In my four years in college, I held a few different jobs, but my favorite was easily the summers and breaks I worked as a Starbucks barista. While the majority of my time as a barista was exceptional since I worked with some outstanding people and learned the basics of making great coffee drinks, at least once a day, I ran into a customer who made the job much more difficult than it needed to be. And while you may assume it would be lovers of Starbucks' iconic PSL, fall menu, or secret menu drinks, those customers never gave me trouble.
Over the course of a few years, I found that these frustrating customers fell into several categories. Some were more specific to my location, but others were headaches that nearly anyone who's worked as a barista has surely dealt with at one time or another. Nowadays, as a customer, I still witness these characters and their interactions here and there -- I'll willingly admit, my skin crawls with recognition every time.
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Menu Analyzers
One evening, during a closing shift, my compatriots and I were working on cleaning and closing everything down. In the midst of our cleaning, a customer walked in and made her way to the counter. She wasn't standing there for more than a few seconds before she announced that she was a math teacher and had (apparently) figured out exactly how to order to save money. She instructed the barista taking her order to put it in exactly as she said it so as to get the best price possible because, as she reminded us again, she was a math teacher. She proceeded with her order, and although time has made the specifics of the order foggy, the way she ordered her drink led her to a savings of, at most, 50 cents. I guess a penny saved is a penny earned.
I'm all for trying to save some money at Starbucks, but it becomes problematic when customers go about it the way she did. For one thing, she was full of narcissism and disrespect, clearly feeling that she could talk down to us. And the other aspect was her menu analysis. Taking a barista's busy time to explain to them why the menu at the restaurant in which they work is somehow faulty is a waste of everyone's time. Feel free to order however you'd like, but don't send your barista back to math class to do it.
Frappuccino Teenagers
At most Starbucks locations, the bar with the espresso machine and the Frappuccino blender bar are separate from one another, so if the location has enough staff and business, baristas will be stationed in each area. My least favorite section to work at was the Frappuccino bar. Between the blending sounds, awkward pouring, and inevitable sticky counter, it was a sensory overload. As a result, Starbucks' Frappuccinos became my least favorite drink to make.
At my location, most of the drink orders were espresso-based, with a few Frappuccinos thrown in here and there. But about once a week, a massive group of teenagers came through the door. When this happened, we knew that there were a bunch of Frappuccino orders coming. Since my store only had two blenders, this meant the drinks would take a while to create. As a result, we would be staring at frustrated teenage faces as they waited for their milkshake drinks, wondering why they were taking so long. Frappuccino teenagers became some of my least favorite customers, and since leaving Starbucks, I still cringe when I see large groups of teens walk into one.
Size Complainers
In 2006, Dunkin' came out with a commercial mocking Starbucks' unique names for drinks and their sizes. In the commercial, a line of customers stand in bewilderment looking at a coffee shop menu board, confused by the terms and nuances of the menu. The customers ultimately dub the language used "Fritalian." This odd targeting of Starbucks sizes was a phenomenon that I witnessed firsthand as a Starbucks barista.
Some of the more frustrating customers I encountered at least a couple of times a week were those who would come in and then mock the available sizes. Sure, it's odd that in Starbucks terminology, "tall" means "small," but once you order a couple of times, the terms roll off the tongue. It's understandable if a customer struggles the first few times they order, but some would come in over and over but continue to either name the size wrong or make fun of said size's name. I never understood why such customers would keep coming back. There are plenty of coffee shops that offer the expected small, medium, and large, so if you can't handle "tall," "grande," and "venti," kindly choose another bean juice supplier.
Finicky Regulars
When you work at a coffee shop long enough, you begin seeing regulars. I had my fair share of at Starbucks, many of whom were lovely, but there was one in particular who would always stand out to me. Though I never struggled with him to the degree of my fellow baristas, witnessing their trouble was agonizing.
A man would visit a few times a week and always order an extra-dry cappuccino. The first few times I made his drink, I got the order wrong because it was never dry enough. He liked the drink to have two shots of espresso and the tiniest bit of steamed milk, and then the rest was foam. In fact, the customer actually knew — based on how heavy the cup felt — whether it was made to his liking or not. And while I eventually nailed getting the perfect ratio of espresso to steamed milk to foam, not all of my coworkers did. As a result, if this particular customer visited on a day when I wasn't working or wasn't stationed at the espresso bar, his drink would inevitably be made wrong, resulting in some badgering from him and an uncomfortable barista.
Faux Celebrity Regulars
Who doesn't dream of being a recognizable regular, to the point that the baristas begin preparing your order the moment you enter the restaurant? It's the dream of a devoted customer, but it's hard to achieve. Still, there were always those customers who assumed that they'd earned such status, proudly proclaiming that they'd have "the usual" when ordering.
The issue? No one actually knew what they wanted. These types of customers assume that because they come often enough, the baristas recognize them and commit to memory the exact order they'll want. The actual number of regulars most baristas recognize is not a significant number, so ordering "the usual" not only creates an uncomfortable situation for the barista, but it makes the customer look extremely full of themselves. For the sake of everyone, it's best tojust order your typical drink by name rather than assume the barista knows you.
Entitled Customers
The particular location I worked at in southern Wisconsin had an incredible number of families on their way to horse shows. More often than not, I found these customers to be very entitled, going through the motions of an order without a thank-you, smile, or pleasant greeting. Of course, it wasn't just the horse show folks who would give off this air -- entitled customers are everywhere.
The best way to avoid coming across in this rude, frustrating manner is to offer a simple hello and end with a thank-you. You'd think these simple courtesies that you likely learned when you were a small child would be obvious when talking with people who are preparing your cup of joe or heating up your favorite pastry. All the same, you'd probably be surprised by how many people feel they're entitled to treat baristas and others who work in fast food restaurants poorly.
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