Starbucks Barista Gets Angry: Yeah Me Too
The Starbucks Gossip blog has listed a truly impressive rant from a Starbucks Barista. The rant was posted on Craigslist which was then subsequently removed.
To all of you silly, sad caffeine addicts who line up like lemmings for your overpriced lattes every morning: there are some things you should know.
1. We are not your friends. We are usually not your neighbors. In most cases, we absolutely loathe you, but we are outwardly friendly — because we are paid to do so. You are not getting special treatment, and we really don’t give a shit about your last vacation or your new baby or your real estate problems. We ask how you’re doing because it’s a way of making conversation, and we are pressured to make conversation in this line of work. Now, there are some customers who are genuinely liked, but they’re few and far between. If you have to think about it, you’re probably not one of them.
2. Oh, you work from home? We are not your water-cooler break. We may be the only humans you have interacted with for days, but do not expect us to be interested in your stupid home business or your racist, sexist, totally unfunny commentary. Get your drink and get out.
And it goes on…
…Quit bitching about the names of everything. Yes, there is a “tall” size. No, it’s not the smallest size – that would be the “short.” Somewhere along the line, it got dropped from the menu, but can still be ordered.
…and on…
Don’t… tell me how to make a drink. I know what goes into a mocha. You probably couldn’t make one if someone had a gun to your head.
Okay. I get the point. It’s time for someone to resign and get a different job – or go on a long holiday.
So… here’s my Starbucks rant.
Dear Starbucks,
I like my espresso. I like it made well. I used to get my coffee from a small and quirky independent coffee shop from a barista that did give a damn. In fact all three of the baristas that worked there just loved coffee. They loved drinking it, and they loved talking about it. And we got on famously.
Then one day you came to town Mr Starbucks. You bought up a huge corner location. It looked just like every other Starbucks outlet in about a million other places in the world. You arrived with your ridiculous portion sizes (yes including the inane “tall” which is actually the smallest on the listed menu). Your prices we’re so obscenely expensive that it was obvious I was paying for brand rather than product. With your buying power you probably get coffee cheaper than just about anyone else. But then, you’re greedy aren’t you?
Your barista looked up at me with a tired and bored gaze that was all too familiar. Now where have I seen that gaze before – that’s right – at McDonald’s. So I ordered some coffee. You made me hover around a small bar with a crowd of Starbucks groupies – the kind of people that walk around with their Starbucks takeout cup as if it were a badge of hip-ness.
You shouted at me when my drink was ready. I’m not deaf. I was only standing about a meter from you. But, that’s right, by then you’d already forgotten what I looked like.
Your coffee tasted like dishwater. Maybe it was a bad day, or maybe you were are bad barista. But at that price? You should have been serving it to me by the sip.
That quirky independent coffee shop? Well he decided to close his business about 6 months later. Maybe it was related to the huge Starbucks nearby – or maybe not.
I’ve never been back to you Starbucks. Despite seeing your brand virtually everywhere I look.
What is the attraction of drinking an overpriced coffee made by a barista that shouts at you?
Just last week I got my coffee from another regular joint. The barista was so obsessed with getting it right that she actually made me two different espresso’s and got me to pick out the best one — so she could get it right in the future.
That sort of service gets my heart a-fluttering (or perhaps that was the caffeine?)
Energy Fiend – Obsessed with caffeine good coffee.
46 Comments
Wow, what a great bunch of comments. Plus I needed a laugh today. I have to concur with 78% of the comments… Starbucks is average at best, but it’s fairly convenient. The folks who work there are nice, but they are not Nuclear engineers either, not even necessary to be a HS grad… They don’t have to be, just efficient and productive. If they are nice, now that is a bonus. But really who cares, it is what is. One last shout to UrbanMike rou are 100% right on; Karlie, Starbucks doesn’t give a shit about the environment, it’s all a show and you bought it… so enjoy your Espresso guilt free, because you got it green… what a joke. They are a mega-corporation and like every other, throws a little money at “saving the planet”, because it is good PR/Marketing. Geez… they just want to sell you stuff, and coffee is Starbucks gig. Lighten up (your coffee for starters).
Im 16 and I work for a Dunn Bros. and I’m willing to remake any drink anyime. I’m all about getting it right. you see, it’s my boss I dont give a s**t about, not you. in fact, if making your drink 3, 4, even 5 times makes you really happy and my boss really mad, then I’ve had a good day. But really, you can’t expect us to remember your face when there are 8 other people behind you and 8 before you impacintly waiting for their coffee (which is overpriced no matter where you go, its a luxury, if you dont like it, make your own damn coffee or quit your bitching) so we resort to yelling you order out. dont get me wrong, I’ll deliver your drink to you in person because I want you to come back, not because I like you…because I like your money, and you just might leave me a nice tip in that tip jar.
But seriously, stop your bitching. I’m not kidding…stop. It’s not MY fault that you pay the money for the coffee, it’s you, isn’t it? So next time you order your coffee or latte that you could have easily brewed at home and added some hot milk (thats all it is people, get over yourselves) don’t complain, because were not the dumb ones.
I don’t know what to say, Solo. I think you may be blinded by the liberal leftists. God forbid a major corporation helps the environment.
I’m sorry, mabey I was a little hard on you and FAR to blunt. But i DEFINATELY agree with the comments made by this guy… “chex April 3rd, 2007 4:11 pm”.
@Mike – I don’t pay money for a Starbucks coffee. That’s just the point. I shop elsewhere and get better service and better coffee.
And yes, I do brew coffee at home – but it’s a little hard to carry my espresso machine in my pocket all day when I’m not at home — so that’s when I spend my hard-earned cash on a coffee.
And, no, it’s not overpriced everywhere you go. Shop around man. You can find quite significant variance in price of coffee. Better price doesn’t necessarily mean better coffee.
However – I concede on your point about a busy shop. I really feel for any staff member who is suddenly hit with a dozen stressed out commuters all clamoring for their latte’s. That must be tough – and to add insult to injury – you probably get paid crap wages.
Even better if you can find real local coffee shop run by an Italian immigrants…
For all the hype that Starbucks was patterned after the cafes of Italy, there is very little in common. You can’t stop at Starbucks for a nice glass of wine in the evening.
I will give Starbucks one big due – it seems to have really kicked off the coffee renaissance in the States. It is no longer a vast wasteland of instant Folgers or stale bitter reheated pots. And for that many coffee lovers should be thankful.
Starbucks own CEO freely admits that the company “makes coffee for people who don’t like coffee,” which pretty strongly suggests that if you do like coffee you should be buying it elsewhere (like that local Italian-run place, which will almost certainly be great, and probably has better pastries, too)
Thank you all for confirming my obsession over making my own coffee and espresso. I buy specially roasted beans, grind them right before brewing, and put in the perfect amount of cream and sugar. It’s my coffee right down to the stripes I put in the crema.
There are three Starbucks in my town, including a huge, free-standing one with a drive through they built last year, and I never go. Yeah, I’ve been to the one in the Barnes and Noble four or five times to meet clients, but in the five years they’ve been here I can’t use up the fingers on my hands to count the trips.
Plus, Peet’s has better beans.
I’m a Starbucks barista. Everything from that craigslist rant is completely valid. I’m almost a 19 year old male barista and I hate it. It’s the way the world works. Yeah, you’ll find some really cheerful baristas but if you don’t, get the hell over it and if the coffee is so bad, don’t drink it. Because frankly, I couldn’t give a flying f*ck what most people’s drinks taste like. It pays the bills.
What do you all care? If you don’t like it, make your own. And most of the people that work there are kids. Teenagers. Leave the poor kids alone. No matter what your age, when you work behind a counter, people are assholes — the baristas have a right to be irritated, and as long as it’s not to your face, you have no right to bitch. So they hate you behind your back, so what?
And when you go to a chain like Starbucks, no one’s going to treat you as if you just walked into Saks flashing a black Amex…because you didn’t. You walked in to drop a couple of bucks on a drink and probably a few cents into the tip jar. Get over yourselves.
Maybe I’ve been Starbucked royally and slave to the Man, but heck, if I can get my Venti Caffe Americano half-hot, half-cold and get it fast, then I’m not complaining about it. And people who tell me that I’m snobby, bitchy or self-absorbed, then yes I am. Maybe some people can’t afford daily Starbucks but don’t make others like me feel like shit for it.
Listen Mr. Energy Fiend,
Perhaps it’s difficult to be empathetic when your head is so far up your @$$ that you can actually see yourself swallow. . . OR . . . Perhaps you have never had a real job in your life. Either way, being a barista is the worst job on the planet. It pays just above minimum wage, and we have to cater to high maintenance, snobbish, low life people like you, who don’t tip and don’t care about how much work just went into your cup of joe.
Being a barista is NOT “counter help.” A barista is in charge of knowing how to make everything on the menu, and we have to have it made at your demand in under 2 minutes, and it’s STILL not fast enough or good enought for you people. Where else on this planet do you think you deserve the kind of instant gratification you get at a coffee shop? The only difference between a barista and a waitress is that baristas ACTUALLY MAKE your order for you, and we are trapped behind that god forsaken counter all day. And then people have the nerve to tell us we didn’t make it right as they are watching us! The barista is right! you couldn’t make the drink if you had a gun to your head! It takes at least a week to learn the menu! Have you EVER treated or tipped the barista as well as a waitress??? I DIDN’T THINK SO!
Most people who work at big name coffee shops never last very long. They burn out easily. Think about it. We put out over 100 drinks an hour on some days. that’s more than 2 drinks in a minute that we make! and we need at least 1.5 minutes to make the drink! It’s because of people like you that raises the demand for places like this, which also raises prices. Didn’t you ever learn the principles of supply and demand?
We don’t deserve to be treated as sub-humans just because we serve coffee to the filthy rich. Perhaps if we recieved a smile or hello before you shouted your order in our face, we would remember yours, and we wouldn’t have to shout the order out because we can’t remember your face in the hundred that we’ve seen that hour.
Hang on, let me just pull my head out of my @$$… So who says that I’m not a trained barista? Snobbish? maybe. Low-life? Nope.
“It’s because of people like you that raises the demand for places like this, which also raises prices.”
No not really. It’s because your bosses sitting in their ivory towers decide to pay you crap wages while simultaneously investing huge dollars into brand and advertising – and of course increasing their own salary.
And, I guarantee you, when I order coffee I will always do so with politeness, a smile, no shouting, and I’m prepared to wait for as long as it takes.
Oh, and I have far more respect for a barista than a waitress. It takes a whole lot of skill to pull a good shot, not to mention the ability to create perfectly textured milk.
It’s as simple as this: If you don’t like Starbucks coffee, don’t go there. Go find an Italian espresso bar. If there isn’t one near you, then I guess you’re screwed. Welcome to planet Earth! Most people realize Starbucks is a chain and with a chain, quality decreases. I guess you don’t.
“Oh, and I have far more respect for a barista than a waitress. It takes a whole lot of skill to pull a good shot, not to mention the ability to create perfectly textured milk.”
It doesn’t sound like you have respect for a barista AT ALL.
I hate starbucks, simply because they don’t make real coffee, as far as I’m concerned. If I want a damn milkshake, I’m gonna go somewhere and order a damn milkshake. I want coffee! I want 100% coffee! None of this frapalapachino crap they serve at starbucks!
Looks like I am defending Starbucks again. You do get real coffee at Starbucks. Some people bring home whole bean packs and grind at home. And you don’t have to order the milkshaky Frappucinos thingys. You can have REAL COFFEE.
And to the select few that are against Caffeine Fiend, just hold off on your comments. CF does lots of work and you can’t just say CF did or did not have a real job. THIS website here proves to me CF’s doing a real job. So to all, lay off on CF.
“frapalapachino” lol….Marry me
Starbucks gets cocky and pompous customers, give them a break. I’ve heard of people bitching that they want their “latte” with chocolate milk. hey dick faces, thats a mocha. The argument works both ways though. Just cause u work there doesn’t make u an all knowing corrective jerk off.
(remember, theres no “I” in team but there is a U in BUTTFACE)
This makes me appreciate my Starbucks Barista that much more. The ones at my local Starbucks are all very polite, and i always thank them for making my drink. I’ve never had a bad experience with a Barista. I think if you treat them well, they’ll be just as kind. I mean, those Barista’s cater for hundreds of people each day, but they remember me and my signature drink even if they don’t remember my name.
I personally love Starbucks, mostly for their customization options. Their coffee is decent, i’ve had far worse. i just think it’s hysterical i get branded as snobbish and pretentious because i know how i like my drinks. I raise my Venti, Seven-shot, upside down, iced soy caramel macchiato in your general directions =]
Barista?
Let’s just call them what they are: counter help. Maybe then they wouldn’t be so snooty.