Hey…Starbucks barista from Canada here.
Hey…Starbucks barista from Canada here. I make about 17$ an hour CAD, and to be totally fair I actually quite enjoy my job.
I’ve been working through most of the pandemic-I also often take my fellow baristas’ shifts if they find they need a break. I’ve supported family, hung out with friends, and enjoyed myself a little during all this. I’m very glad to have this job.
Even so-there are some things I need to set straight.
1) The 17$ CAD an hour I enjoy as a barista…it’s actually quite uncommon here. Most baristas in Canada are making 15$ CAD tops…also 17$ CAD translates to about 15$ USD on a good day.
I’ve also seen quite a few job postings for American baristas that sometimes don’t even reach the 15$ USD threshold offered as a minimum on the coasts. I realize we may seem overpaid in the cities but even there, the price of rent has skyrocketed so much that 17$ USD doesn’t cover it unless you’re willing to rent with a whole tonne of roomies.
2) The Tik-Tok drink phenomenon isn’t usually all that bad, and you are indeed correct that it makes us look very good, sales wise.
However, the problem is that TikTok drinks, especially the highly complex ones with blended foam, equal time. During a morning or lunch or afternoon coffee rush, when a lot of folks are ordering what should be quick cups of joe, that time equals impatience.
And impatience ends up turning into abuse-especially against gender nonconforming and/or racialized workers.
You’ve heard countless stories of retail and service workers getting abused during the pandemic, haven’t you? I’ve witnessed two such events myself, levelled against my coworkers on the job. Nothing effective could even be done during those two events. All we could do was gently hold the line, back up our coworkers, and put on a smile for the next customer.
3) Our ability to maintain our previously high standards is utterly collapsing.
Part of the problem with complex TikTok drinks taking up so much labour is that things we used to do to “make the moment right” simply can’t be done anymore. The higher ups are severely under scheduling labour even as the stores are getting extremely busy once again, resulting in multiple no-shows per day becoming common due to sickness and also just sheer stress.
This means that if you want an inch of steamed cream in your tea, I have to charge for it-even if I didn’t before, and even if I don’t even WANT to, because the precious 30 seconds needed to steam your cream is 30 seconds that our regular Joe who gets his latte cannot get his latte because the steam wand is being taken up.
Remember those racialized abuse incidents I was telling you about? One of those happened because my supervisor defended me charging for steamed milk-which for the reasons I already stated I have to do-and an old regular who was used to getting his steamed cream for free basically said that he wouldn’t have it and harassed her for her looks. Later he proceeded to harass me by showing me the free steamed cream he cajoled another Starbucks into making for him. The incident was reported-but nothing was done. He came in another day when I had a different supervisor, complaining about me and my supervisor the previous day, and got his free steamed cream like nothing happened.
Even aside from incidents with that, my fellow baristas are encouraging me to cut corners in the name of making drinks faster-damn the consequences. Nobody puts stickers on the office coffees to indicate which one is which anymore-and in fact they regularly mock me for doing so. Frappuccinos and chai tea lattes are double batched as a standard op. The condiment stands are never coming back (one too many customers turned their iced espressos into iced lattes for free-and corporate is strongly trying to standardize every quarter of an inch of milk poured now in a desperate attempt to save money).
So…having now unexpectedly poured my guts out trying to set the record straight…can you blame us for complaining?