Your Starbucks barista has had enough

I’ve had numerous odd jobs for the last couple of summers to make some money while not at school. If you asked me last year, I would have said that being a barista was my favorite gig by far. I loved interacting with customers, making drinks and feeling constantly stimulated. 

Despite my love for the environment, I had a moral dilemma when it came to returning to work during Winter Break and this past summer. I was actively boycotting Starbucks because of issues faced by the Starbucks Workers United union. Pro-Palestine activists calling for boycotts of fast food companies have had significant impacts, which can be seen in Starbucks’ desperate attempts to bring back their normal financial security. A loss of revenue and a subsequent decline in stock value reinforces the undeniable fact that Starbucks has been underperforming. 

The company has tried several methods to improve sales and encourage people to start visiting their stores again. They have added new menu items, such as their new energy drinks and boba. Starbucks also decided to offer more nondairy items and create nondairy vanilla sweet cream. Several shops in my area were forced to delay the launch of this new item because it initially came unrefrigerated and spoiled. When our shop was finally ready to sell them, no one bought them for their drinks, so we regularly dumped expired nondairy items. 

Another method Starbucks has utilized to increase sales is offering an exorbitant amount of sales. Seemingly every week for the last four months — just like every summer —, Starbucks has offered some type of sale to its app users, such as a buy-one-get-one free deal, 50% off, a $3 handcrafted drink and several more. 

While these menu changes and sales tactics might be nice for customers, baristas are getting the short end of the stick. As a barista, I would not find out about most of these promotions until the day of or night before from my personal email as an app user, just like any other loyal Starbucks customer. These sales were often last minute, and since we were a Kroger Starbucks, we could not apply the coupon on our registers. Because of this, each week I had to explain to impatient customers that these promotions for our store were online only, despite the app’s contradictory instructions telling the customer to ask baristas to apply the coupon.

On days promotions ran, we were extremely busy. Oftentimes, it would just be one barista at our stand, and customers would have to wait a few minutes to get their drinks. And yet, these promotions did not help Starbucks’ sales. On days without promotions, it was extremely slow at the stand. Why come in to get a drink for $8 when you know you can wait a few days for the promotion and get it half off? 

Instead, Starbucks has seen a drastic rise in wait times for their customers. Most of these promotions only ran for a few hours, resulting in a large bottleneck when customers all came in at around the same times. There have been countless complaints from customers attempting to get their “buy one, get one” Mother’s Day deal and being forced to wait more than 30 minutes for their drinks. My first day back at work this summer was Mother’s Day, and I can easily say that it truly was one of the worst days at my place of employment.

These sales and new drinks were all attempts to rectify the store’s drop in sales, but they failed and, instead, made the conditions of Starbucks stores extremely difficult to work at. By adding more items to its menu, Starbucks is forcing its many locations to buy more products on a week-to-week basis harming sales in the process. Whatever we don’t use in a specific amount of time must be thrown out. One of the worst parts of my job was having to actively participate in wasting so much food and product. Starbucks should instead focus on reducing waste and ordering products with best-sellers in mind.

You should never wait more than 15 minutes for a cup of coffee or a pastry. The changes Starbucks has made to their stores to prioritize profit have betrayed the foundation the company was built upon. 

The large number of responsibilities we had — like grinding and brewing fresh coffee every 30 minutes, cleaning the sinks every hour and restocking anything that ran out all while taking customer orders — was impossible to manage. It was especially difficult to do when working by myself for numerous hours. 

The mission and values of the company say that stores are meant to be a “third place” beyond home and work where people could find a community. They have changed the meaning of third place, and their customers no longer feeling that same sense of welcome. With mobile ordering being pushed, interactions between baristas and customers have decreased. Stores are no longer comfortable places you can spend hours in. Starbucks now prioritizes speed and the number of sales and, as a result, has failed. 

Former Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan recently stepped down because of weakening sales and was replaced by former Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol. Hopefully, Niccol can fix the issues of low revenue, wait times and product waste that have manifested this year. The company must stop pushing sales, exhausting its employees and creating unnecessary new drinks. Perhaps the only trend Starbucks should focus on following is underconsumption core — don’t push sales and instead focus on revitalizing the consumer experience. 

By curating a minimalist menu with classics that can be modified, without an overwhelming amount of choices, Starbucks can reduce waste and responsibilities for baristas. This would provide more time to serve customers to the best of their abilities and ensure that their employees are well taken care of to keep their mission alive. 

Lara Tinawi is an Opinion Columnist writing about campus culture and her everyday musings. She can be reached at ltinawi@umich.edu.

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