Hello! Welcome to Starbucks. How can I help you today?
As an introduction to my blog, I would like to outline exactly what you will be reading about on this page. My intention is to post anecdotes about the most outrageous customers I meet on the job. The angry ones, the clueless ones, the overly-friendly ones... more adjectives will crop up on me down the road, I'm sure. Here are a few examples of the types of consumers I've encountered thus far.
The Raincloud
This customer is determined to do whatever she can to bring you down. Obviously somewhere in life she has been wronged, and she wishes nothing more than to feel like she is above you. I can only imagine that this customer goes home to an empty house devoid of human existence--I would go so far to say that her home has been emptied of all life forms. Maybe she has tried to go the crazy cat-lady route, but all of her animals have run away. She is just that horrible. This thought is my only consolation, the sole thing that provides me with the strength to deal with her, all while sporting my Starbucks smile.
My best example of the raincloud would be and older lady who has visited me three or four times, but is not frequent enough to adopt "regular" status. The first time I met her, I was brand new. She came up to the register with a pastry bag, set it down on the counter and said, "Coffee cake."
Being the newbie that I was, I was confused. At the time, our store had four different kinds of coffee cake. So I asked quite innocently, "What kind of coffee cake did you get?" and flashed her a winning Starbucks employee grin.
"It doesn't matter," she told me angrily, and I was very much taken aback.
"Oh," I said, still confused. "It's just that we have more than one kind--"
"It. Does. Not. Matter," she said again, cutting me off through gritted teeth. "I got coffee cake. They're all coffee cake. They're all the same price. It doesn't matter."
At this point, I was at a loss as to what I should do. So I braved one last attempt. I could feel my voice shaking with nerves as I weakly stammered,
"Oh--I just need to put it into my computer--for inventory, you know--"
"That's stupid!" she exclaimed. "It's a damn coffee cake! Ring me up for whatever you want!"
I had not yet experienced a customer like this before, and tears were pressing at my eyes as I rang her up for a reduced-fat cinnamon swirl. She then started complaining about our Gold Card. Once again, being new, I wasn't exactly sure how it worked, but I tried to listen to her despite that.
"Why did you guys get rid of the Gold Card?" she asked me with a smug smile, as if she knew exactly what I was going to say and she had her rebuttal at the tip of her tongue, ready for my response.
I swallowed nervously. "We didn't," I squawked. "It's just a new program--"
Just as I had expected, she was not interested in hearing an explanation; she just wanted to complain. "No!" she said importantly. "The Gold Card is gone. The new way of doing things is a disgrace, an embarrassment. Just like you, asking about my coffee cake."
Now I really was crying. I didn't say another word to her as I sniffled, wiping my tears quickly. She looked at me as though she had accomplished exactly what she wanted to, and she was unconcerned that she had reduced me to tears. She left without so much as a second glance, and I had to ring through the rest of the line as the customers looked at me as though I were Bambi and had just watched my mother die.
The Interrogator
Some of my favorite customer stories come from those who think I'm much smarter than I really am. They are those people I want to continually shake by the shoulders while shouting, "I am a Starbucks barista, not a (insert prestigious profession here)!"
Two examples come to mind. The first is a young man who sat for hours in my lobby studying for an upcoming test. As I was handing out drinks at the bar, he came up to me, folded his arms across the handoff plane, and stared intently at me until I acknowledged him. Once I did, he simply said, "Your internet is really slow."
Refraining from rolling my eyes, I replied with a smile, "Yeah, we're a really busy store, so with everyone studying on their laptops, it tends to slow down our connection."
As though he hadn't heard a word, he said, "Yeah, but it's really slow."
You've been sitting in my lobby for hours. You bought a tall drip for 1.65 and have been getting free refills on it every half hour. You are using our free internet. And you're complaining about what now?
Of course I couldn't say what was on my mind, so with an effort to keep my friendly composure, I simply said, "I'm very sorry."
He looked at me, perplexed. "Are you going to do anything about it?" he asked me.
I AM A STARBUCKS BARISTA. NOT A REPAIR PERSON.
My second example is about a regular customer. Every night he comes in, and being homeless, he doesn't have money to buy anything. So he brings his own tea bag and mug, requests that we fill it with hot water for him, and uses up literally ALL of the sugar on the condiment bar, as well as a good portion of the cream we have sitting up there. Naturally, his presence is annoying to me, but that Starbucks demeanor demands that I treat him just as I would any other customer.
One night, we ran out of white sugar. My first thought was, "Oh no. That man is going to go crazy." Sure enough, he came in, looked at the condiment bar, and immediately stomped up to where I was standing at the handoff plane.
"You're out of sugar on the condiment bar," he informed me.
"Yes, we're actually all out," I told him apologetically. "But there is raw sugar, which is just as good."
He looked at the condiment bar, then back at me. "What's the difference?" he asked me.
"Well, white sugar is processed."
"What does that mean?"
"Just... just that it's processed," I replied, not knowing exactly what that entailed.
"Yes," he said, irritated. "But what does that mean? What does it do to the sugar?"
"I'm not sure," I said, "but it tastes just as good."
He continued to relentlessly ask me questions about exactly what was different about the sugar, though he must have known I had no answer.
I AM A STARBUCKS BARISTA. NOT A SCIENTIST!
The Most Important Person In The World
The final customer that I am going to detail for you today is the person who is plainly and simply more important than everyone else. Whether they are a big wig or just a teenage girl who is spoiled by her parents, this person thinks that they deserve exactly what they want RIGHT NOW, regardless of how many other people are in the store.
An example of this is the person who comes right up to the counter when I am already helping a customer and interrupts whatever conversation we are having to say, "I'm not ordering a drink. I just want to buy a pastry/some whole bean coffee/this mug. So I'm not going to wait in that huge line."
To this I always reply, "I'm so sorry, we just have the one line." I flash them a winning Starbucks smile, and they usually leave the store huffily, not even bothering to purchase what they had come for. They certainly do not have the time to wait in line like everybody else.
Another example of this is the person who marches up to the handoff plane the moment after they order their drink and demand to know if "you are working on my hot chocolate?"
Now, my store is very high-volume. At times, the wait for a drink is several minutes, and during the holidays it can be up to a fifteen or twenty minute wait. What this customer is basically saying is, "I've been waiting eight seconds for a drink that takes forty seconds to make. There are six people who were in front of me in line that have not yet received their drinks, but I'm still confused as to why my drink is not in my hand right now."
Well, hopefully this post has made you smile just a little bit. Perhaps it has piqued your interest. By all means, return! I'm sure I will be posting quite frequently--I know I have enough stories already to tell one every day for the rest of my life.
