What prompts someone to act like this? (Stealing someone else's Starbucks order)

[Anonymous]

I’ve waited 20 minutes in person because of a backlog of mobile orders. I don’t think it’s right she took your food, but they really need to sequence things better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do use the online ordering on occasion. Yet, many times I’ve been in a work situation where the person leading the meeting/training says they’ll call a break at a good stopping point rather than a set time. We then adjourn for 15. I once walked into an EMPTY Starbucks and ordered and was still late returning to my meeting next door.

People who’s jobs/daily routines are car dependent also get hosed by mobile ordering. When driving point-to-point, we don’t always know how much extra time we have to stop, and we can’t always pull over and use our phones to pre-order.

Then there are people who do not have or prefer not to use smartphone apps. Retailers certainly use apps for data collection, and some people prefer to limit that.

+1 on apps. I prefer not to keep extraneous apps on my phone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So I'm honestly just fascinated by what it takes for someone to get to the point where they're willing to do this.

A couple days ago, I was picking up a mobile order for DH, DD, and me. We were on our way to DD's practice on a Saturday morning and DD and DH were waiting in the car while I ran into Starbucks.

Anyway, the barista went to hand me a bag with a bagel and cream cheese in it. The barista called out my name and I went to take it. Before I could grab it, a woman literally took it from right in front of me and said, "This is mine now. I've been waiting." Then she walked straight out with the bagel and cream cheese.

The barista, a few others who saw it, and I were incredulous. The barista made me another bagel and I went on my way, but I remain just amazed at how someone can do that. I'm not really upset by it, more just flummoxed.

What has to happen in someone's life to lead them to the point where they're willing to literally grab someone's order and walk out with it?

Well I just had an identity thief use my information to go on a shopping spree, buy a cellphone, and try to take out five credit cards in my name -- people act this way because the world is full of a**holes who only care about themselves.

[Anonymous]

If you did a mobile order by name how did the person waiting know what you had? Or did she just grab a stranger’s random bag of food hoping she’d get something she liked?

I smell a troll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are all the details necessary for the story?

+1
It was Saturday, we were going to practice, I was picking up an order for all 3 of us, they were in the car.....

Literally you haven't left out any details that OP did, so I fail to see your point here.

Huh? The point is that none of those details were at all necessary. This post could’ve been two sentences.

[Anonymous]

I find Starbucks service to be really blacking, even though I only go there a few times a year my order always gets messed up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would never do this myself, and I would react in much the same way as the OP.

I DO understand the motivation. The Starbucks mobile ordering system has made in-store ordering a sh*tshow. When transacting as a walk-up customer I’ve waited as long as 15 minutes for my order to come out. With time spent in line, I can wait around longer than I spend consuming my food. I think this customer was trying to express to the employees that they aren’t doing a good job of balancing the onslaught of mobile orders against the people who are right in front of them. However, most rational people understand that’s a corporate policy, staffing, and technology issue, not a choice the baristas are making.

Mobile ordering, Uber eats, grub hub, etc has ruined the experience for me at a few of our favorite local restaurants (We are in OT) for the reason stated above. There seems to no limit on the number of online and mobile orders people can place and it exponentially increases the number of orders a kitchen has to make without increasing the size and staff of the same kitchen. I was at Momo Sushi the other day, a place I’ve been going to since it opened 15 years ago. We love that place. But the insane amount of delivery drivers waiting for their order to be finished was incredible. It took forever to get our order, same order as always and it wasn’t even a full restaurant. As an in person customer, you’re now competing for service with an unlimited number of people ordering online. Same problem at M2M in Del Ray, especially if a large group (like an office) has placed an order together.

Ok, well that's an issue with the restaurant not sufficiently controlling how many people order online. It's not an inherent problem with online ordering.

NP here, I agree with you but I would be curious if there is a limit for Starbucks and other restaurants for online ordering, especially when there are multiple channels. Sure you probably can help it with a Starbucks app algorithm for the estimated wait time, more wait if many orders come in together but what about the other third party delivery services. How can they control all of them at once? What seemed like a super convenient way to have less people wait in line has turned some places, like Starbucks but other restaurants as well, into a completely different waiting experience as it was just a few years ago. OP initially asked what would motivate someone to do this. Well a few posters have answered: waiting too long in person for an order that gets stuck behind invisible people online orders. So what if you ordered first, other people left their house and were in person first. Who wins here?’ I don’t know.

I’ve definitely ordered online while waiting in line after seeing how long the in person line was (at Shake Shack a few times). It was pretty incredible how I was able to just jump in front of all the people via the app right there.

This is because people are terrible at ordering. They need to make a decision and apparently this decision will make or break the rest of the day, month or year.

[Anonymous]

You know there's a whole Instagram dedicated to a guy who does this for fun right?

[Anonymous]

I've noticed more take-out places (not Starbucks in particular.. I dont' go there much) have one or two people in the back dedicated just to preparing online orders. This way, the in-store orders don't get stuck behind all those -- they get made in parallel. STarbucks should do that if they arne't already.

[Anonymous]

For the life of me I cannot understand this Starbucks obsession people have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would never do this myself, and I would react in much the same way as the OP.

I DO understand the motivation. The Starbucks mobile ordering system has made in-store ordering a sh*tshow. When transacting as a walk-up customer I’ve waited as long as 15 minutes for my order to come out. With time spent in line, I can wait around longer than I spend consuming my food. I think this customer was trying to express to the employees that they aren’t doing a good job of balancing the onslaught of mobile orders against the people who are right in front of them. However, most rational people understand that’s a corporate policy, staffing, and technology issue, not a choice the baristas are making.

Mobile ordering, Uber eats, grub hub, etc has ruined the experience for me at a few of our favorite local restaurants (We are in OT) for the reason stated above. There seems to no limit on the number of online and mobile orders people can place and it exponentially increases the number of orders a kitchen has to make without increasing the size and staff of the same kitchen. I was at Momo Sushi the other day, a place I’ve been going to since it opened 15 years ago. We love that place. But the insane amount of delivery drivers waiting for their order to be finished was incredible. It took forever to get our order, same order as always and it wasn’t even a full restaurant. As an in person customer, you’re now competing for service with an unlimited number of people ordering online. Same problem at M2M in Del Ray, especially if a large group (like an office) has placed an order together.

There’s a restaurant where I am that controls this by giving a wait time for people online if there are people in the restaurant. So they take orders as they come, in order whether it be in the restaurant or online, and as they build up the wait for online orders grows. I’ve tried to place an order online before and was told it would be a 2 hr wait (the restaurant was busy).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You know there's a whole Instagram dedicated to a guy who does this for fun right?

Link please!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you did a mobile order by name how did the person waiting know what you had? Or did she just grab a stranger’s random bag of food hoping she’d get something she liked?

I smell a troll.

OP here. I promise this happened. The barista calls out the orders by saying what you ordered and then your name. So he said, "bagel with cream cheese for larla!"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the life of me I cannot understand this Starbucks obsession people have.

For the life of me I cannot understand this superiority complex some people have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you did a mobile order by name how did the person waiting know what you had? Or did she just grab a stranger’s random bag of food hoping she’d get something she liked?

I smell a troll.

OP here. I promise this happened. The barista calls out the orders by saying what you ordered and then your name. So he said, "bagel with cream cheese for larla!"

So you ordered 1 bagel and cream cheese for you, DH, and DD to share and no coffee drinks from a Starbucks?