following safety guidelines, you would then take off the now dirty gloves, wash your hands, and then put on a fresh pair.
Necessary_Low939 1 points 9m ago
Ur baristas definitely need to be retrained. As u do not always have to wear gloves even tho we should, they should not touch anything with their bare hands. Everyone has a unique staph and it can be transmitted (from food safety course)
BuyerOk6692 1 points 9m ago
on the store ipad, there’s a folder for “train a barista” in the store resources that goes over food safety. it covers that we should never be touching food with bare hands, or the inside of cups, or the lids around the mouth piece. maybe suggest to your manager to have everyone redo that training or have a discussion with everyone going over it
Ceramicusedbook 1 points 9m ago
My store doesn't wear them...
BluejayHefty202 1 points 9m ago
Depends where you live. Colorado does not have a policy that makes you wear gloves where as Nevada does
BluejayHefty202 1 points 9m ago
Also Starbucks does have a policy that every employee should be washing their hands every 15 minutes my gm was very very particular about that one
ardentAmbivalence 1 points 9m ago
That's a really good way for your coworkers to burn the fuck out of themselves. At my store nobody wears gloves unless we have a cut. We aren't supposed to touch any of the food, at all, ever, and if that's actually followed there's no need for continuous use of gloves. Idk what to tell you really, your options are either to keep reminding them, go to your SM. But they're gonna learn the hard way whether they want to or not why it's a bad idea if they continue.
lewabwee -1 points 9m ago
Having worked with food before in other settings, I personally just think gloves are fucking nasty anyways. If people aren’t going to wash their hands often enough, they’re not gonna change their gloves and/or wash their hands enough either. Gloves just pick up a lot of filth too. In practical settings they’re just not clean.
Which is all to say your coworkers shouldn’t be touching food regardless.
Which is all to say your coworkers shouldn’t be touching food regardless.
vegan-trash -1 points 9m ago
I was told that Gloves need to be changed after each food item
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