Starbucks Archives - Page 3 of 8 - I Hate Working In Retail

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How Starbucks Came Up With Their Logo

Sourced from ladbible.com

 

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19 Things You Didn’t Know About Being A Starbucks Barista

starbucks, coffee

19. You Gain Weight

starbucks, coffee, starbucks food

instagram.com/childlikewonders

Most people would think all those healthy protein plates and snacks Starbucks sells would prevent this from happening to the employees, but nope — you’re far more likely to snack on the cookies and pastries, in addition to the 800-calorie drinks you make yourself throughout the day.

18. Everybody Assumes You’re A Failure

Sue Bird, starbucks coffee, barista
Two of my sources for this article have college degrees, yet everybody assumes they’re high school dropouts working at Starbucks as a last resort. As a barista, people feel they can mistreat you, offer unwarranted career advice or just plain insult you. I’d like to see somebody try that on a barista with a black apron.

17. One Day, You Just Kind Of Know How To Make Everything

starbucks, tea latte, coffee

Learning the drink menu at Starbucks is an instant occurrence. First, you’re struggling to remember ingredients and directions. Then, you’re an expert. It just sort of happens.

16. There Really Is No Secret Menu (But You’re Expected To Know It Anyway)

secret menu, starbucks, coffee, s'mores

There is no official Captain Crunch or Cotton Candy or S’mores frappuccino, but god help you if you don’t know it. Here’s a tip for the non-baristas out there who want a fancy nonexistent drink: have the Pinterest ingredients list ready.

15. Your Power Is Fickle

dogs, dogs in clothes, starbucks, coffee

Is there a nice customer with an adorable, friendly dog? Sure, dogs are allowed in the store! Is there a rude person demanding extra shots? They’ll have to pay for it when polite regulars get them free.

14. Getting Robbed Isn’t The Worst Thing That Can Happen

robbery, starbucks

Robberies do happen, but your responsibility is to just hand over the money, get them out of there, then call the cops. No heroics and no stalling. Whatever is in the till is negligible to the billion-dollar corporation that is Starbucks. Your life and the lives of your customers aren’t.

13. The Harassment and Discrimination Is

zack and miri, seth rogen, craig robinson

Starbucks baristas get mistreated by customers. A lot. If you’re not a straight, white male, chances are you’ve been called slurs, been hit on and been insulted. Some of the cases I’ve seen include an Asian woman getting bowed to by customers who thought it was funny, a long-haired man being called a homophobic slur, and Hispanic baristas having racial epithets thrown at them.

12. You Learn To Love and Hate Customers Based On Their Drinks

scarlet johansson, starbucks, coffee, ghost world

As a barista, you will have regulars. You will love them and hate them based on not only how they treat you, but on what they order. No foam latte John? Easy to make, love him. No-ice, no-water iced tea, shaken with ice and 20 packets of agave honey? What a horrible person, I’m pretty sure nobody loves her.

11. You Learn How to Speak Starbucks

speak starbucks

You’ll realize that a lot of people don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to what they want. People will say caramel cappuccino, but you know they’re after a frappuccino. People will order drinks from the McDonald’s menu or Coffee Bean, but you know what they mean. People will also try to use fancy coffee terms, but you know their dry latte is really just a cappuccino. You learn how to translate what people say into what they want.

10. Drawing On The Chalkboard Is The Best Part Of Your Day

starbucks, chalkboard art

Apart from quitting time, the moments you’re allowed to be creative on the chalkboard can make your day. Under the guise of completing complicated drawings, you can avoid the rude customers and have a moment to yourself; that is, until your boss yells at you to come help with the rush.

9. You Will Always Smell Like Coffee

starbucks partners, starbucks employees

You better love the smell of fresh roasted coffee, because you will smell like it. People will compliment you on your perfume or lotion, and when they ask you what it is, you get to say “Eau de Starbucks.”

8. You Have To Deal With Some Hardcore Fanatics

sterling silver card, starbucks gift card

That is an image of a jewelry-grade, sterling silver Starbucks card that costs $200. You’ll probably never see one in real life as a barista, but they exist for a reason: people can be insanely fanatical about their Starbucks. You will see the same customer three times a day, ordering the same thing. Baristas have even seen customers get physically violent over their drinks (“what do you mean I can’t have a pumpkin spice latte in Spring?!”).

7. And Hardcore Idiots

stupid customers, dumb customers

It is a common occurrence at Starbucks for people to order their drinks, then walk out and forget them. People will order a Venti whole milk caramel frappuccino with extra caramel, but ask for no whipped cream because it’s fattening. This image is from an actual return made by a Starbucks partner. People can really be dumb sometimes.

6. If You Run Out Of Supplies, You Have To Go Get More

out of milk, milk run, grocery shopping

Did your store somehow run out of milk? You’ll have to run to the closest grocery store and stock up. Run out of lids? You’ll be sent to the closest Starbucks to steal some of theirs. It rarely happens, but when it does, you better hope you have a car.

5. The Different-Colored Aprons Have Significance

coffee master, starbucks, coffee

The green apron means you work at Starbucks. The red apron means you work at Starbucks and it’s the holidays. The black apron? That means you’ve dedicated years of your life to studying coffee, attending special seminars and training. Only the Coffee Masters get to wear the black apron.

4. You Get Free Stuff. A Lot.

starbucks, starbucks cookies

You get bags of leftover pastries and protein plates, cakes and so much more as they reach the end of their shelf life. Your home is a collection of delicacies — and you eat all of it.

3. You Have To Make The Weirdest, Most Disgusting Drinks

gross starbucks drink, starbucks order

Then you have to watch people drink them. Happily. This image? That many pumps would be saccharine. Customers would pick a drink because it has a low calorie count, then overload it with pumps of sweetener and flavor. You made it, and that means you know just how gross it is.

2. Your Friends and Family Try To Use You For Free Drinks

starbucks text message,

Friends will drop in to your store, pretending just to say hi, but they’re really after a free latte. Your mum expects you to bring home a frappuccino for her at the end of the day. People get used to there being an assortment of Starbucks pastries at your house and come over for the pecan tarts. That said, they’re your friends and family; you don’t mind as long as they don’t abuse the privilege.

1. You Make Incredible Friends

starbucks partners, starbucks friends, starbucks employees

You may hate the job, but you’re hating it with a couple other people you see almost daily. This job forges strong friendships as you face creeps, crazies, fanatics and idiots — together! These are people who understand your pain and your struggles, and chances are that’s a strong foundation for a beautiful friendship.

 

Sourced from rantlifestyle.com

 

 

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Clopening at Starbucks: A Baristas Most Dreaded Shift

Coping with Clopening: Retail Worker’s Most Dreaded Shift
by Liberté Locke

I drag my broken jittery body home through the maze of late night construction New York City subways. I finally reach my quiet apartment where the only ones up are our three cats screaming for food and persistently walking just where I’m trying to walk. Tonight I manage to not step on them but usually, in this state, I can’t help it. I apologize with head-pettings and catnip. I feed the cats and then remember that I spent my entire lunch break at work chain smoking away that last extremely rude customer I had before clocking for my break instead of eating the ramen noodles that I brought. I open the fridge and realize that every meal possible would take way more work than I have in me so I close the door.

I go to the bathroom and while peeing set my alarm on my phone. This is a ritual. I’ve learned in the past that it is completely possible after a closing shift that I may just fall asleep in the bathroom. And if not the bathroom, maybe while sitting up trying to eat a late meal or laying on the couch watching tv. So setting my alarm as soon as I get home is crucial. Being late to work when I’m targeted by management (because of being a union organizer) is not an option, ever.

I’m awake enough from all the caffeine I consumed at my job, Starbucks, that I don’t fall asleep in the bathroom but I do spend ten minutes fumbling brainlessly through the clean laundry I didn’t have time to put up. I’m looking for something loose to sleep in – it takes so long because twice I forget entirely why I’m digging through the bag and I start putting laundry up thinking that is what I what I meant to be doing. I then suddenly stop, thinking to myself, “it’s too late for this, I’m exhausted. Go to bed. Go to bed.” I finally change and go into the living room to watch tv. I already know that going straight to bed, no matter how tired I am, won’t work. I have to turn off my brain first. Without some distraction my brain will just fill will endless To-Do lists. My responsibilities pile up. All the things I need to get done combine with what I’d like to get done. I’m filled with regret for what I was unable to get done with my day because of having work and then being too exhausted to do anything else. I’m so tired that petty concerns really consume me. I think and re-think about Facebook status updates to reflect my exhaustion and busyness just praying that all the crucial folks will see it and realize why I haven’t returned their phone calls, emails, or finished my deadlines for different projects. These lists go on and on but I’m too tired to even hold a pen to write the lists down. I stare at the tv, my eyes blurring and I recite in my head, before the characters even say it, the various lines for that episode of the Simpsons. In my years of sleepless nights, I’m certain I’ve memorized the majority of the series. I still haven’t learned Spanish but I can recite an entire animated TV show. This is what this job does to me. I’m awake but unable to be productive. My time is not my own. I’m clocked out, at home, supposedly on my own time but I’m just in and out of consciousness. In between making lists and reciting the Simpsons I’m dwelling on fucked up interactions with customers. I’m wondering if that coworker was right about the company changing the amount of green tea powder we put into Green Tea Lattes. I’m concerned that when I left the store I forgot to restock the straws at the handoff plane. After about an hour of this I go on Facebook on my phone, which I’m holding with my hand resting on the bed because I can’t bare to lift it. I scroll through, beating myself up because I only have the energy to hit “like” but not really comment on my friends’pages even when people are really considerate and write on mine often. Then I think I’m too hard on myself but dismiss that and feel bad again. The caffeine from work, the adrenaline from the fast-paced job, the exhaustion of my body and mind, with the lack of good nutrition – I’m spent. I look at the time and realize I have 3 hours before I have to get up, look presentable, get on the train and head to another shift of the same rush, rush, rush of the day before. I have what retail workers dread the most – a clopening. I just closed the store and have to return to work to open the store tomorrow. This is very common in the retail world. Where computers jumble workers like numbers and generate schedules without a concern for the humans involved. This is where bosses see us as machines. Plug us into whatever shift they’d like without the slightest consideration. I realize that if I don’t pass out this minute then I’ll be missing even more sleep. I need to sleep immediately but years ago I knew that sleeping pills would not be useful. You need to “dedicate a full night of sleep” claims the label and I have 3 hours. I reach for many a baristas’ sleep aid – a pipe loaded with weed. Weed’s supposed to be recreational but in this context it’s truly medicinal. I smoke and pass out. I wake up dehydrated, probably from smoking and so much coffee. I press snooze up until I know I have to haul ass to get out the door. I run to the train, cram into it, stand for a hour of transit and just when my knees feel like they will give out – ding, and the train doors open at my stop for work. I stumble out, stepping on some poor woman’s foot and my attempt to apologize comes out almost a whisper, raspy and inaudible. I look at the doors to my job and curse myself for not getting up early enough to have coffee before starting my shift.

I think is this for real? Is this my life? I’ve been a barista for nearly six years and have known hundreds of baristas. My story is extremely common and unites many of us. We know that we are paid from the time we clock in till the time we clock out. Wage theft, in the traditional sense, is not usually a problem at this large public company. Generally we’re paid for the time we clock, however I can’t help but feel like my traveling to work, the time and money it takes to acquire my uniform and keep it clean, the money I spend on weed just to bring me down from the caffeine I ingest to be alert in a job where burns, slips, and falls are common – that money should be reimbursed. I feel like I can’t be productive. All I got done in the evening, on my own time, was feeding my cats and I had considered skipping it out of effort. I can’t help but know that my time is not my own. These are the hours I work unpaid. My waking, productive hours are owned and controlled by the bosses that in return give me my paycheck while I’ve helped create a huge profit for my employer. My exhausted, useless, painful hours surrounding my shifts are on the house, for free, and that’s the time I feel costs me the most.

We are not machines. Treating us like machines only makes us break down. Sleep deprivation is widespread in my field. Lack of restful sleep contributes to depression and bad health. When we take a job we’re aware of certain sacrifices of time and swallowing our pride time and again in the face of rude customers and demanding management. What few focus on is all the other sacrifices we make when sacrificing our time. I want so desperately to have control over my own labor. These are my skills, I’ve honed them. This is my body, I’m responsible for it. Given those two things I can’t understand why the large profits go to bosses living in luxury and the pain, effort, and sacrifice is coming from those in poverty that already have to do everything else for themselves on top of going to work.

Yes, Howard Schultz – the CEO of Starbucks – must be a pretty busy person. However, I doubt he’s a have to work till 2am, rush home to haul laundry to a public 24-hr Laundromat in order to have clean apron for the next morning shift, feed animals, feed children, clean house, run errands, cook your own food, help out your neighbor, work two underpaid jobs, and then truly not know the next time you’ll be able to get a full night’s sleep kind of busy person. Wealthy people hire working people to do all their errands. They hire us to make their money and hire us to keep them comfortable while we’re making them their money. Yet when I speak openly about needing weed to sleep so I can return to work after closing it conjures thoughts of laziness. “Those poor people always using drugs.” I use my union more than I use drugs. I don’t know how worse off I’d be if I never learned to fight back at work. Clopenings are common place for many people but because of my organizing a clopening is rare. Bosses know we hate and resent being scheduled for one. They try to appease me from time to time but because it’s not about me but about all workers, I get just as riled up when I learn my coworkers must clopen. A couple days after a coworker works a clopen I’ll call them and say, “you know, we were never meant to live this way.

Sourced from recomposition.com