Hello fellow partners, I am seeking advice since several at my store do not care or are worried about speaking up.

How do ya'll handle irate, yelling, disrespectful customers? Does your store have a standard practice on this?

I am having difficulty receiving support from my fellow shifts at my store now as an SSV, but even before as a barista.

Example of repeat awful customer- customer of years that is rude and mean. New partners are not told about him, you take his order and ring him up correctly. He will demand you change his order, yell at you, keep repeating to you what his total should be. Ohhhhh then you realize what he is wanting is free stuff and that he will continue to be rude and harass you if he does not receive it because for years people have been intimidated by him and bullied by him so their solution is to give him what he wants. Even getting what he wants he is not pleasant and never kind to any new person who is not trained on him and what he wants.

I left this store earlier in year to take a SSV position and also due to how I had been treated by customers and no action being taken by the SSV's because they are too non confrontational and say, "sorry i dont like confrontation". I had a customer get physical with me back in February over the back to back price increases and the shift did not say anything, did not take up for me and even gave him his coffee for free and in a hurry. I learned more about polices and incident reports during shift training and that these are things that should have been carried out. Especially after the customer that grabbed a hold of both of my wrists, cursing at me accusing me of being racist by purposely charging him more. No one did anything, that was so traumatizing and hurtful for me.

I returned a few months later back to my original store and this customers may think I am a new person so he started our very rude, talking down to me as I did not know his order. After this i was told by another shift to no longer take his order or interact with him... that was their solution. I am the bad guy because I am the only one not afraid of him and not catering to him. He does not like me, especially because I asked months ago for him to just give me a moment. He yelled, accusing me of having an attitude. I have anxiety so his behavior makes me anxious and i become scatter brained when taking anyone's order when they are like that ( forgetting where buttons are, making mistakes, etc)

I am just curious what I can say to him since no other shift will speak up to him.

The other day I was flexing positions: running food, support tasks and register, I would take an order and then do another task during peak. The warming person would also pop over to take orders. The other partner took his order while I ran around. He became angry because I did not take his order and someone else took his order. After I ran food to DT, ran trash, washed hands and popped back to register he darted over in front of those 2 customers, leaned over the register pointing in face saying DO NOT EVER TAKE MY F\*\*\*\*\*\* ORDER. I DONT WANT YOU TAKING MY ORDER EVER AGAIN. I asked the other shift leading that morning for assistance and they would not come over. They said it was not a good time. Ummmm say what?

Joke is on him becaue I have not taken his order since June! lol.

I did file an incident report on him for this day. I feel as partners we should have each other's back, protect our space so everyone feels safe. Especially as an SSV i feel it is my job to speak up and not allow this behavior and to support my fellow partners, not invalidate them.