Is it just me or did the quality of the baristas at Starbucks take a serious nosedive?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
I'm in central DC and at the locations I go to it is definitely this. They are working very quickly, but they are taking orders as they come and I suspect people may all just be selecting ASAP on online orders and there is no distinguishing between online and in person orders. I've had to wait 20+ minutes for an order like, "venti black iced tea" that should be a really quick pour while ther are 20-30 orders sitting out to be picked up during that 20+ min time. I think they're crushed by these mobile and delivery orders and haven't worked out how to streamline that experience for everyone. (And I bet these people leaving their orders sitting for 20, 20, 40+ minutes think their drinks suck too?) |
Anonymous
So I'm not a big Starbucks person and prefer independent coffee shops and I think OP is expecting too much, but to be fair to them as a corporation, I think Starbucks has always been one of the few big low bar to entry places that has offered things like healthcare and tuition reimbursement to their full time employees in a job type where that is not the norm. They have not assumed everyone is a teen working for prom dress cash. Not saying they're virtuous, but they've been ahead of the low bar curve on not being explicitly exploitative. |
Anonymous
+1 When I got my first “real job” after college making $25K a year, into a house with four other roommates, one of those roommates was in grad school and working at Starbucks part time which gave her health insurance, which was incredible at the time (mid-1990s.) I would also like to add that while Starbucks is making national news for unionizing workers at a record clip, that has nothing to do with OP’s post as none of the unionized Starbucks are anywhere near here. |
Anonymous
$15 an hour is minimum wage and people rarely tip. My son averages $1 a day in tips. Starbucks has no mechanism for adding tips to credit cards and most people don’t have cash. |
Anonymous
Then why are these places open during school hours? |
Anonymous
|
I worked for Starbucks for about 4 years. It's definitely not the worst job I've ever had, but
-I think part of the reason SB offers such generous benefits is because they hire people who rarely use the benefits. I had SB insurance that I paid for but I never used it. I was 22 and healthy. -When our store wasn't making enough money, the regional office would cut our overall staff hours, so, for example, if we closed at 9:00, we all had to clock out by 9:30 and could not deep clean. There are crews who won't clean when they have time, but often workers are just not allowed the time to clean -as the pp said, we did all of our cleaning and sometimes it was disgusting -We had to listen to mandatory anti-union voicemails -we would get competing non-negotiables (you always need at least two partners in the store/you can only have this many overall staff hours) and knew that we could get fired if we broke one even though it just wasn't possible to meet the requirements -I saw people get pushed out because they became too expensive or spoke up too much (I overheard a conversation with corporate about whether a longtime partner was part of a protected class, and he was not and got fired that day) -customers. Some are great some are not. I worked for SB after the 3 partners were murdered in the georgetown store. About a week later someone forgot to lock the door when we were taking the trash out in the morning. A man came barging in to our store (chairs still on tables only a few lights on). I was so scared and told him "we aren't open, you can't be in here!" and he just started screaming at me. So many customer incidents (if you are two decades or more older than your barista, please don't ask them out. They aren't into you, they are just being nice as is required by the job.) but that was the scariest |
Anonymous
| What makes a "quality" barista at Starbucks? Curious.. |
Anonymous
all those retirees, although I guess if they're working at Starbucks, they're not retirees anymore, they're just poor. |
Anonymous
| Starbucks has become the McDonald’s of coffee. It’s cheap and the staff is underpaid. |
Anonymous
|
The other day, I was charged a 20% service fee at a restaurant so the staff can earn livable wages. I was happy to pay it.
What does Starbucks do to help with livable wages? They sell burnt coffee that they cover up with sugar. They work hard to prevent unions. |
Anonymous
You can order coffee without the sugar and add it yourself? |
Anonymous
I like a little vanilla flavor but even asking for a half pump, they always add a ton and it's always cloying sweet. Local coffee shops do this simple thing of making a flavored coffee much better. |
Anonymous
Hmmm... a living wage. So how much should baristas earn for their work? Should they be paid as much as or more than elementary school teachers? What about social workers? Dental hygienists? Homecare nurses? Should we pay baristas $25 an hour? I do not know the right answer, but I wonder if you have opinions on how much food service industry workers should earn. Especially compared to other jobs. |
Anonymous
Why don’t you get a part time job there for a while and try it? Honestly the divide between people who worked service jobs and people who did not is a gulf. People who haven’t worked service jobs have a lot of trouble letting go things about service they’ve received, as if you don’t see these people as human on some level. |
Anonymous
Yes. The answer is yes. |