Life Lessons That I Get From Working As A Barista At Starbucks
Yes I get free frappuccinos but there’s more than that.
Looking back at the end of the semesters of my college years, as a young teenager I wanted to try everything new, I wanted to discover myself, that’s how I ended up as a Barista for the biggest coffee shop chains in the world, yes you know it, it’s Starbucks.
I never imagined myself as a Barista before, it was so spontaneous, the coffee shop business on its biggest bloom in my country, where you can find coffee shops in literally every corner in the city, and being a Barista suddenly becomes very cool.
It’s a job that requires passions, where you get to put pomade in your hair, wearing that apron, and just being gorgeous in front of your regular customers. Sounds cool enough for me and get me to take an interview and become one of them.
In Starbucks, we call other employees ‘partner’, before I was a partner, I was picturing myself where I get to wear that green apron with a smirk on my face, combing my hair, and just being cool while making latte art, I also get to have my free beverages everyday, it must be the best job in the world! at least that’s what I thought before.
But there’s more than that.
More than just making coffee
As a part-timer, Starbucks offering me a decent salary, to be honest, I didn’t even know what much Starbucks pays me until I got accepted, because all I want just to wear that green apron and learn everything about brewing a great coffee.
But, as I quote my friend “If it’s too good to be true, most of it ain’t true” well, he’s right. I thought working at a coffee shop is all about making coffee and blending your frappucinos, well I was wrong.
I obviously didn’t realize about all those cleaning processes, like mopping floors in the middle of the night, and throwing piles of cups with your misspelled names on them, and sweeping those tissues that customers tore apart into little pieces (seriously, why people do this I don’t understand).
At the same time, we were responsible for everything that’s happening in the store, we were given the responsibility of ensuring the customers having the best time of their day.
I do remember when my store was about to open, there’s a huge banner saying that ‘The best part of your day is coming soon!”, I thought that was so exciting, all the joy and thrill because I get to make people happy everyday, but I forgot that it was my job and my responsibility to make them happy.
That one customer who took all of your energy
There will always be that customer that exhaust you more than you need, here’s I learned the cold truth of human behaviors, Starbucks in my country considered as luxuries goods, ‘Starbucks made for rich people’.
Well, that seems to be kinda true and not true at the same time. I get to know important people, people who are responsible for making decisions in the government or some famous companies who’s regularly come into a neighborhood store with a laptop and then do their work.
I believe that if you have that certain of powers you will be most likely to abuse it, or at least your attitude offends other people. I do remember there’s a huge line, it was a busy hour, and people starting to come into the store looking for quick lunch, and people started to be impatient.
I do understand that when you pay for quite expensive coffee, you’re expecting the best services that you could possibly imagine, but I don’t think you have the right to throw your money to the Barista who’s handling the register at that time, yeah it happened to me a few times.
I also still don’t understand why you have to tear those tissues apart, it’s so hard to sweep, you get to pick them one by one, and it’s something unnecessary yet necessary that exhausts us.
It’s all about emotions
At the beginning of the training, they showed us a video of how Starbucks admires people and how Starbucks is respecting human emotions, in my words is how they applied ‘emotional marketing’ for their brand.
The video shows one customer saying that “I might your 100th customer that day, but you’re my first Barista”. The concept of making no barriers with the customer is what makes this company great, getting to know them and sharing stories is one of the things that I like while I was working there.
I made a lot of new friends, I bond with other partners, we love to exchange our stories during the break, and sharing food with each other. I like the working atmosphere over there, just because you’re new that doesn’t mean other partners will treat you differently, they were so respectable and eager to teach you all the things that you need to know.
With the customers, even though the concept of Starbucks is making no barrier between the customers and the partners, there’s will always be certain rules to make the company more ethical, but those rules don’t create a barrier between us, those rules made for more respectable friendships among us.
I also made a lot of new friends with the customers, I get to know their stories, and trust me I’m not just that kind of person who just pretends to listen to someone else’s stories but just don’t care at the same time, because I love listening to stories. When you speak, you’re just repeating something that you already knew, but when you listen, you learn something new.
The customers are not only names on the cups, not only brought revenues to the company, but they also brought stories that meant to be told, and I was so grateful that I had the chance to be there and become one of the listeners.
One day I was so confused about things in my life, I had no purpose in life and just go with the flows at that moment, I shared my thoughts with one of the customers, he’s a great Engineer who graduated from Germany, working as a consultant in one of the biggest company in Singapore.
He said to me, “Kenny, only dead fish go with the flows” that short lines that he said literally opened my mind, then he continues his sentences “You might be a Barista today, but I believe within years to come, I get to be in one of your coffee shops, it’s life, unpredictable things come true”.
Becoming more respecting to other people
After months of working, I know how hard and exhausting it is to work in the food and beverages industries, and I would say it’s not only F&B, almost every jobs are exhausting, and knowing that everyone's might be tired, I become more respecting other people jobs and try to not bother them as much as I can.
After I resigned from my job, whenever I went to coffee shops, I try to apply those rules, I try to pick my own trash and throw them into a trash can, I even cleaned my table and my mess, as simple as that.
One day I was just doing some writing then my regular Barista came to me and asked “why did you always clean your table? and why others can’t do the same?”. That Barista didn’t know that once I was like him. I wouldn’t blame the customers for not taking their own garbage, but it also wouldn’t hurt to ease other people's jobs.
Respecting other people’s job can be done in every situation in every job, not only in F&B. Because in the end, you don’t know what that person has been through, and you don’t have any rights to judge them or even made their lives harder than its supposed to be.
Trying to be more understanding
I’m just a normal human being, I complain and I get tired sometimes, sometimes I just don’t even care at all, but once I get to face the customers, there are no bad days, just smile in front of them and calling their names.
Karl Dale once wrote “The sweetest sound in the world is our name”, there’s something between those writing names things behind it.
There are bad days and good days for the partners and for the customers. One of the other things that I love working here is observing emotions. I like to watch and observe people, trying to figure out their lives, I get to see people crying, children laughing, or even couples flirting.
That’s what happens everyday, we live for the emotions and doing it because of the emotions, and everyone is struggling to get emotions, that’s the reason we still do this, that’s why people woke up in the morning and went home in the evening, emotions.
One night, there’s a couple of students who are studying in the store, judging by the titles of the journals, those students are medical students. It was 10 pm already and the store close at the same time, but those students were not about to close their books yet.
My supervisor told me to close the store, and I did, I did all the cleanings that I needed to do for that night, but still, they were still studying, my supervisor told me to politely get those students to take off from the store because we were tired that night, we just wanted to go home and rest.
So as I’m approaching the table, suddenly I don’t have the courage to say it, I did approach the table, but instead of asking them to leave, I offered them a free tea, so I served them a couple of teas.
My supervisor is confused because of what I just did, so he asked me. I said to him, “Those are medical students, I know we are exhausted, but they are also exhausted, but still they manage to study through the night because they know they have to save someone’s lives in the years to come, they might even save our lives. So I think it’s better to keep them studying until they’re done, in the meantime, I’ll make a latte for you, sounds good?”
That night, I realized that so many people help us and sometimes we don’t even realize it, do you think when those students graduated and become doctors, on the day when they are taking the oath, they will mention “Thanks to that Barista that doesn’t turn off the lights”? Most likely no.
That’s what happens everyday, we never realized that we had been helped a lot, and life would be much harder if we had not been helped. We had been helped by our favorite persons in this world, and sometimes by strangers, or in this case by a Barista.
The moment we realize that concept, we become appreciating others and mostly ourselves, we become practicing more gratitude and try to help others as long as we can even though you’re just an average Barista.
