A er school, co ee and chaos brew at Starbucks

the ve of us working to be able to really get things moving and going,” said junior Daniela Cano Sánchez, a barista at Starbucks.

Backed-up orders and hordes of teenagers mean one thing — angry customers.

erspoon said. “And surprisingly, we even had it posted on Nextdoor a few ti mes.”

BY ABBY KNIGHT Sta Reporter

A er a long and exhausting day of school, the same thought rushes through almost every student’s head: a refreshing drink from Starbucks — just a quick walk away — would taste really good right now.

Five minutes later, as students ood Burlingame Avenue, a large crowd has already formed inside the shop. With mobile orders ooding in right as the bell rings and a line wrapping around the store, the classic coffee spot soon turns chaotic.

e store is usually crowded on Mondays, Fridays and weekends, especially in the morning or a er school.

“In the morning, it’s de nitely crowded, but a er school, it’s really something else,” sophomore Gabbie Vega said.

Employees recognize the time of day the hoards of customers arrive at the store, which gives them time to prepare for the hundreds of drinks they will need to make.

“I think we are always aware of when it’s gonna hit so we always make sure to prepare our stock,” said senior Ashlyn Witherspoon, a barista at Starbucks.

Even though many students head to the cozy co ee shop a er classes, some refrain from going to avoid crowds and long lines.

“I don’t know if my order’s coming out, and that’s why I don’t really like to order at Starbucks when it’s a er school because there’s a lot of orders coming through, and it’s also really crowded in the store,” Vega said.

When the a er-school crowd makes their way into Starbucks, baristas, many of whom are students themselves, can feel overwhelmed. With a small group of employees working at a given time, it becomes stressful to make drinks for large groups of customers.

“It de nitely gets really hectic and becomes really di cult for

“ e people in the lines tend to get very irritated when we take long. Sometimes our system goes down, and sometimes we’re just having trouble communicating with one another,” Sánchez said. “Unfortunately, people don’t understand that so they take it out on us, and it’s really unfortunate because I don’t really need an adult yelling at me because I am just trying to get going.” e holidays are also an extremely busy time of year for Starbucks. On Christmas Day, customers became very aggressive with baristas — an incident that was shared by Burlingame residents on the app “Nextdoor”, where neighborhoods can stay updated on news in the community.

As many people impatiently try to get their drinks, baristas wish customers remembered that they aren’t superhumans.

“In terms of being more open-minded, we’re not just plain workers, we also all have our personalities and all of our di erent things and hobbies that we do, and we’re still human and people,” Sánchez said.

“During the holidays, there were a few instances where customers were unhappy with how long the orders were taking, because we would literally have maybe 300 people altogether on a Sunday. And so that was de nitely very di cult,” With-

On the app, many customers came together to show their support for the baristas. For example, around the holidays one user posted a story about a person complaining to a barista and making disrespectful comments about them, and how it a ected the worker. Community members lled the comment section with kind and upli ing messages to the Starbucks sta “ e Burlingame community was really supportive of our baristas,” Witherspoon said. “ ey were advocating for the baristas, and how it was just not right for the customer to just be yelling at us.”

Although Starbucks can be a stressful work environment, it also prepares employees, many of whom are high school or college students, to handle tense work situations.

“Basically, I’ve noticed that I’m pretty much wherever they need me. It’s really easy for me to be on [the] register, but also be aware that I have food to warm up as well,” Sánchez said. “So de nitely when there’s a crowd, I feel like we all just kind of go on autopilot and understand what we’re supposed to do, and we do it quick and e ciently, so that’s the good part.”

For Witherspoon, having many tasks makes the job more interesting. With the constant busy atmosphere in Starbucks, workers are more active.

“If you work in another cafe or something, it might be slow and then you’re just sitting around doing nothing, but it’s nice that there’s always someone to talk to, and always seeing groups of people spending time with their friends that are patient, and that’s really nice,” Witherspoon said.

Starbucks also o ers a close work community as baristas get to know and rely on each other.

“Working there hasn’t been the worst, I love it, I truly do. e people that work there are great, we all understand each other, and it’s a very nice community,” Sánchez said.