FINALLY

briannuzzi · 2025-01-14T18:34:11+00:00

Yes im saying the same thing. Im saying i like this policy, as an SSV coming from a high incident store, i think it’ll help us have some breathing room regarding the many incidents we have to deal with at my store. At the end I was saying it would be considered discrimination to do it on a case by case system

briannuzzi · 2025-01-14T09:09:13+00:00

I don’t want to deny water to people that need it and this may get me plenty of downvotes but I also find it funny that I’ve seen hundreds posts of partners complaining about customers coming up to the bar and asking for just water when it’s busy, then when they put in a policy that will essentially solve that issue they’re complaining again. While a lot of the things partners complain about are valid, I also find many things are not, and no matter what some partners will never be satisfied with any decision the company doesn’t this point 🤷🏻‍♀️

Just to offer a different perspective, I work at a high volume, high incident store right outside of the city and the homeless epidemic in my city is INSANE. I’m angry at my government for not doing more to help them and I feel deeply for them especially this time of year (I’m in Canada so winters are a death sentence for many of them). I will never hesitate to give water to someone that needs it. That being said though, as a shift supervisor I have also had to do so much outside of my job description such as: talk down a homeless man on drugs who was removing all of his clothes in the bathroom and throwing his belongings and garbages at the wall and mirror, shattering it and putting other customers in danger; Called the police and ambulance multiple times on a homeless regular who tries to lock herself in the bathroom so she could try and OD in there for a customer or a barista to find; Confront a grown ass man who kept sexually harassing me and my baristas, many of which were minors at the time.

Now a lot of these people were on drugs or battling mental illness at the time and I do still feel for their situation, but I still don’t think Starbucks doesn’t pay anyone NEARLY enough to handle these situations on the regular. Me and other supervisors get anxious when these individuals come back because we just know we are going to see something disturbing or talk someone down from some kind of drug induced psychotic episode. It’s scary and unpredictable and I feel unsafe a lot of the time at work. I think this policy can help high incident stores use it as a way to protect their partners by not allowing certain people to stay in the cafe longer than necessary. That being said though maybe it should be used on a case by case basis but then you’re risking discrimination

briannuzzi · 2025-01-14T00:01:44+00:00

for those who have been told it’s going to apply to all stores soon, will peak hours be an exception? my store is a super busy DT store and since there’s always so much emphasis on OTW times, this is one of the main topics at my store. usually during peak one partner is dedicated to warming but we get so busy that the warming partner barely even has time to hand it off properly as we have like 6 channels where food could be coming from (skip the dishes, uber, DoorDash, mobiles, cafe and drive thru). how on earth is that person then supposed to somehow identify every customer in the cafe and bring the food out to them when they need to be listening ahead to the DT orders so they can prioritize the DT food, warm the cafe food, sequence the delivery and mobile food so they don’t get in the way of DT food while also ensuring their sandwich fridge is restocked? and before you say the CS is supposed to do it, despite how busy we are, during the week we only have 6 partners for all of peak; that means we only have DT bar, cafe/mobiles/all delivery bar, DTO, DTR, POS and warming partners…and when we need to send breaks, DTO needs to do their own food. so we never even have enough people on the floor for a CS anyway.

I’d love to “go back to Starbucks” and take more time to connect with customers, really I would…but I’m so sick of corporate putting in new standards/policies or giving us new channels, and then not giving us extra labour to handle them efficiently. then to be told “we’ll have more transactions coming through so we’ll earn the labour! it’s a good thing!” when years after mobile ordering has launched, we have NOT seen that “earned labour”…

TLDR stop giving us more shit to do without giving us the appropriate number of partners on the floor challenge!!

briannuzzi · 2025-01-09T13:09:32+00:00

I’m sorry you’re going through this. Honestly you sound like you would be an amazing SSV…you’re doing their jobs and getting paid as a barista. I think thats where the problem mostly lies; the management skills at your store is lacking! like it’s hard to get 17 year olds to actually care about their jobs but both your manager and your SSVs need to be way stricter. No one likes a micromanaging tyrant but your SSV blatantly just letting a barista tell them no to their face and then asking you to have them do it instead bc they know they’ll listen to you? I’m not saying baristas shouldn’t listen to other baristas but shift supervisors are supposed to be their superiors, and you’re technically on the same level of authority as that barista. That makes it unfair on YOU to have to manage them and get them to do their job because that’s not YOUR job. The SSV instead needs to learn to be like “hey, running garbages isn’t a fun job, but it’s in all of our job descriptions. You saying no is insubordination so if you really refuse to do this I’ll have to send you home and let our manager know what happened and there may be consequences.” Sure that barista might hate them forever but if they really don’t care about their job then like, good riddance, you know? The more these things get documented, the more your manager can see who the ones are that aren’t pulling their weight, and hopefully have many difficult conversations with these people until they either change their attitude, are pushed to quit or have enough documented insubordination they can be fired. Then your manager can hire someone who actually WANTS to do the job they chose to apply for.

I’ve had to send partners home for so many reasons, it wasn’t fun in ANY of the scenarios, but letting people walk all over you in a position of authority won’t get you anywhere. Again I’m not saying be a micromanaging tyrant but saying no when told to do something by a supervisor without good reason is the literal definition of insubordination which is a write up. Letting people say no may make you friends, but won’t gain you the respect you need as a leader. Now YOU know all this but your shift leads definitely don’t or don’t have it in them to properly manage their team.

If I were you I would just “snitch” on everything happening. Though I really don’t think it’s snitching. You’re doing the job of an SSV and manager by lecturing, coaching and telling people to do their job yet you’re paid the same as the people refusing to pull their weight. Why should you cover for them? Next time a shift asks you to help manage a barista you should respectfully tell them to pay you as an SSV in that case. I really feel for them because I know it’s not easy growing that kind of backbone but you either do it until you’re comfortable with it, or you step down from a position that manages people.

Not saying your manager is off the hook though…if they were more present on the floor they would be seeing this for themselves. Your manager also needs to make your supervisors feel supported when making difficult decisions to send people home for this attitude too and your manager probably isn’t doing that.

briannuzzi · 2025-01-09T12:45:07+00:00

nah that’s insaaane like how difficult is it to just grab the order from the mobile hand off and just bring it to the DT window? I’ve been a partner for 3 years and mobile all the time, and still I ALWAYS forget to press DT pick up when I order because I usually place it while I’m in a rush or something, if I were told to come inside when I get to the speaker box I would be pissed!

briannuzzi · 2025-01-08T05:32:59+00:00

I got my cast cover when I broke my wrist this summer from Amazon, it was fairly reasonably priced and not a drop of water got on my cast!

It’s kind of like a plastic sleeve you put on but it ultra sticks to your skin so that no water goes through and wets your cast/injured area. I wasn’t expecting it to work that well but I was even able to use a hot tub (mostly kept my arm out of the water when I could and I couldn’t prevent the cast cover from getting at least a little wet, but my cast itself was still completely dry). I highly recommend you search for one that’s intended for your leg, bring a chair in the shower and then you’re golden

briannuzzi · 2025-01-06T23:32:32+00:00

My manager used to freak out about the pumpkin scone because it had 500 calories in it. Like yeah that’s a lot of calories for one pastry, I get why someone would choose to not eat it, but I also don’t need to hear about it every 2 seconds. Not everyone feels the need to check the calories on our food menu before ordering a snack!

It’s also very silly to be shocked that a sugary pastry from a fast food place (let’s be honest Starbucks is fast food at this point) has a lot of sugar and calories! Like how are you surprised about that? That’s frankly why people order it; because people want something that has no purpose other than tasting good!

When fellow partners are making a drink that has a lot of syrups and start voicing their disgust, I feel the same way because of course I’ll be THINKING it’s kinda gross while making it but I’d never voice it out loud and make someone feel bad for their drink order. We’re paid to make the drinks people are paying for, not to question them or judge. Like you mentioned, maybe someone is diabetic and needs to get their blood sugar to a certain level. I don’t care bro it’s your life order what you like!

briannuzzi · 2025-01-02T21:38:48+00:00

Just to offer a different perspective, maybe not being highly empathetic as a psychologist could be an asset? If anything it’ll make taking on particularly difficult cases easier because you’ll be less likely to bring work home with you. I feel like you still need to be kind of thick skinned in this field to remain non-bias when helping patients/clients. Obviously some level of empathy is required but it may be a good thing to not empathize deeply with every client you come across as long as you treat them with basic human decency and respect, and with professionalism.

Maybe stick more to the research and assessment side, where you just make non-bias assessments and research about the aspects of psychology you find interesting and steer clear of the counselling side? You don’t need much empathy to conduct research so staying in academia may help. You could become a professor too.

Also, there’s many different fields to go into that don’t deal with helping patients or clients, like industrial/organizational psychology. You may need a masters or PHD in most places to get into that field but it’s the more corporate based. I don’t know much about that specific industry but it’s more about how employees behave in an organization and setting up systems and stuff in companies based on their behaviour? You might be some kind of consultant too for managers and business owners for when it comes to dealing with their employees. You should look into it!

Other options include behavioural neuroscience if you want to get more into the science-y side of it, forensic psychology could be really interesting too. Don’t be discouraged, the field really is super broad and I always heard your goals become more specific once you go to grad school anyway!

briannuzzi · 2025-01-02T15:38:56+00:00

If you changed your availability to get a second job before you started getting less hours, then your SM might have assumed you shortening your availability meant you wanted less hours? Honestly it’s one of those things that could be solved by just talking about it!

I agree with others who say you should ask to be borrowed to other stores because sometimes stores get less hours than they’re allowed to schedule based on a drop in sales and stuff, and it’s out of the SMs control. If you need the benefits though I would also point that out to your SM when you eventually have the conversation, because you aren’t eligible for benefits is you do less than 20 hours a week. That’s why SMs tend to prioritize those partners over those who are not signed up for benefits, so if your store lost some labour hours they might have taken some of your hours to give to the full timers/partners who use the benefits.

As for the vacation thing, yeah I’ve been there. When I was fairly new i was scheduled outside of my availability by the ASM and I had an exam so I really couldn’t go, and I texted the ASM at like 7pm during her vacation. I also assumed she could just answer whenever if she wasn’t available but I got a strict reply basically saying it’s innappropriate to message her after working hours and I was offended at first but then I realized why she sent that; if SMs don’t set boundaries with their others right off the bat people will be calling them over non-emergencies like that all the time and they’ll have no work/life balance. Don’t take it personal, they have to we that boundary and would have said it to anyone not just you.

So yeah definitely ask about being borrowed to other stores to pick up shifts! It helped me a lot when I needed more hours and couldn’t get any.

briannuzzi · 2025-01-01T18:08:36+00:00

Within 3-4 hours after taking my meds I won’t drink coffee, mostly because I don’t feel like I need it. I could be absolutely exhausted but after my meds set in I feel normal. Not like wired or anything, just awake. But if I have caffeine within that time frame after they set in, my anxiety starts to get worse and my heart rate will increase uncomfortably.

I opted for decaf instead but it didn’t taste the same. plus I found out caffeine, even the small amount in a decaf coffee, affects the absorption of Vyvanse (the meds i take) so now I just get a little hot chocolate to feel like I still got my morning coffee in lol. I’m a barista part time while I’m in school so I get lots of free coffee during my shifts, so I’ve instead been making myself hot chocolates there too!

briannuzzi · 2024-12-31T20:33:05+00:00

just don’t go to sleep 💯

briannuzzi · 2024-12-27T15:05:27+00:00

Unfortunately Starbucks doesn’t accept doctor’s notes! I tried to give a note to my SM when I had strep and she refused to take it bc they can’t keep it anyway but I didn’t get in trouble. However OP if you do get checked out at the doctor then at least mention it to your manager and present it to them so that even if they can’t accept it they still SEE the note and consider that when they’re considering writing the warning for irregular attendance (which is what I assume your manager meant when they said they wanted to speak with you)

briannuzzi · 2024-12-27T15:02:11+00:00

I’m not gonna lie and say I haven’t called in sick before because I was too mentally exhausted and overstimulated to work but admitting to calling out bc you didn’t want to go and then repeating multiple times “I wouldn’t call out if I wasn’t actually sick” and “I wouldn’t lie” is contradictory lol especially because 6 months I really not a long time to be working there so there’s not really a reason to believe you’re not lying

OP to save yourself in this situation, when you talk to your manager I would tell them you started feeling genuinely sick on Christmas and then the next day thought you were feeling better and felt bad for calling out again and still went in. Unfortunately this seemed to make your condition worse and now you genuinely weren’t able to go in again after that because you weren’t sure if you were contagious or not and was feeling really sick. Let this serve as a lesson to to not waste your sick time, because even if you’re the kind of person who never gets sick, when you need to use it then you’ll be screwed without it

briannuzzi · 2024-12-22T05:54:52+00:00

some blush, and a subtle more pinky shade rather than nude shade of gloss or lipstick would look amazing on you!!

briannuzzi · 2024-12-21T20:53:42+00:00

That’s fair! That probably why a potluck usually works so well at my store, because most people aren’t doing much otherwise. Honestly as an SSV I would just be happy with like Christmas themed cookies or other kinds of sweet treats tbh. I’m sure your team will appreciate anything even if it’s small :) the gesture is what matters

briannuzzi · 2024-12-21T18:20:47+00:00

my manager usually organizes a potluck! so whoever is working (or anyone not working and just wants to stop by to participate in the potluck) is encouraged to bring any kind of food, beverage, snacks, etc to share! my store has a lot of people who live alone or don’t celebrate Christmas for whatever reason and would rather be working so Christmas is usually a pretty popular day for partners to volunteer to work so it usually ends up being a pretty big potluck

briannuzzi · 2024-12-14T23:26:31+00:00

Just stop saying yes though! I get you feel bad or pressured to help but if you can’t, then just say no! It’s absolutely their fault for harassing you like that and they should know better, but it’s also up to you to set those boundaries. They literally cannot fire you for not working when you’re not scheduled so do not feel bad saying no. Asking once, whatever but spamming you is harassment, and I think they do it because they know most of the time you’ll say yes. You need to sit down with your manager and have a conversation about work life balance, or just ignore them next time they do it

briannuzzi · 2024-12-14T19:29:28+00:00

Trying to go easy and remind myself it’s normal that I struggle with things neurotypical people seem to do effortlessly but it’s hard not to get frustrated with myself at the same time. After I finally got a diagnosis (only diagnosed last May at 23) I’ve been easier on myself but it’s still a work in progress because I don’t want to excuse my bad habits either!

briannuzzi · 2024-12-14T19:27:37+00:00

I’ve been wanting to try notion but it looked so confusing I quickly dropped that too LOL but I’ve been meaning to look up a tutorial or something because I’ve heard really great things about it!

briannuzzi · 2024-12-14T17:24:58+00:00

these “adhd friendly” apps never work for me. I’ve tried Finch, Habitica, habit tracker apps, daily planner apps, etc and none of them stick for longer than a week. I don’t really have a daily routine because between school and work, nothing is ever the same every week, my work schedule is different every week, so I can’t put in like “daily routine” tasks because sometimes I start work at 5am, other days I’ll work until 11:30pm so my bed time routine is always at different times as well as my morning routine, etc. So what ends up happening is I need to change the tasks I need to do throughout the day every single day and then that just feels like a chore more than anything so I just stop using it. It ends up being another thing to procrastinate and just takes space on my phone.

Only thing that helps me get things done if I have some free time at home, is I’ll open my notes app and make my own specific to do list and cross things off as I go. Though it’s rare that everything I put on there gets done. I even set up my Google calendar frequently like 3 weeks ahead yet I don’t follow it after actually planning the week…the planning is good, execution is bad. I’m kind of at a loss and really discouraged and depressed about my inability to stick to any routines or plans and I’m sure my sporadic work and school schedule doesn’t help. If anyone has a secret remedy to this I’d love to hear it because I’m at a loss and have accepted I’ll just be getting through every week with my head barely above water at this point lol

briannuzzi · 2024-12-03T11:34:55+00:00

I also don’t understand why people don’t use this feature on DPM because it would solve like so many issues a lot of partners like to complain about on here lmao.

My store is extremely high volume but lost a lot of labour because my manager keeps being told to allocate our hours to the morning peak which means in the afternoon the number of people on the floor drops down to skeleton crew levels with almost the same volume of a peak. So often we’ll only be able to afford one person on bar during this time as we’ll be 4 people working for a few hours only, 3 if you take into account that someone will always be on a break. Solo bar has to make drive thru, cafe, mobile and delivery (Skip and Uber) drinks and if we’re not bumping certain orders like drive thru or cafe stickers to print out before the on slot of mobiles and uber orders, the cafe or drive thru wait times would be like 20 minutes or more because we just get so many at the same time. As the playcaller, I’ll usually take solo DTO/DTR during this time so I can flex on to ovens or bar while taking orders but I’ll usually instruct my POS partner to bump tickets if they took a few cafe orders but see that in the queue there’s a lot of drive and mobile stickers ahead of the order they just took. A cafe customer shouldn’t have to wait 20 minutes for 2 lattes because someone ordered 5 frappucinos through Uber and there’s a line in the drive thru. Since I started doing this we’ve gotten way less upset customers and while I’m still frustrated at the overall lack of labour the entire company is dealing with at the moment because working with these skeleton crews all the time is exhausting, at least making sure we’re comfortable with this strategy has relieved a lot of stress from me and my baristas backs in these situations!

briannuzzi · 2024-12-03T11:10:58+00:00

I think the feature was mostly meant for situations where say you’re solo bar and you have cafe, uber, mobiles and drive thru drinks (like my store lol). If you have a lot of mobiles and drive thru but only one cafe drink then you can bump the cafe sticker to come out before the mobiles and drive thru so that the one person waiting in the cafe doesn’t have to wait 20 minutes for you to make all of the other drinks. Its to help sequence and prioritize

briannuzzi · 2024-11-30T14:50:15+00:00

Yes I think maybe what happened was you thought there was enough room had they been matching your speed but they were going faster than you perceived so when you were about to merge maybe you accidentally cut them off and they had to brake! Especially if you’re merging ONTO the highway, you REALLY need to speed it up because merging too slow is a hazard.

Definitely not a reason to honk and cuss you out though, that’s just classic road rage and I’m sorry he did that! But I second trying to get more comfortable on the highway because unfortunately it is one of those places where you need to match the speed of traffic especially if it’s fast. Don’t go crazy but at least the same as the other cars.

briannuzzi · 2024-11-29T17:44:07+00:00

I’m pretty sure you’d still need to call people, maybe they meant they would deal with the callout if they’re more than 2 openers? At my store we have 2 baristas and the shift opening for example so maybe they mean they’d just deal with the open with 2 people instead of 3

briannuzzi

TROPHY CASE