Almost a year ago this July, I quit my dream job at Starbucks to be a stay-at-home mom. I say “dream job” because I’ve dreamt of working there ever since I was a little girl. My dad would frequent Starbucks when I was little, and, even at a young age, I knew that it was a place that I wanted to be.
I got the job by pure divine intervention. I had just moved home with my parents after living in another city for two years, and I wasn’t even thinking about looking for a job yet. My best friend and I met up for coffee at a local Starbucks, and when we walked in, one of my other friends was working there and mentioned that they were hiring and asked if I needed a job. Long story short, I got a call back from my soon-to-be-manager two hours later and was hired just a few days after that! How like God to provide for us in such good, unthinkable ways.
In my four years of working at Starbucks, I learned A LOT of useful tips and tricks. The following are just some of my favorites that I wanted to share:
FIFO
FIFO stands for First In First Out, which is an organization system that makes sure everything gets used, especially items with expiration dates. Everything gets FIFOd at the ‘Bucks: milk, pastries, juice boxes, bags of whole bean coffee (etc). I loved this system so much that I have incorporated it into my home. Either that, or it’s been so engrained in my brain for doing it for so long that I can’t stop doing it. Anyways, I FIFO everything in my house: drinking glasses, cereal boxes, Seth’s baby food pouches, my t-shirts in my dresser. In a very odd way, it makes my heart feel very happy to know that everything in my home is being accounted for and used, and it also means that less food items are going to waste.
HOW TO REALLY DEEP CLEAN THINGS
Most people have heard of, and hopefully have done, some Spring Cleaning at one time or another in their lives. That type of intentional, deep, thorough cleaning is a daily occurrence at Starbucks, especially for the Closers, which I primarily worked as. Deep cleaning espresso machines and syrup pumps gave me a strange love and desire for cleaning. As I reread that sentence, I made a face because it sounds so weird, but it’s 100% true! And any one of my Starbucks coworkers can confirm that I really do love doing these things. The feeling of total satisfaction after everything is all shiny and clean is what I live for.
HOW TO BE NICE TO PEOPLE EVEN WHEN YOU HAVE ZERO DESIRE TO (especially at 5:00 AM)
I have never, ever been a morning person. I don’t like to be up before the sun and I especially like getting at least a good solid 8-9 hours of sleep. Then I got hired at Starbucks and became an Opener. Meaning that I had to go to bed before everyone else (8 PM) and wake up before anyone else (3:45 AM). And you know what? That never got any easier for me, even after several years! I guess I just got into a routine of the things I had to do (which is surprisingly a lot for that hour of the morning), and could do it with about 40% brain power. I never really had any problem being nice to my coworkers at that time of the morning, but it was a lot harder to be nicer (and seemingly more awake) to customers. One thing that I had to learn while working in customer service was that your bad day should not dictate how you treat your customers.
Sometimes I had to take a step back and put myself in my customer’s shoes and remember the times that I had gone into a Starbucks, or any other store, and wasn’t treated well by an employee. I hated the feeling of it. It made me feel like I was a bother or a hindrance to that other person. That would be the last thing I would want people to experience when they would come into my store. Working in customer service is not for the faint of heart. You either have what it takes, or you don’t.
HOW TO BE A TEAM PLAYER
I worked at a fairly small Starbucks lobby store (meaning that we didn’t have a drive-thru, it was just a walk-in store), and the biggest team when I was there was around 13 people (this includes manager, supervisors, and baristas). I’ve helped cover shifts at other stores in the area that had 20+ people on their roster! I couldn’t even imagine having to manage such a large team. Having a smaller team at the store made you really get to know your coworkers very quickly. Not only are you working together most days of the week, but you’re also in very tight quarters. I wish I could accurately describe to you readers how small my store was. The store is about the size of an one bedroom apartment. Once a year in the summertime, there is a street carnival that run right next to our store that lasts for one whole weekend called Cornucopia Days. Aka absolute insanity. Thankfully there has always been such a great team that has planned out every minute of the weekend - who was working what, where, at what time, and with whom. But at such a tiny, cramped store where there are usually 3-4 people working up front at once, it was quite the struggle to fit 9, sometimes 10, people on the floor all at once! It’s hot and sweaty, you’re sticky from furiously pumping syrups into iced lattes and Frappuccinos, there is always a shortage of ice- it’s nuts, but you really gotta love it. It was in those moments of working so close together and so quickly that really helped me depend on my coworkers and anticipate anything that may be needed next. So, if you see something that needs to be done, don’t wait for someone else to do it, just go ahead and do it.
THAT BEING A BARISTA IS MORE THAN JUST MAKING COFFEE ALL DAY LONG
If you think working at Starbucks means you just make coffee all day long, you are sorely mistaken, my friend. We do make coffee, yes, but there’s so much more that goes into this job than I had any idea of when I first started. You’re multi-tasking all the day long, sometimes making 2 or 3 drinks at a time, warming and serving food, cleaning everything, counting (and counting…) products, like milk, straws, and pastries, and this is just part of the barista’s job! Upper management and supervisors have a whole different schedule and list of things they need to get done every day. There are a lot of important responsibilities that need to be taken care of every day, and when you have a great, strong team, everything gets taken care of by the day’s end.
HOW TO MULTI-TASK
As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, multi-tasking is a huge deal when working at Starbucks. I could start making a frappuccino, steam milk and pull shots for a latte, finish and hand out said frappuccino, pour shots and milk into cup for the latte and start a cup of drip coffee all within a minute. Sounds insane, right? When I first started out as a barista, I was lucky if I remembered all the steps that went into making just one drink! As time goes on, you figure out your own rhythm of doing things- whether it be making drinks, being on the register, closing, or opening, and things start to flow along smoothly. I’m glad that my training at Starbucks taught me how to multitask, because it also taught me how to do things the most efficient way as well. When I’m doing a task, I tend to ask myself, “Is this the most efficient way of doing this? Or could I do it another way that would make it go quicker and have an even better result?” It sounds like it requires more effort to think like this, but I like to think that if I do things the quickest, most efficient way, I won’t have to redo this task later on. Now that’s something worth thinking about!
THAT STARBUCKS FRIENDS ARE SOME OF THE BEST FRIENDS I'VE EVER HAD
Of my 4 years at Starbucks, 3.5 years were spent working with a team entirely made up of girls, which I absolutely loved! These women are some of the most authentic, smart, witty, hilarious, selfless, determined, inspiring people that I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. As the years went by, the people who were on my team changed, but I’m still friends with most, if not all, of the women that I worked with when I first began my Starbucks journey. They’ve laughed at stupid things with me for countless hours, we've celebrated dating, engagement, wedding and anniversary milestones together, they've held me as I've wept through my grief, encouraged and rooted for me when I needed it most, had me over to their houses for dinner, shared their lives and kiddos with me ... I just can’t say enough about them. They really are some of the best friends I’ve ever had. The friendships and ties that the Starbucks Green Apron brings together run very deep. This one's for all my girls- I love you all so very much.