Now for those customers who are addicted to caffeine (and there are alot of those), decaf shots of espresso sure do come in handy. I understand that people have bad days, emotional days, and just sucky days in general, BUT that is no excuse to come inside my Starbucks and give me or any other fellow barista the stink eye because you just found out that your Louis Vuitton purse is, in fact, a knock-off. I understand you have the right to feel upset that you just lost a business deal or that the idiot behind you in traffic just gave your brand new car a love-tap with his vehicle, BUT (again) you cannot go and disrespect the barista who is making your Triple Venti, Hazelnut, Soy, No-Foam, Extra-hot, Stirred Latte. If you do that to me, and I am for the most part a very understanding and pretty patient person, I will accidentally *cough* hit the decaf button instead of the fully-caffeinated espresso shots----No Question!
To make a long story short, be nice to us and we will (or at least I will) do everything I can to make a perfect drink and use my sarcasm to make you crack a smile before you exit my building.
KILL EM WITH KINDNESS!
It really works! I used to work with a girl who was happy almost all the time. When we would get a customer who made us want to throw their scalding hot beverage in their face, she would always tell us, "Just kill them with kindness". At first, that would just piss me off even more that she wanted me to be nice to these jerks, but in the end when the jerks didn't fall over dead like I initially wanted, after I gave them a fake smile, they would eventually show up to my Starbucks a little nicer and a little more full of joy. It was AWESOME! Some customers just enjoy being angry and get some sort of ecstacy from making other people (including us angelic baristas) pissed off. But some people DO change.
Then you get the rushes. Rushes at Starbucks can be more than a bottle of Tylenol can handle. And believe me, they are more stressful for a barista than they are for you. Sometimes they come out of no where and we are not prepared for the madness, especially when they include 5 trillion frappuccinos. This is where a little prayer comes in handy (when you have a second to think about it). You'll get the people who will huff and puff all while watching your every step with their drink, hoping that you'll put .000057 ounces too much of a syrup in the drink so that they force you to remake it because they're on a "no-sugar diet", but still want extra whip cream on top. So at this point, I've been holding the drink before handing it off to the grumpy customer, and I pray to myself and over the cup "God, if this doesn't give the person a little joy, please give them something that will.", and almost immediately, I've seen many grumpy customers "turn their frown upside down", and with the addition of some sarcastic humor, they walk away from the hand-off counter (AND SOMETIMES TO THE TIP JAR) with a huge smile on their faces. So either they suffer from some major Bi-Polar disorder, or God works in mysterious ways....I like to believe the latter.
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