I'd rather do 6 hours of clean play at half my pay-rate than be in the Drive-Thru window for even one minute at my full rate. Nothing burns me out faster than masking, and I never know what to say to people while they're waiting.

I will take the grosest, most gruelling cleaning task over any single customer interaction.

Just feel like I'm easy to walk all over sometimes

I've gotten better at standing up for myself or advocating for myself in some situations, and feel more confident communicating about things generally, but I still get anxious af and I have trouble knowing if my approach to things is right

“Let me know if you have any questions!” Except do not ever ask me a question. I will have you sitting in the drive thru for 3 extra minutes while I talk about Japanese tea ceremonies because I don’t know what part of matcha you meant by “what is a matcha latte”

I'm so happy barring for a full day compared to being on drive or CS. Lobby is alright because people are usually chill and will walk off anyways, and I always end up doing warming or cafe bar more. CS makes me want to cry, because I have four different people asking me to do something for them, that one chick that drives me insane demanding I do something for her 2 minutes before I clock off, etc. Either that or I get thrown all over the place to each station every day. Bar is so simple and I don't have to speak to a soul. Make drink. Sequence. Hand it off. Do it all again. My autistic ass doesn't need to force anything else out of my little pea brain.

i was told during a partner development conversation that i don’t make eye contact with customers, so now i stare at them like a hawk 🫣 now it’s super uncomfortable for both of us

I have ADHD which causes me to have severe sensory issues and audio processing problems. I remember being the only person on bar in a high volume store, juggling 4 drinks at a time, and being pressured to “CoNnEcT” with every single Joe Schmo standing in the cafe. Our store also blasted the music to the point where I couldn’t hear people when they talked to me, and no, I wasn’t allowed to turn it down.

I actually felt like I died and went to hell every single shift. It was the single most uncomfortable environment I have ever experienced.

i get walked over by my main closing shift lead, bullied harassed and yelled at. i only end out doing the grunt work/cleaning when ever they’re on, I’ve gone to the other store and gotten more time on bar in one shift then i have the entirety of my 6 months with starbucks..

Please when you see me struggling on bar help if you see me on ovens struggling don’t help if you see me on drive struggling help I’m have bad social anxiety and talking to people drain me

My anxious autistic ass always feels awful when I get kicked off bar. I LOVE bar, the repetition makes me happy, but I'm not as fast as some of the people who have worked there longer. It's frustrating because I can't get better if I'm never on it, & there's a shift who ALWAYS takes me off bar & puts me on CS or POS. Which is fine sometimes, but I want to get faster at making drinks.

i literally can’t get the hang of customer connections. i can’t remember past conversations i’ve had with regulars and i don’t remember their names or orders. for 99% of interactions, i fluctuate between complete awkward silence because i don’t know how to make conversation or just rambling to the customer about nonsense while they just nod and “mhm”.

my new store pushes customer connections so hard and constantly puts me on window and hasn’t let me be on bar hardly at all so i’ve started really dreading going into work because trying to “connect” takes such a mental toll on me. i’ve tried explaining to shifts before that awkward interactions aren’t something i easily let go of, they weigh on me mentally after the fact and it starts to add up after a while

Tell me directions with a time frame! “Wipe down” - now? in 5 minutes? When I have down time? in between making drinks? I’m already multitasking so many things I can’t figure out where to put it in between?!

I’m scared of telling my SM no when I get called in on my day off. As a result, I am now a doormat. 😋

No longer working at the ‘bux but this is a funny.

My first day on Adderall was also my last day at Starbucks and I turned to my coworker on cafe bar (I was on drive bar) and said “it’s my first day on Adderall so sorry if I’m a bitch today.”

She BURST out laughing and it was a great way to begin the shift.

Didn’t have a line in the drive thru at all during peak either :P

Getting so burnt out on drive through and everyone gets mad at me when I say I prefer to do something else.
I cannot always grin and bear things
My ssv says she feels like she has to micromanage me. I can and will do anything you ask I just don't always know what to do next (this particular ssv claims to be autistic and also scolded me for throwing off my headset when there were leaf blowers at the drive through. I was on warming so there was a lot going on)
Also I refuse to do customer connection like how they ask. It doesn't feel right to me

ocd + doing garbage runs and cleaning the sink during bar close. it’s like i can feel the germs through my gloves and the feeling of touching a soggy cold strawberry inclusion makes me want to die.

i tend to speak very bluntly without meaning to and i always feel bad about it if the customer wasn’t being rude. i also have trouble emphasizing with upset customers like i just don’t get why they’re so mad sometimes and i don’t know how to deal with it bc i personally would never get that pissed over a drink. like i cant put myself in their shoes.

as everyone has said lol 😭 customer connections drive me crazy but kinda for a different reason? im not bad at talking to people if the time is right but what ends up happening most the time is someone who is clearly in a bad mood comes in, i can read the fact they dont wanna talk to me so i dont. then some shift will come get mad at me for not connecting.. trust me if i tried to connect it would make the situation worse??

and the drive thru fan is SO loud i can never hear people in general when i ask basic questions like, you need a straw? LET ALONE some out of context thing about their life with audio processing issues

it just gets so overwhelming and over stimulating because either way you’re screwed.. connect and get overwhelmed and over stimulated, or dont connect and get so stressed and panicked and overwhelmed over people getting upset with you over it.. i just hate window id rather dto if we need help with the drive area 😞

masking on DT window/solo DT. 🗿 in 6 months here i have not made a single conversation or small talk with anyone other than a couple of regulars at the window💅🏻

I'm sorry that i forgot that i was on bar and started restocking things!

Sorry you need me to what? Talk to the customer? No sorry i need at least 24 hour notice for that.

I'm just gonna go do some dishes! They're really piled up back there! And while I'm at it i might as well reorganize all of BOH.

You need ice? But i just grabbed cups! I'll just set these cups here to put away after i get the ice! *Proceeds to forget about the cups for the next 4 hours*

Look at me so fast on bar! Zoom zoom through the drinks! I am a coffee god! No mortal can stop me! Sorry you think this is a manic what now?

Okay i know you said front AND food, but in my defense the customers are real quiet and they snuck up on me. How was i supposed to know they've been waiting 10 minutes to order? I was busy making sure all the spoons faced the same way!

I don’t have a formal diagnosis so I can’t do anything on the floor when I get overstimulated and start dissociating 🥲

Having ADHD, let me tell you how physically painful it is to be interrupted from a task, then think of all of the interruptions I get during the half hour of dto/dtr/main/cafe that I get to do daily from 6 to 7am. Add into it the auditory issues I have with a headset, and I want to peel the skin of my face off and cry in the corner after those 30 minutes.

Window is awful for me. Being stuck in a corner and making small talk makes me want to jump out the window and run far away haha.

i ha t e being on drive through. ESPECIALLY register. there’s nothing worse than it and i always find an excuse to walk away from the window, i can’t make an interaction it has to happen naturally. when i was a new barista, i was in register and stood awkwardly at the window after taking this girl’s payment and my shift lead told me to ask her how her day was and it was the most painful thing 1) because the girl heard her tell me that and 2) she went to my school. it was just “how’s your day been?” “good” “that’s good” *stands awkwardly as we both just try to laugh it off*.
anytime i’m asked where i want to be stationed, always bar or support or pre-close if i’m closing. i will almost never offer myself up to drive-thru unless needed or another nd coworker is sacrificed for it.

Peak is an absolute sensory nightmare. I push through it because ive learned to just absorb sensory shock and depressure later, but i know others in my team have a harder time with it

i truly feel like people don’t take me seriously sometimes. i also struggle with feeling like a burden for the amount of times i’ve had to leave early or not come in because of sensory overload/meltdowns out of my control. there have been times where i unintentionally made customers upset because i’m “too” straightforward with them and they perceive it as rudeness, but masking for hours on end for the sake of customer connections scores is truly exhausting so i try to keep interactions as brief and concise as possible. it is what it is i guess, but i really do think that if starbucks cares so much about customer connections they need to stop pushing us to move so quickly with such a small staff. staff us properly and quit cutting labor hours for the sake of profit 🤨🤨

being on CS and/or doing preclose and not being able to focus on just one task and starting 5 million other tasks😭😭😭

I finally got neuro testing done in 2020. That’s after a lifetime of fighting with my brain. What I learned was that I have ADD (not the hyper bit) and…duh.
I also learned that my brain has a pretty powerful processor BUT it doesn’t have that much working storage. That means that I have to focus on one problem at a time, but I’m quite good at solving it.
Now, how does this relate to sbux?
When I was bar trained they were all up on sequencing. That doesn’t work for me. I need to focus on one, maybe two at a time. First is figuring out exactly what I’m dealing with. Then if there’s a steaming or shots delay, I’ll grab another one. But keeping 3-4 drinks in working memory…nope. I told them at the start that sequencing was not my jam. They said, we’ll that’s the way you do it. I said, ummm ok then.
It’s been 10 months. Still don’t do it. If they put me on bar during peak, I’ll always say “ok but just fyi, I won’t go fast enough for you”. Then they pull me off bar after a little while. : )
Point of all this is, stick up for your needs and how you work. It’ll make everyone happier…especially you.

I feel like completely the training modules took me so much longer to complete. My SM told me “you should not be taking that long”, which ig would be true if I didn’t have executive functioning issues. In general I am a slow learner, and I’m also the youngest person in my store so I feel like my SS and SM don’t think I’m capable of anything more than window for the most part.

Also, did anyone else avoid mentioning their disability when applying because of fears that you wouldn’t be hired? I am now regretting doing that.

I wish taking mental health days was more normalized!! :(( It's already hard getting out of bed, but going to a job where the customers treat you like garbage and there's loud noises everywhere and doing it for a week or two straight is super draining.

Even though it gets hectic, I would rather be on cold bar than drive thru. My auditory processing disorder can't keep up with drive thru half the time. :( It sucks, having to ask the customer to repeat their order because my brain is dumb, and then they get mad at me because my mind has to take a moment to process what they said.

I have a medical accommodation for 1 extra 10 minute break each shift. It has improved my workday drastically. Hoping sometime soon to ask for an accomodation to keep me off window. Im fast enough at bar and cleaning that I'm generally never put there anyway.

My audio processing issues have caused problems with being on register. I love talking to customers and schmoozing for some tips, but on this particular day it was very loud in the cafe. A customer was waiting for his drink at the counter. He said something so softly to me across the cafe and once i finally processed what it was, he accused me of mocking him. He asked for a sleeve but called it something strange. I repeated back what he said to confirm what he wanted.
I was traumatized for a few days after this, not wanting to interact with customers whatsoever.

I got hired around the start of the COVID pandemic so there were glass separator walls EVERYWHERE. I got trained for 2 weeks and 99% of that training was spent on the register. They showed me how to make one drink and back on the register I went. I tried to explain that I'm going to need more practice with making drinks since stress makes me forget things I learn and I need to learn muscle memory, but I was trained at a very slow store and my coworkers goofed off the whole time. By the time I got to my home store (which was the busiest in the district), I was totally useless on the bar so I was stuck on register the whole time.

Now, I've been in retail for a long time and know how to mask, but I would be at the verge of meltdown every shift because with that barrier between me and the customers along with the very loud espresso machines right next to me, I could not hear the goddang orders. I'd apologize and ask them to repeat it all the time. I was honestly starting to wonder if I was losing my hearing, but no, it was that I can't filter out voices when there are a billion other sounds around me.

Also, yeah, not knowing the drinks well didn't help me. People would ask for something and I'd have no idea how to type it into the register, so I'd ask the closest person next to me how to do it. No response. Ask the person at the ovens. No response. No response unless I caught someone walking by to go on a break or something. I was stuck hung at the register so many times while the line piled up, it was just total stress for me.

This isn't even scratching the surface of how much of a nightmare this job was, but I'm trying to limit this post to issues I haven't seen come up yet. The drive thru was also very bad for me, but at least I can fall back on the bullshit small talk topics I picked up as a cashier.

it’s so difficult to get through to some coworkers and higher-ups especially since such a big part of the job is connecting, my current SM is painfully NT and tells us to smile or connect and it makes me wanna pull my hair out. there’s nothing that makes socializing worse than forcing it, it’s awkward for everyone. i’m not going to force a connection because it’s insincere and horribly awkward. like i’ve brought up the issue of having a hard time socializing and faking emotions but it’s always “just try to be nice” or “don’t think too hard about it” like 😭 what. ah yes i would’ve never thought of that let me turn off my autism

I’m not formally diagnosed but very strongly believe I’m autistic, for me the biggest stressor/annoyance is being on DTO especially when it’s super busy and/or if I’m both DTO/DTR. Just dealing with talking to people through the shitty headsets is bad enough, then add on to that if someone is speaking quietly/from the passenger seat/or has an accent ( i absolutely hate that this is something that frustrates me because I am so incredibly happy for anyone learning English/English isn’t a first language, but then not being able to understand them is so stressful). Plus there’s the extra noise from the blenders which are right behind where DTO is, the fans being on for the drive thru, and then other people talking behind me or worse over the headset. I’ve been so close to snapping at my fellow partners to just shut up. Then there’s the sensory issue of the headsets never quite staying on my head well enough as I grow out my hair, making my hair touch my face more some days, and then for me I have the added issue of being frequently misgendered on DTO. The sucky thing is I’m very good at memorizing people’s orders and recognizing their faces and/or voices so I tend to get put on DTO often since I do well with knowing customers which makes them happy and helps our scores. So it’s like I can ask to not be on DTO, but then I also feel like I’m good at it, so would rather be on it then hearing other people struggle to get orders that I already know and could have put in faster.

being on dt bar makes me panic. it moves too fast for me to keep up. I get super flustered and make mistakes. I can be there when it's not busy. I also cannot solo. I can't sequence when I'm stressed. but I'm always soloing for some reason. I just transferred stores, which makes it worse. they don't even ask me where I'm comfortable, they just tell me where to go and let me flounder.

also the headsets being push to talk really fucks with me. how do you expect me to ask for restock or smth while making drinks but I have to stop what im doing to hold a button?

Just want to put out there for all my fellow audio processing issue baristas that noise cancelling headsets do exist! You will have to go through all the official channels and get a medical accommodation (so you will need a doctor who will back you up). I haven't done it myself, but I'm definitely thinking about it.......

They always make me do drive and bathrooms cuz I’m the only one who never complains about anything.

I'm autistic and I've developed a really good customer service mask over the years, especially five years at the bux and all the time people are always complimenting me on my "energy" and asking me how I do it and one of this days I'm gonna crack and just respond "thanks, I'm autistic". My bubbly work persona comes at a price though as I have very little social energy for my personal life after. While thankfully all my friends are ND and understand, I wish I had more energy to spend time with them.

Adhd green bean barista here currently struggling to do anything outside of work. After work I can’t drag myself out of bed I feel glued to the bed and anytime I get up to do something I’m fighting the thoughts to get back into bed :(

Agree with the person who said they’d prefer a whole day on bar over everything (actually got to do this today and it was great). Front/warming is also okay, but I hate drive and CS. The pressure for customer connection on window stresses me so much because I know most of these people just want to get their coffee and leave, and I’m bad at small talk anyway. And CS stresses me out because my store usually isn’t that busy, meaning everyone has time to do small chores here and there, so there’s not much left to do. Which may sound nice, but I get stressed if I can’t do what’s already on the list and don’t have specific instructions otherwise.

This is just a little one but for some reason our headsets have started echoing ever so slightly the last couple days and it's a goddamn sensory nightmare. If it's not fixed before the next time I'm planted somewhere that I need it, I'm chucking the fucker.

Sensory nightmares in general. I used to work for the Pink and Orange, got out of the game for about a year, and returned to the siren, and I forgot how much I really, really hate being sticky.

I only started about six or seven weeks ago, but leaving the milk pitchers or blenders to keep rinsing for several minutes overstimulates the hell out of me. I can’t deal with the loud running water

1. after six hours my energy to mask is all used up and my ability to control tone of voice is gone, for the next two hours i have to put in a ridiculous amount of effort to not come across either monotone or annoyed/blunt when i'm not actually annoyed... 2. i hate having to repeat myself because talking and tone control takes so much energy. drives me insane and unfortunately have to do that a lot on register because custies don't actually listen when cashiers speak. 3. (i currently work in a tarbux) my manager once tried to remove me from starbucks permanently because i can't make eye contact and have a difficult time starting conversation with customers, even though our starbucks district managers have all told him that i do a wonderful job on register + with guest connections despite my difficulties... he was convinced our low connection scores were my fault because of my neurodivergency even though we all knew it was one specific barista who would argue, swear, and insult customers daily, and got customer complaints every week about her specifically. 4. i also cannot make drinks and talk at the same time. i can multitask but not with speaking. so i can't talk to customers while making a drink or i will have to remake it five times before it comes out right. 5. the worst was training. the other baristas were all so frustrated with me when i was new because i was "too slow", didn't remember enough immediately, and couldn't figure out things that are supposedly "obvious" and as such weren't explained to me, but expected of me to know. 6. other baristas acting like if you have a neurodivergency or mental illness that needs any kind of reasonable accommodation then you don't deserve to be a barista 😪😪😪

My coworkers interpret all of my actions as more aggressive/excited than I mean them and I don’t know how to feel abt that. I think it’s obvious I’m diff from them even tho they love and appreciate me. It’s just hard to feel so different all the time

My customers seem to like me but I feel like they think they can walk all over me and get upset when I’m like. No I am a person with only two hands and not a robot, although that’s likely bc of the culture rather than just my ND.

I like the fast pace, but I’m often scrambled when I have to do other positions than bar especially customer facing ones or cs which can require a lot of nuance. Gratefully I have a very helpful team. The stress of having to be “normal” all day does lead to me being a homebody after cause everything else is just. A lot after all that

I wanna know how tf to get in touch with the disability network. Would love to be involved. I still have a message on the portal I sent in 2017 with nothing but crickets.
I've also tried the current emails and nothing. I often feel alone a stupid. I'd love to network.

I get so overstimulated at work like. every day. but my co workers are so understanding and if they see me struggling with being overstimulated they'll put my on support to do cleaning tasks. I love my co workers will all my heart fr fr

anytime i’m on bar EVER i just wanna cry, i’d rather be cleaning on cs or even drive. also soloing DTO/DTR and running to handle my own warming always really makes me anxious bc i still have to make sure things are happening by the time margin and also my customer connection score stays up.

also this labor cut is slowly killing my store but it’s fine everything is totally fine 👍🏼 (this last bit is sarcasm)

I tell everyone the wrong price as I mix up numbers, I also struggle reading and spelling names. I am dyslexic.

as a neurodovergent green bean who doesn't get enough time on bar, I feel like I mostly struggle with handling cash register and having to deal with making conversations, remembering peoples order, running ovens, and doing all the drip and teas. It just all seems so overwhelming that I just want to crawl in a small dark room and be alone for a long while. The day to day customer interactions def burn me out.

i so so hate when cstomers just stand right at the bar or handoff plane and stare as i make every drink that's ahead of them in line, or even if they're just on their phone like step back at least! i feel so observed i need that extra bit of personal space

we're a cafe only store and personally even if I'm in a hurry i would think it courteous and respectful to just find a seat while you wait instead of all crowding around and watching the baristas like it's television urghhhh make me so frustrated

"but im in a hurry" then don't go to Starbucks! if you're annoyed by the line... yore part of the line!! its so much faster cheaper easier fewer headaches to simply make your coffee at home or better yet don't develop a caffeine/sugar dependency i swear i enable so many poor souls who come in daily for their wacky ass drinks

When I still worked at the siren I stupidly left a deposit under the keyboard twice, once during Christmas day (my first shift as Shift Sup) and another on a shot handed hectic day. The thinking was that if the deposit couldn’t be seen, it wouldn’t get taken in the two seconds I went to get something. 🤦🏻‍♀️ Led to an easy firing when I accidentally left a $20 in the black box two separate times. 🥲 fml.

My manager makes me feel like an absolute dumbass honestly. Massive ADHD and my manager today made me do literally trash, cold bar, POS, and CS together at the same time, which I could NOT keep track of at all. She got pissed at me for not doing shit and doing shit wrong when I had to do 4 different things.

Not to mention she plays favorites and absolutely shits on us all and I’ve had multiple breakdowns and even cried on the floor multiple times because of her. I don’t take that shit as easy as everyone else and it pisses me off that she hounds on me it for no fucking reason.

I also stutter a lot, it’s a big issue for me, and my manager doesn’t care when I’m uncomfortable being on drive thru sometimes. I literally can’t say words sometimes and other times I stammer a word like 5-6 times and she just thinks I’m dumb bc of it. I can’t yell out “welcome in” bc W is one of my sounds/letters I have issues with and she always goes off on me not saying it when raising my voice and saying “welcome in” isn’t something I can’t do, even if I try.

She also passive aggressively said I “work with my head down” multiple times in our meeting and like?? Do you really have to call me out on getting in my zone? I hyperfocus on my shit that’s the only way I get shit done in time.

Sensory issues, general anxiety, stuttering, useless “connecting with customers” when even they get weirded out by it, all that. It pisses me off.

As a shift doing any food pull/order/downstocking BOH is pure misery. My sensory issues are awful with opening up & the scraping sound of cardboard boxes. I also have to wet my hands before touching a dry paper towel or dry rag. It feels like my hands are super dry & velcro-y (from the sanitizer, bleach, dishwashing frequently) and god touching those rags with dry dry hands are sooooo disgusting.

our store used to have an overnight shift and I swear to god heaven was real

i hate window so so so so so much. i tell my shift supervisors this and they know i hate it but i feel like they don’t understand how much i actually do. they still put me on sometimes and i understand that their plans can’t center around my needs but i wish it was accommodated especially since i also have audio processing disorder

Borderline and autistic here. I absolutely hate window but our store is usually understaffed so Its full drive thru all the people there know my issues n don't force me to make customer connections thankfully. They usually have me on bar/ full bar or ovens. I feel like I leave work angry bc of all the sensory overload. And I also dispense drive thru bc of the misgendering and I'd rather do absolutely anything else besides cs if I'm cs idk what to even do I just start doing break down stuff 😭

I have severe anxiety and a massive fear of bees. Of course this fall a hornet got into the store through the drive thru window and I had a huge panic attack and started crying and just ran into the back and the shift was very cool about it and let me take an extra 10 to just calm down in the back but some of the other baristas were laughing and making fun of me because “it’s just a bee it’s not doing anything” and “aren’t you like 25?” It was a horrible experience and made the rest of my shift so frustrating

I’m always stuck on drive soloing bc it’s my specialty. My other one is bar and drink standards but I’m never given the opportunity bc I’m too good at solo drive. My only bar time is when I borrow to stores, and my promotion opportunity in store has been squashed bc I’m neurodivergent.

customers who are particularly angry WILL make me cry and i get so jumpy whenever someone seems short with me when im on till now because i’m scared they’ll yell at me. i’m autistic and have social anxiety and i think i’m okay with customer connections but i seem to get so many problem customers and i just shut down completely like from 0 to full panic attack. today i got screamed at twice and tapped out. i don’t want to seem unwilling to do till but till at any time is 10x more stressful than bar on a saturday holiday peak has ever been