Starbucks Baristas: The daily grind
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Stop randomly leaving me to solo! (self.starbucksbaristas)
submitted by quirky-enby
Grande sized rant. I’m fine with soloing, outside of the hospital rush we get. I’m fine with someone going “hey I’m running to the bathroom real quick” or “hey you good to solo for the next 10 min/half hour/til someone else comes in?” I know when to ask for help and I trust I’d get that support.
But nothing pisses me off more than when I’m focused on one bar, cruising along in a good flow, then suddenly I look up to see a bunch of pissed off cafe customers because I was only on the DT bar or the DT person is asking over headset where the next drink is and I had been catching up on 20 mobile orders. There have been times where I didn’t realize I had been left alone for 15 minutes straight, and now I have to scramble to catch up.
Or suddenly I realize that what was only supposed to be 15 minutes of soloing is now closer to an hour, because the next person coming in is actually very late and shift just didn’t think to inform me of that.
I’m good to solo when I KNOW about it. Don’t suddenly ghost me and then not respond when I try to ask about it over headset. Then I’m just pissed off and unwilling to acknowledge anything “for the team.”
ETA: if your version of helping is to hop on bar, start two drinks, and then bounce back off to other tasks and leaving the unfinished, ALSO without announcing your departure, then you might as well have not shown up at all. That just adds way more load to me to have to figure out where exactly you left off and how to adjust my flow back to covering all bars again.
But nothing pisses me off more than when I’m focused on one bar, cruising along in a good flow, then suddenly I look up to see a bunch of pissed off cafe customers because I was only on the DT bar or the DT person is asking over headset where the next drink is and I had been catching up on 20 mobile orders. There have been times where I didn’t realize I had been left alone for 15 minutes straight, and now I have to scramble to catch up.
Or suddenly I realize that what was only supposed to be 15 minutes of soloing is now closer to an hour, because the next person coming in is actually very late and shift just didn’t think to inform me of that.
I’m good to solo when I KNOW about it. Don’t suddenly ghost me and then not respond when I try to ask about it over headset. Then I’m just pissed off and unwilling to acknowledge anything “for the team.”
ETA: if your version of helping is to hop on bar, start two drinks, and then bounce back off to other tasks and leaving the unfinished, ALSO without announcing your departure, then you might as well have not shown up at all. That just adds way more load to me to have to figure out where exactly you left off and how to adjust my flow back to covering all bars again.
meegy123 5 points 8m ago
Yeah….. We have a specific barista who will pull and pull tickets and cup them even when they aren’t on bar, and the start a drink and walk away…..
Like more than once I’ve been doing some cold bar drinks while soloing and turn around to see they started a cappuccino probably 5 minutes ago that needs to be dumped and redone because literally can’t serve that
Like more than once I’ve been doing some cold bar drinks while soloing and turn around to see they started a cappuccino probably 5 minutes ago that needs to be dumped and redone because literally can’t serve that
BatWeary 1 points 8m ago
no people at my store do this & if it’s a frap/shaken espresso/matcha, they’ll leave the sticker and walk away. won’t tell me where they left it either, so i end up with either an annoyed DTO asking where their orders are, or pissed off cafe customers wanting to know why everyone else who ordered after them is getting their drinks before they are.
i get it, we all have our least favorite drinks to make. but pulling a sticker for a frap and leaving it somewhere is worse than not helping at all
i get it, we all have our least favorite drinks to make. but pulling a sticker for a frap and leaving it somewhere is worse than not helping at all
BatWeary 2 points 8m ago
this pisses me *off*. it literally doesn’t take anything pre than a “hey, btw…” over the headset.
another thing that makes me so angry is when i’m on drive thru, whether i’m doing just window or just orders, and suddenly i’m solo. usually i get a heads up about my dt partner when they go the bathroom/their 10, but my shifts will straight up lie about it. usually goes like “hey <name> had to use the bathroom so you’ll solo for a few”
okay, no prob. well <name> comes back and takes over for dt bar’s lunch. i ask if i’m alone now for good, and my shifts will literally tell me “yeah i just told you they’d be back so you wouldn’t be mad at ME, but at them lmao sorrry” and also the famous…”i’m not going to leave you there for a long time”….*4 FUCKING HOURS LATER* i’m still in that dreaded hell hole
like just fucking tell me i’m solo. 100% chance i’m already upset at being in drive thru but i’m going to 101% more upset now that you’ve lied to me TWICE??? and they wonder why i don’t trust anything they say 💀
another thing that makes me so angry is when i’m on drive thru, whether i’m doing just window or just orders, and suddenly i’m solo. usually i get a heads up about my dt partner when they go the bathroom/their 10, but my shifts will straight up lie about it. usually goes like “hey <name> had to use the bathroom so you’ll solo for a few”
okay, no prob. well <name> comes back and takes over for dt bar’s lunch. i ask if i’m alone now for good, and my shifts will literally tell me “yeah i just told you they’d be back so you wouldn’t be mad at ME, but at them lmao sorrry” and also the famous…”i’m not going to leave you there for a long time”….*4 FUCKING HOURS LATER* i’m still in that dreaded hell hole
like just fucking tell me i’m solo. 100% chance i’m already upset at being in drive thru but i’m going to 101% more upset now that you’ve lied to me TWICE??? and they wonder why i don’t trust anything they say 💀
spookyboi13 1 points 8m ago
ugh this happened to one of my coworkers today. we get weird ass rushes, and all of a sudfen it was me, dt'ing, like one person on cs/front? and the solo barista.i wanted to say something to my shift but knew it would be catty as all hell and did not want to start something.
i definitely suggest saying like "hey, next time warn me okay?" or "hey a heads up wouldve been appreciated okay? it was pretty jarring." next time if you're comfortable. poor shift communication fucking sucks
i feel bad bc i definitely was guilty of the start and finish thing today but my mind was in every place it shouldn't have been :(
i definitely suggest saying like "hey, next time warn me okay?" or "hey a heads up wouldve been appreciated okay? it was pretty jarring." next time if you're comfortable. poor shift communication fucking sucks
i feel bad bc i definitely was guilty of the start and finish thing today but my mind was in every place it shouldn't have been :(
quirky-enby [OP] 2 points 8m ago
Yeah that’s why I didn’t say anything in the moment, I would have been catty >.< even just saying out loud “so what’s happening, was I meant to be soloing?” felt a bit much because the ASM was right there on the other side of the counter waiting for his drink, oops.
Although then the response of “well not really, [coworker] is now clocking in so she’ll be able to help” still irked me as well. Okay, but what about the ghosting that was happening right before that? Or the fact that this wasn’t the first time in that shift alone that I was suddenly solo?
I am going to try following up with each the leads though (I worked with 3 just on that long shift and they all did that), to remind them “hey I need an explicit heads up when this happens. Tap me on the shoulder or tell me over headset, even if it’s ‘hey you’re solo. brb.’” It seems like shifts have too much faith in being heard from the other end of the store, when I’m right next to the blenders and crosstalk is happening on headset. Or maybe they still actually never said anything, but I’m still trying to give them the benefit of the doubt that hopefully they actually did make some attempts at communicating.
ETA: totally get though not being able to help much when you’re dt’ing! Our DT ppl usually end up getting SWAMPED because they’re also in charge of warming and have enough on their plate as it is with the weird rushes and customers constantly having payment issues or complaints.
Although then the response of “well not really, [coworker] is now clocking in so she’ll be able to help” still irked me as well. Okay, but what about the ghosting that was happening right before that? Or the fact that this wasn’t the first time in that shift alone that I was suddenly solo?
I am going to try following up with each the leads though (I worked with 3 just on that long shift and they all did that), to remind them “hey I need an explicit heads up when this happens. Tap me on the shoulder or tell me over headset, even if it’s ‘hey you’re solo. brb.’” It seems like shifts have too much faith in being heard from the other end of the store, when I’m right next to the blenders and crosstalk is happening on headset. Or maybe they still actually never said anything, but I’m still trying to give them the benefit of the doubt that hopefully they actually did make some attempts at communicating.
ETA: totally get though not being able to help much when you’re dt’ing! Our DT ppl usually end up getting SWAMPED because they’re also in charge of warming and have enough on their plate as it is with the weird rushes and customers constantly having payment issues or complaints.
spookyboi13 2 points 8m ago
it's ridiculous they just didn't communicate at all or fail to follow up- same w your dt person, they definitely should have noticed too.
at my store when that shit happened our front/cs person also sort of vanished for periods of time, so that sucked for me trying to like, figure out if im supposed to do warming/dt/front but still they should have supported you better.
sometimes cattiness might be warranted the more i think about it but maybe im just a bitter barista
at my store when that shit happened our front/cs person also sort of vanished for periods of time, so that sucked for me trying to like, figure out if im supposed to do warming/dt/front but still they should have supported you better.
sometimes cattiness might be warranted the more i think about it but maybe im just a bitter barista
Chub-boat 1 points 8m ago
I feel like there's no excuse for this to be happening it's not hard in between drive customers to just say over the headset "hey are you okay soloing? Cool, if you need help ask for X person to support". And if you or the shift doesn't have a headset they need to go over to you to communicate it. Over communication is way better than this nonsense.
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