Anyone who knows me at all knows that I LOVE Starbucks. It is a magical nectar of the gods that tastes delicious, and it also makes me a nice person. I met a lady this morning at my local Starbucks that doesn’t seem to be a terribly nice person. Maybe when she is properly caffeinated, she’s lovely. Perhaps coffee is what she needs to get her through the day; and deep in my soul, I understand that.
As a tried and true Starbucks customer, I have visited many stores, met countless baristas, and spent a disgusting amount of money (in my quick estimation, it’s in the neighborhoodof the cost of a very crappy car, but nonetheless, a car) on the blended goodness known worldwide as a Caramel Frappuccino. I have encountered baristas who make the perfect blend of caramel and coffee, and I have also been handed a drink that has astrikeout through ‘wc’ (whip cream, for you non-lifetime members), and yet also has a mountain of lusciously peaked whipped cream on top. I fully understand what a bummer it is to navigate the ridiculously sharp drive-thru turn after waiting anywhere from 3 – 38 minutes in a line of cars, get to the window, and be greeted by a way-too-perky twentysomething holding a drink that was not made the way you ordered. I. Get. It.
Over the many times this has happened in a span of 12 years, my reaction has varied from secret delight at the thought of indulging in the extra calories to nicely asking ‘I thought I ordered no whip – did I forget to tell you that part?’. 99.99 out of 100 times, they swiftly apologize, take the drink back, and correct it in 15 seconds. In the lady’s defense, I have very rarely, but it did happen, encountered a green barista who lacks some customer service skills. In my case, she had accidentally knocked my cup over, spilling approximately half of my drink, and when she handed it to me, she said ‘We spilled. That’s why your cup is half empty.’ Trying to see the positive, I assumed that I had been granted the courtesy of a lower price and said ‘Did I get charged for a Venti (large)?’ The answer was a resounding ‘Yes!’, to which I countered ‘But I received the amount of a Grande (medium)…’ With only losing a smidge of her perkiness, she repeated ‘Yeah. We made you a Venti, but we spilled half of it.’ A kind email explaining my disappointment sent to the store manager resulted in a genuine apology, and a gift card for the mishandling of my order and experience.
This brings me to today. I collected orders from the staff at work and set off to go get some coffee for my friends that I work alongside. As I walked through the doors of my local coffee chain and approached the counter, the barista whispered under his breath ‘Oh God! Not that lady.’ As I wracked my brain trying to remember if I had committed any recent crimes and perhaps my photo was on a ‘Wanted’ sign behind me, and he was expressing his displeasure at having to apprehend me for the authorities, he clarified ‘Not you! There’s a woman in the drive-thru who is mad and coming into the store. She’s…she’s uh…well, you’ll see what she is.’ And that I did.
The doors swung open, and she nearly ran a few folks over getting to the counter. I noticed that she was small framed, wore glasses, and had a mixture of blond, brown, red, and black hair. I have no scientific evidence, but I am pretty sure that if it were studied, a correlation between the amount of colors in one’s hair and the amount of F bombs dropped out of their mouth would be found. In my very small sample size from today, I found this to be true. She began screaming about how her drink was made incorrectly, and she demanded to have the name of the barista who committed such a crime, so she could ‘ruin her’. I generally catch more flies with honey than I do with vinegar, but you do you, ma’am. The supervisor calmly reminded rainbow hair that the barista apologized, made her a new drink, gave her the new drink for free, and offered her a gift card for her next visit, and stated that she would not be revealing her employee’s name. Rainbow hair didn’t like that. Her yelling got even louder and she pulled the power card – ‘NOBODY messes up my coffee! Do you hear me?!’ I’m pretty sure a man in a coma at the hospital 3 miles away heard her, but it didn’t seem like a great time to let her know. She continued with ‘I will have ALL of your jobs by the end of today! My coffee was made wrong, and this isn’t the first time!’ The supervisor, who is my new hero, stayed strong and simply countered ‘That’s too bad.’ Rainbow hair realized that her words weren’t holding much water, so she leaned in, made a fist, and swung it in front of the supervisor’s face and shouted ‘Now you’re WITHHOLDING names of employees that I deserve to know?! Corporate will be hearing about this!’ With a final string of curse words that I’ll spare you, she flung the doors open and left.
Ashamed on her behalf, I told the barista helping me that they handled her well, were doing a great job, and I hoped that she didn’t ruin any of their days. I paid for the final order with a $10 bill, and he handed me back three $5 bills and told me to have a good day. Well, considering that I made money on the deal, it was a pretty good day. I said ‘Didn’t I give you a $10?’ with all three bills fanned toward him. He grabbed one of the $5 bills out of my hand and apologized for the mistake. But I was still holding $10. I said ‘But I still have $10…I think I am only supposed to have $5.’ Math isn’t my strong spot, and when it comes to calculating change, I am seriously probably at a 5th grade level, so I got pretty confused about the whole ordeal. He assured me that my correct change was $10…after I bought $5 worth of coffee and handed him a $10. Which honestly, I feel like I deserved a free coffee after risking my life for it.
As you can see, the love of Starbucks is genetic. I just hope that kindness when working with the service industry is, too. And I hope he gets his math skills from his dad.
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