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Starbucks Baristas: The daily grind

Full History - 2022 - 12 - 10 - ID#zibfig
7
New Managers Causing Frustration (Trenta Rant) (self.starbucksbaristas)
submitted by Ew_Oxygen1124
Advice Needed/Encouraged PLEASE.

Our SM recently stepped out and we've been sent two new SMs as a replacement (from what I've heard, one of them is temporary and is being trained to manage at our store or something and will be moving on to her own store in a couple of months or something, as you'll find with this story, getting any information about anything is really difficult and everything has been kept very hush-hush/need-to-know). They both finished their transition last week (with last Saturday being the old SM's last day) but the two new managers have been in charge of scheduling throughout their training/transitional period.

In order to provide some context, I need to work approximately 23 hours a week or 46 hours each pay cycle to make my portion of the rent each month, pay utilities, and pay for gas and car insurance (no car payment, the car is paid off), but since the new management has been in charge of scheduling, I've been getting 13 and 14 hour work weeks. Not okay. I am a full-time employee, and my availability is 5 days a week, 5 AM-6 PM, with some flexibility in there. There is absolutely no reason I should only be scheduled two out of the five days I'm available every week. But the management is new, they haven't gotten a full lay of the land or gotten to know each of the partners personally yet, so I'm more than willing to give them some grace and openly communicate with them about my needs. So, I shot one of my managers a text saying that if I don't receive more hours, I may not be able to pay my rent and that I understand the store had labor requirements/limits and I'm open to having a discussion about it when she has the time.

She leaves me on read.

For days.

I'm not the type to gossip amongst my coworkers, I am very much the type of person who believes that if there's a problem, it won't get solved if we don't find the root of it and look for a solution, but I asked some of my coworkers if they were experiencing hour cuts as well, most of them said yes. I asked them if they'd reached out to the same manager I had about the issue (remember, there are two of them sort of co-leading, and the one I reached out to has been with us for a little bit longer) and had a similar experience. Every one of them told me the same thing: Sent a long-winded but friendly text expressing concerns about hours only to be left on read for days on end and the manager never approached them about it in person, and when they brought it up to her in person, she would make an excuse like "oh I never responded so that I would remember to talk to you about it."

.....okay, definitely not off to a great start, but it's the first week. Then, while out grocery shopping with my partner for my new apartment that I'm wondering if I'm still going to be able to afford, I get a call from another coworker, asking about the new management, and their attitudes toward some of the staff, which is a whole other can of worms I won't open here. She goes on to explain that she approached the same manager about adjusting her availability to accommodate a second job. The manager basically tells her no, and that she is under no obligation to accommodate her request, but also will not give my coworker the full-time hours that she needs to live off of.

I don't really know where to go from here. I feel like maybe because she's new, this manager is on some kind of power trip? But clearly, my giving her grace and trying to be patient and understanding is going to waste but I don't know where to go from here. I'm seriously worried about the stability of my housing because my hours and consistent scheduling had never been an issue until they showed up and now suddenly everything's cut almost in half. Should I contact my DM? I'm planning on transferring to a store closer to my new apartment anyway, but I don't know what to do in the meantime and I don't want to leave my partners hanging, because if enough of us say something I feel like something will get done about it. Help.
icedcoffeenoclassic 3 points 7m ago
Uh so I had a little nerdy session with my store manager and she basically shows me what she does on admin day.

So apparently the scheduling app approximates the numbers of labor hours a store would get based on its projected customers. And the number is usually very off (like ~30-40 hours difference).

The SM’s responsibility is to schedule within OR below that hours only. The total amt of transaction alongside with all the customer connection score will then gain the store more labor hours. With that being said, if the scheduled hours goes above the projected labor hours, sm gets the store in trouble because for the following week’s schedule, the labor hours will be cut even more to compensate for the hours that they go over.

So with new SM, they would literally adhere to the numbers of hours given in the system, which are entirely off compared to the actual volume of customers & business demand. It’s not until they are at that store for a while and “know their business,” meaning that they get a hold of the customer volumes and how many labor hours should be schedule during certain time of the day, then they can write a perfect schedule.

For my own SM to write a perfect schedule, she would always have to go over the given labor hours and BE CERTAIN that the store will make enough money to cover the hours difference.

TL;DR (but I think you should): New SM doesn’t know your store business demand, and they are given a stupid fixed number of hours that is usually severely off, and they are only doing their job of not going over that number.
Ew_Oxygen1124 [OP] 4 points 7m ago
That makes a lot of sense and I figured she was doing something along those lines. If she had explained that to me I wouldn’t be upset, I’m more frustrated with the lack of communication/ignoring my very real concerns :/
icedcoffeenoclassic 2 points 7m ago
Oh yeah so a lot of new SM do it because yk.. it’s in their job description, but really, you kind of have to outsmart the system on a weekly basis. I suggest you talk to the SM to look at old schedules and keep scheduling based off of that, idk just a suggestion
Ew_Oxygen1124 [OP] 1 points 7m ago
That’s fair, I guess I keep trying to talk to her and if it’s via text I get no response and if it’s in person she blows me off and then leaves before my shift is over so I don’t get a chance to sit down with her and it sucks. Thank you so much for your insight though ❤️
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