Is it just me or did the quality of the baristas at Starbucks take a serious nosedive?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're expecting an awful lot out of people who aren't being paid a livable wage....

my friends 17yo daughter worked there and made $15 an hour BEFORE tips. Thats not bad money.

$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.

$1 a shift? No way. I always see people leaving cash tips and you can also tip on their app. Whenever I tip $2 cash they act like they don't even care, i.e. they are used to it. Which is fine, but I'm just sharing that to make a point that it's far from unusual for people to tip.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're expecting an awful lot out of people who aren't being paid a livable wage....

my friends 17yo daughter worked there and made $15 an hour BEFORE tips. Thats not bad money.

$15 / hour x 30 hours* x 50 weeks is $22500 a year. Can you live here on $22500? Would you be tidy and cheerful if you did? On your feet, handling food, and dealing with the public?

*Lots of baristas don't get scheduled for 30 hours/week, I'm being generous to Starbucks here. And hardly anybody tips.

There is a tremendous labor shortage right now. People who are great in customer facing positions can do better, and they have.

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.

Yes. The answer is yes.

I wonder what would happen if they started paying batista $25 an hour. Would they raise the cost of a cup of coffee to $8 or $10? Would coffee shops start closing , thus causing job losses? Would McDonald's, etc follow suit and start paying their workers $25 an hour? I suppose this could be very good for Americans' waistlines.

[Anonymous]

^^^ baristas

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're expecting an awful lot out of people who aren't being paid a livable wage....

I don’t understand comments like this. You’re expecting people to do the job they’re paid to do whether or not it’s minimum wage or higher. Just because it’s a minimum wage job doesn’t mean it’s OK to be subpar.

That said, Starbucks has always been overrated, pretentious and doesn’t even taste good. Paying so much for coffee that you can make yourself at home doesn’t make any sense to me unless it is an occasional treat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're expecting an awful lot out of people who aren't being paid a livable wage....

my friends 17yo daughter worked there and made $15 an hour BEFORE tips. Thats not bad money.

$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.

$1 a shift? No way. I always see people leaving cash tips and you can also tip on their app. Whenever I tip $2 cash they act like they don't even care, i.e. they are used to it. Which is fine, but I'm just sharing that to make a point that it's far from unusual for people to tip.

What do you expect them to do, an interpretive dance?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're expecting an awful lot out of people who aren't being paid a livable wage....

my friends 17yo daughter worked there and made $15 an hour BEFORE tips. Thats not bad money.

$15 / hour x 30 hours* x 50 weeks is $22500 a year. Can you live here on $22500? Would you be tidy and cheerful if you did? On your feet, handling food, and dealing with the public?

*Lots of baristas don't get scheduled for 30 hours/week, I'm being generous to Starbucks here. And hardly anybody tips.

There is a tremendous labor shortage right now. People who are great in customer facing positions can do better, and they have.

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.

Yes. The answer is yes.

The immediate effects of raising the wages of baristas to $25 an hour would be the price of coffee skyrockets, stores close, automated machines take over, and baristas lose their jobs. I suppose a few very talented baristas would be happy. But the vast majority would no longer have their jobs in the coffee shops.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're expecting an awful lot out of people who aren't being paid a livable wage....

my friends 17yo daughter worked there and made $15 an hour BEFORE tips. Thats not bad money.

$15 / hour x 30 hours* x 50 weeks is $22500 a year. Can you live here on $22500? Would you be tidy and cheerful if you did? On your feet, handling food, and dealing with the public?

*Lots of baristas don't get scheduled for 30 hours/week, I'm being generous to Starbucks here. And hardly anybody tips.

There is a tremendous labor shortage right now. People who are great in customer facing positions can do better, and they have.

I thought Starbucks was on the upper end of the service industry? If there are 380k Starbucks baristas in the US, where did say... 100k of them segue to? 100k loss is probably on the low side. And the new replacements are bad, so even would-be new Starbucks baristas are avoiding the place to work... where instead?

I don't know if you're aware but about 1 million Americans have died of covid in the last 2 years. Some of them were Starbucks workers, and some of them held better jobs that former Starbucks workers now hold.

Another PP tried to spin Starbucks jobs as "designed for" teens, second gigs or retirees. I don't agree that's naturally the case (why shouldn't you be able to support a family by being a full time barista?) but, if that's who was working those jobs, and they're still alive, then there are some obvious alternative occupations like school, being retired, different second gigs, or switching to one full time gig. Pre-covid it might have been a fun way to earn money but people who had other options, even non-paying options, decided it wasn't worth the risk.

Yep lots of obese diabetics, elderly, and nursing home residents working as baristas.

[Anonymous]

There's a Starbucks two blocks from me. I have never been in there. It's bitter, badly made coffee. As with McDonald's, people go there for convenience, not quality.

Was Starbucks better in the past? I don't know. Possibly. Or it's that the quality of coffee has gone up with rising expectations and now exceeds Starbucks. I did go to Starbucks occasionally for some years but even a decade ago I was noticing how worn, dirty and tired their stores tended to be.

[Anonymous]

Oddly, I feel like the Starbucks I go to has improved tremendously. I used to never go there because the staff was so rude to customers yet I now go there practically every day to get a non-coffee drink. The staff is so friendly and on top of what they're doing. They recognize me ("Hi, Larla" with big waves and smiles) when I walk in the door and usually my drink is made even before I get to the cashier. Since my timing is around the time when the local public high school lets out, and a lot of the students make a beeline for the Starbucks, that's saying a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're expecting an awful lot out of people who aren't being paid a livable wage....

my friends 17yo daughter worked there and made $15 an hour BEFORE tips. Thats not bad money.

$15 / hour x 30 hours* x 50 weeks is $22500 a year. Can you live here on $22500? Would you be tidy and cheerful if you did? On your feet, handling food, and dealing with the public?

*Lots of baristas don't get scheduled for 30 hours/week, I'm being generous to Starbucks here. And hardly anybody tips.

There is a tremendous labor shortage right now. People who are great in customer facing positions can do better, and they have.

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.

Yes. The answer is yes.

Yes, starbucks employees should get paid as much as teachers? Why would anyone want to be a teacher? The need to go to college (and take on tons of debt) and deal with standardized testing and all the other bs teachers have to deal with--when they could just start at Starbucks the day after HS graduation? Buy a house 5 years earlier? Be able to take vacations at time that don't coincide with school breaks?

[Anonymous]

Can someone explain how I got luke warm coffee twice in two weeks? So 2 out of 8 or so times. It wasn't a mobile order, I went inside and ordered it myself. Something to do with poor train, I assume.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain how I got luke warm coffee twice in two weeks? So 2 out of 8 or so times. It wasn't a mobile order, I went inside and ordered it myself. Something to do with poor train, I assume.

Note two different locations, as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're expecting an awful lot out of people who aren't being paid a livable wage....

my friends 17yo daughter worked there and made $15 an hour BEFORE tips. Thats not bad money.

If this is recent, then that's below minimum wage ($15.20). (Does the tipped minimum wage apply to Starbucks employees? I don't know.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're expecting an awful lot out of people who aren't being paid a livable wage....

my friends 17yo daughter worked there and made $15 an hour BEFORE tips. Thats not bad money.

$15 / hour x 30 hours* x 50 weeks is $22500 a year. Can you live here on $22500? Would you be tidy and cheerful if you did? On your feet, handling food, and dealing with the public?

*Lots of baristas don't get scheduled for 30 hours/week, I'm being generous to Starbucks here. And hardly anybody tips.

There is a tremendous labor shortage right now. People who are great in customer facing positions can do better, and they have.

I thought Starbucks was on the upper end of the service industry? If there are 380k Starbucks baristas in the US, where did say... 100k of them segue to? 100k loss is probably on the low side. And the new replacements are bad, so even would-be new Starbucks baristas are avoiding the place to work... where instead?

I don't know if you're aware but about 1 million Americans have died of covid in the last 2 years. Some of them were Starbucks workers, and some of them held better jobs that former Starbucks workers now hold.

Another PP tried to spin Starbucks jobs as "designed for" teens, second gigs or retirees. I don't agree that's naturally the case (why shouldn't you be able to support a family by being a full time barista?) but, if that's who was working those jobs, and they're still alive, then there are some obvious alternative occupations like school, being retired, different second gigs, or switching to one full time gig. Pre-covid it might have been a fun way to earn money but people who had other options, even non-paying options, decided it wasn't worth the risk.

Yep lots of obese diabetics, elderly, and nursing home residents working as baristas.

Oh, you’re a moron. Didn’t realize. Carry on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're expecting an awful lot out of people who aren't being paid a livable wage....

my friends 17yo daughter worked there and made $15 an hour BEFORE tips. Thats not bad money.

$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.

$1 a shift? No way. I always see people leaving cash tips and you can also tip on their app. Whenever I tip $2 cash they act like they don't even care, i.e. they are used to it. Which is fine, but I'm just sharing that to make a point that it's far from unusual for people to tip.

What do you expect them to do, an interpretive dance?

Np. No. But an acknowledgment would be nice.