Starbucks suggests customers start their spring cleaning while stores are closed for barista training

Starbucks' press release about stores being closed tonight between 5:30 and 9 p.m. suggests "5 Great Things to Do in Just 3 1/2 Hours." They are....

1. Thinking of a change in hair color? A full color with highlights takes just about 3 hours.
2. Watch almost all of the nominated short films.
3. When was the last time you made a home cooked meal? You can roast an 8lb - 12lb turkey in 3 1/2 hours.
4. What better time to organize those closets; it's a jump start on spring cleaning.
5. After patiently waiting 12,601 seconds, head to Starbucks to get that espresso!

(Read the Starbucks press release)

Comments

[Bud]

More than once I have ordered two cups of coffee, one "Bold" and one "Decaf". Upon recieving them at the counter I asked the barista which is the "Bold". After a breif hesitation the barista says " I'm not sure let me get you two more". The server then presents two fresh cups, this time either one or the other is marked, usually the "Decaf". Please, upon dispensing a mixed order take the extra few seconds and mark the cups, this saves my time, your stock, and any confusion on my part to try to keep the contents of unmarked cups straight.

[Kim]

What about the stores in Canada? Don't those employees need freshing up (training)too? I am not really a huge fan of Starbucks...to me they have totally lost their edge...and priced themselves out. I don't know if you have Blenz in the U.S. but they are 10x better. That said, I do commend Starbucks for taking this time to train their employees, it is much needed, this will defintely inspire them. It's a very innovative move.

Espresso Excellence is being made part of the core training program. All future hires will have to take it before working the bar, and everyone who misses tonight's meeting will not be permitted to work until they take a make-up session. From here on out, new parters will take Espresso Excellence and Starbucks Experience at the training facilities, meaning two days of classroom learning now.... good call, Starbucks! These standards just might stick.

To the Starbucks help-

I hate to break this to you, but what you do is an unskilled job. Please, please, PLEASE climb down off your high horse and stop making it seem like you do something special, that you are some sort of miracle worker, etc. What you do is unskilled labor. The company teaches you everything you need to know (basically, which buttons to push, when and how to steal milk, and how to read syrup bottles, and how to force a smile on a customer). Again, what you do is UNSKILLED LABOR. You tout different "complicated" drinks on here that you "know" how to make, but the lady working at Burger King knows how to make a Triple Whopper, with 2 slices pepperjack cheese, 1 slice cheddar, 1 slice swiss, on a TOASTED bun, with no lettuce, extra pickles, and four tomatoes. It's nothing special, really...

[Nerfebarista]

I think I'm finally done being offended by the majorty of you board trolls and ex partners and grumpy patrons. I'll just say a couple of things that are on my mind.

Why on earth would anyone in their right mind think that this training session is a way to mistreat our customers?

Why would anyone in their right mind compare the company that we are today, to what we used to be? There is virtually no comparison. The need for growth over the last ten years has dictated that, while we still have a passion for our jobs, we cannot possibly be what we used to be.

For you expartners, you left the company for a reason and what ever it was, get over it already. Stop coming here to lecture us about how the company used to be. This is how it is NOW and your input is wasted. You left us, we don't need you anymore. Get it?

For the board trolls that suggest that a monkey could do my job. You have zero idea what is required of a starbucks employee, You've never done it, so shut up and move on.

For other people that say that we don't know how to make coffee. Can YOU make coffee? Can you figure out how to even grind your own beans? Can you figure out that your coffee pot isn't broken, but that YOU don't know what you are doing.

We at starbucks have been doing this for alot of years, and while not everyone is tenured, there is a hard core of seasoned partners in every store and the assumption that no one that works on a verissimo knows how to make coffee is rediculous.

For those of you that do work in coffee, I acknowledge that you may have some skill at making coffee, but it does not make you any better than me. I have been in the coffee buisiness for more than 10 years now and I am one HELL of a barista and I can say that after all of my experiences with other coffee establishments, I prefer Starbucks work ethic, benefits, pay and opportunities, to any indie shop. They have nothing to offer me. I'm not a college kid still on his parents bennies, I work for my living and I do so while following corporate rules, something missing entirely from indie shops.

So please, stop implying that my partners and I don't know how to make coffee and that making coffee is all we do. I won't presume to say that all of starbucks customers come in to have their rearends kissed, but these days, a majority do. You come in for the connections, the coffee and the atmosphere. That is the stuff we will be trying to better for you, in our training. I really don't know how plainer to put it than that. It's not your buisiness what the specifics are. IT's not your buisiness to determine what time we should be allowed to close for a meeting, training or a freaking holiday party. We value your patronage and for the most part, your opinions, but you don't run my store or my company. See you all in the morning!

[Nerfebarista]

I ammend my previous post. TO the complete ASS anon 3:09, I could do your job twice as good as you and do it while I'm taking a break from working at sbux. You are a board trolling little snipe and I can only hope that you don't treat people like this is person. Do you mouth off in public? Did your mommy and daddy not love you enough? Did they have too much money and decide to let a nanny bring you up and tell you how the world is? I hope for your sake you don't mouth off to people face to face.

[Melody]

Excellent post Nerfebarista. I suspect that anyone who starts a post calling the baristas the "help" is most likely intentionally looking to annoy and vex.

[Nerfebarista]

yea i know =( I can't help but play right into it =)

[Nerfebarista]

OH I found out about the guy that served you the other night =P
He got unnerved by being watched, lol. I told him it comes with working for Starbucks.

[Melody]

I do that alot Nerf. I was just at the Columbia Center (store 101) and had plenty of time to do whatever today, so I spent like 20 minutes just watching the 3 very busy baristas making drinks. However, oddly, they seemed to enjoy having an audience and made small talk now and then. The "stirring" barista (I've seen him there often and he stirs more beverages than any of the others, though) seemed to be eating it up. It humourous to hear him call out that he needed help with more whips. ;)

After drinking my beverages (I ordered 2 at once, you can't have too much of a good thing) I did tip a $20 for them being a lot of fun about it. It died down to almost no one there, so I walked up to the register and dropped in a $20 and said thank you to the guy at the till, who very sincerely said "you're welcome and thank you back! That's appreciated."

As an aside, one of my drinks was a italian creme soda (since the weather has turned lovely) which I tried with juicy raspberry. It's the first time I've tried that syrup in anything at all. Not my favorite syrup. It doesn't taste very raspberry-ish to me. Cinnamon Dolce has got to be one of your best newer syrups - and it goes great in an italian creme soda.

[pat nerr]

"Espresso Excellence is being made part of the core training program. All future hires will have to take it before working the bar, and everyone who misses tonight's meeting will not be permitted to work until they take a make-up session. From here on out, new parters will take Espresso Excellence and Starbucks Experience at the training facilities, meaning two days of classroom learning now.... good call, Starbucks! These standards just might stick."

Yep... Firing Jim Donald was a good move... I mean since he was responsible for all of the company's baristas being "sub par" and all... Does it say anywhere in the agenda for tonite what color the lipstick is this time...?

the pig is starting to look like a blind old lady heading out to the senior center on ladies night...

[Nerfebarista]

Pat, I like your site as it's most informative, but here I think you have it wrong. Jim Donald was either let go or left of his own accord because somewhere along the line, he and other execs and board memebers thought it would be a good idea to make sandwhiches.

Then, someone thought, Hey, Cds would be a great thing to have at the register. Na, we should have an entire spinner of them off to the side too!
Hell, why don't we put some DVDs in there too, we can't lose!

But wait, we only sell starbucks coffee makers, lets grab krups too!
Well, that makes sense, someone go grab BMW and have them design a coffee maker for us!!!

In walks Howard Shultz and the board of directors. WTF are you people smoking? You do know we sell...coffee right?
Yeah sure, but we can sell all of this other stuff too!
Yea, but our coffee sales suck and our partners and customers are pissed off at our dissent into walmartdome!

yea but still...
NO BUTS. All in favor of shitcanning MR. walmart, say aye.....

He, and his execs, put too many things in our stores. If you hire for a coffee shop, you hire people that love coffee. IF you hire for a convenience store, you get people that can do the job, but there is too much to keep track of. We should not be doing inventory counts every weekend because there is too much in the store to do once or twice a year.

I appreciate your comedy, but seriously? Don't you fall under that, EX-employee bar? Shouldn't you have gotten over your bitterness by now?

[Nerfebarista]

Melody,

The newer Raspberry does taste alot more like raspberries than our old one did. The problem is, the other one was better. =P I have a theory on that though. The real stuff, (strawberries, banananananass and such) should be your pairing with coffee. Like fresh fruit with a drip coffee. But, the flavors inside a coffee usually do best if they taste almost nothing like advertised. They should taste more like their candy counterparts, like the orange we had, tasted and smelled JUST LIKE fanta and nothing like real oranges, but it was a complete hit!

The cinnimon Dolce is great but the precursor to it (east coast had it, not sure about out here) was the Cinnamon Struesel! That was the stuff dreams were made of and tasted NOTHING like cinnamon! HA.

I assume you used a pelligreno (sp?) for your soda. I'd say a better syrup for that would be the strawberry sauce. The stuff we use for fraps. It's a real puree and I think it would go well as an itallian soda!

[Dr. Nuclear]

Hey Nerfe, I think that anon 3:09 poster is either a nuclear physicist or a PhD in electrical engineering. I doubt you could do his/her job better if you are a barista. Sorry, the truth hurts. And to those who brag about being in the coffee business for so long, that might be you, but the one's working at my store would have been in the work force at 10 years old to have that level of experience. The point someone was making was that the people that Starbucks tends to be hiring now are indeed coming in UNSKILLED and young. Don't take offense, you provide a valuable service to the other unskilled and skilled workers of the world. A great deal of the jobs in this country are unskilled labor jobs. Also, I spend plenty of time at Starbucks consuming, reading, working, etc...I see what they do and with the training they have received, I could angle the steamer, make a 170 degree, extra foam drink. All I ask of my baristas is to 1: give me a full cup of coffee when I say "no room" after they 2) begin pulling the handle from the coffee pot.

[pat nerr]

I ws being sarcastic... first the company blames Jimmy Boy for the shortcomings... now they start in on the lack of skill of the barista... at some point a leader of some sort will need to say THEY F'd up and cut all classroom training, left SMs to their own devices for making quality partners with little follow up to make sure CORE was being rolled effectively... slashed all of the field training specialists and cut opportunities for baristas to connect with others outside of their own stores...

This isn't bitterness... I don't even buy my coffee there anymore... this comes from 2 years of watching the ship take on water and seeing the crew jump ship while the rats stayed... The point is that Jimmy was only 10% of the problem...

btw... how long have you been with the BUX?

[NESouth Barista]

Okay, I went to the training...

I didn't think I'd get much out of it, because I constantly re-read my Barista 101 manual, (about once every month or two) and keep getting something out of that - usually a reminder. I'd been reading all of the posts about the training, and I've had long conversations with the Equipment techs about changing the grind, checking the shots, and rinsing to keep the nozzles clean. I've always been good about steaming the milk, and always tried to avoid resteaming. So what was I going to learn?

I learned that newer partners didn't have the benefit of the tremendous training that I was given when I was hired, and that no matter how unforgiving I am about my own drink crafting, I didn't pass along what I received.

I may be a "know-it-all", and had all of the answers, but if I don't share that with partners when I help to train them, I may as well be a "know nothing".

I realized that I can preach "what-what-why" all day long, but if I don't use it myself, I'm not benefiting my partners, my store, my customers, or my company.

Knowing that I wanted to be the best barista I could be, and making the best beverages for my customers, I forgot that I'm just one person, and that i am part of a team.

So what did I get out of the class? I promised to give my customers - and my fellow partners - the best beverages and experience that I possibly can.

Because they are ALL worth it.

[NESouth Barista]

Okay, I went to the training...

I didn't think I'd get much out of it, because I constantly re-read my Barista 101 manual, (about once every month or two) and keep getting something out of that - usually a reminder. I'd been reading all of the posts about the training, and I've had long conversations with the Equipment techs about changing the grind, checking the shots, and rinsing to keep the nozzles clean. I've always been good about steaming the milk, and always tried to avoid resteaming. So what was I going to learn?

I learned that newer partners didn't have the benefit of the tremendous training that I was given when I was hired, and that no matter how unforgiving I am about my own drink crafting, I didn't pass along what I received.

I may be a "know-it-all", and had all of the answers, but if I don't share that with partners when I help to train them, I may as well be a "know nothing".

I realized that I can preach "what-what-why" all day long, but if I don't use it myself, I'm not benefiting my partners, my store, my customers, or my company.

Knowing that I wanted to be the best barista I could be, and making the best beverages for my customers, I forgot that I'm just one person, and that i am part of a team.

So what did I get out of the class? I promised to give my customers - and my fellow partners - the best beverages and experience that I possibly can.

Because they are ALL worth it.

[Dan]

This training I attended tonight was a serious waste of time. I think it would have helped some of the people who never make drinks to begin with because they suck at working the bar. I think this was one of the biggest marketing schemes Starbucks has ever put into place. Thats all this is people.

The store I work at is great but it discriminates against those who are capable by making them do work others are unable to do because they have not been trained right.

This training was a waste of time. If it took you people this training to learn how to treat customers, you are working in the wrong field. Go get a factory job.

Dan, I think it might be time to re-evaulate if Starbucks is the right place for you (and I mean that partner to partner, not trying to diss or make you feel like your point is not valid). The entire program, the shared values, Howard's message, the focus that otherwise wouldn't be available in a rush, it just doesn't make sense how someone would see no value (ie waste of time). And your point regarding giving capable employees more work, is that you are responsible to provide coaching and feedback in helping train new partners.

[dManagerLA]

now, if someone will just tell the customers it might take a bit longer to handcraft their beverage, I think everything will work out just fine....

thought the training went great!
erased a lot of Starbucks "myths" from my partners brains...

can't wait to order my drink tomorrow!

[Darleen]

Nerfebarista,
I'm telling you, do not let this little troll of a person get to you. He is baiting us and we should all just IGNORE him. Believe me, he will tire of us and move on. Do not play into it. People like that thrive on putting people down to make themselves feel better. It's sad actually, but the more we respond or get angry and lash out, the more pleased he gets. So, just scroll past his posts, turn the other cheek and let it go. Don't lower yourself to his level. He is not worth it. Keep doing what you do, make your customers happy, that's why we're here.

[Herman M.]

Ex-
as a person completely uninvolved in your conversation, I have to say, even if you don't intend it, some of your posts do come across as a bit on the bitter side. Thing is, in that bitterness/sarcasm the message you have to share is lost. And you do make some points that should be heard.

It is a bit off to spend so much time talking about partners and respect and dignity while also canning those same partners. (and I seem to feel that you are saying it was kind of sprung on them at the last minute?)

Starting wages are often lower than what one needs to make it an only job in some of our cities. But they are still higher than most other coffee shops, yes?

Yes, the company has changes drastically since the 90's, and not always for the best. That's what the training was really about: a course adjustment and break from the past decade or so. A point that can be looked at as the start of new initiatives and expectations. If they succeed, great, but if they fail, this break makes it much easier to quantify them.

I, too have seen the changes in the company. Thing is, I still see enough positive things and enjoy what I do enough (non retail partner) to think working for Starbucks is a good thing.

My message to you: keep saying the things that need to be said, but please, please don't alienate the very folks you are trying to enlighten. Your message is too important for that.

[not an xsbux employee]

Gotcha herman. And right on Pat Nerr.

[Nerfebarista]

Dr. Nuclear,

Clearly ,atleast by your name, you are a rocket scientist. Congratulations. Now, In my experience, rocket scientists, physisists, engineers, and generally 'geeky' dudes, don't do well in social atmosphere so let me once again congratulate you on breaking out of your shell to post here. However, this almost in human way that you boys/gals can't get along with or understand the rest of the population tells me that you would leave crying from a job that I can do. we all have our strengths and just because my SKILLS are with people and coffee, rather than bioluminescent chemicals, does not mean that my SKILLS are less. Go play in your corner.

Pat, I'm sorry if I miss read your post from way above. I do agree that there will have to be a time when the powers that be have to admit fault on themselves before we can move on. I've been with sbux goin on 6 years now.

PR & PIMP MY TRAINING: "I don’t care what the newspapers say about me as long as they spell my name right.”

It was bush-league for Starbucks PR to piggyback a legitimate business event like training to attract the media's attention. They got their column inches, alright; but much it served to point out ongoing problems at headquarters and the stores.

Just what was PR thinking? With all the talk of transformation and a major reorganization announcement on the way, you’d think the group would advise management to enter a quiet period – not be the one that creates an opportunity for a mis-step.

The stunt was a waste of PR resources and put the brand at risk. And it doesn’t look like any lessons have been learned here. Consider the smarmy press release: “5 Great Things to Do in Just 3 ½ Hrs” and PR’s plan to give speech with “behind-the-scenes look at how Starbucks has defended its carefully crafted reputation against an onslaught of unplanned developments.”

Howard, is this cool or what?

[Starista]

Madeline-

3 am? Are you kidding? Just because we serve you coffee doesn't mean we arent normal people who need their SLEEP! I know we're around caffeine all the time, but seriously? Let's not be so selfish here. We serve the customer every minute of every hour on every shift. I think it's not that unreasonable for us to have a meeting for just 3 short hours to try and even BETTER serve the customers! I don't think that's done withOUT the customers in mind!

Wow. As if Starbucks isn't already arrogant enough. Now they condescend to telling customers what to do while Starbucks is closed, as if the poor little lost sheep couldn't figure it out for themselves.