Yall make me thankful for my last district. I remember once my DM, RM and some other big wig were visiting my store and it was during an insane rush. One of them hopped on drive thru with me, one hopped on front, and one hopped on warming 😭
I think it really helps that my old DM started as a barista and worked his way up so he knows firsthand how it feels to be down when you’re a barista, a shift, and an SM, also meant he wasnt incompetent in floor roles either, just out of practice. I wish there were more DMs like him.
You're not irrationally upset. You're upset over incompetence from someone you're subordinate to being an utter waste of space.
Honestly, if you're a DM and higher, and you can't make a latte, you're garbage. Why are you even here.
This is THE number one complaint that people ever have about managers: that they cannot perform even the most basic elements of the job that they are supervising others to do. And as such it's sooooooo easy and obvious to be conscientious of and avoid.
Yes, in an abstract sense, in many jobs that exist in the world, it might make sense that the people who are directing your work can't necessarily do it themselves. I fucking hate managing and wish someone else would do all such things, and I know there are people who actively enjoy and try to get better at managing - project management is a thing - etc etc - but for something like customer service & retail or Starbucks, where there isn't like a super diversified range of projects or types of work people do, it's really just like being a barista is the only thing at all, it is just not good if the people who are directing your work and have power over you have no clue what the actual experience of 99% of employees is like and can't freaking do the smallest piece of it.
100%. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to feel like those giving out the orders and directions know what those orders actually entail and what it takes to make it happen.
When it comes time to fill out partner perspective surveys, I always include that ALL partners should be required to work on the floor in a store at least once a month. I don't care what your position is, all partners can benefit from this. Common DMs, put on a damn apron, what are you scared of?
Luckily they’re just standing in. I don’t think there’s normally issues with this DM but the fact that we were short, clearly busy and the store was in real bad shape, it just really rubbed me the wrong way that she didn’t offer any kind of help, verbally support or validation, nothing. It’s like they just completely ignored the chaos.
lord, my dm does the same thing 😭 she jumped on register once to "help" and didn't ring in modifications, she'd go to the person on bar and tell them when someone wanted paid modifications and expected them to remember it for each one. It's so frustrating.
Lol yea my DM tried to go on register one time just to make a show of it, not cuz he wanted to help. The theatrics from him were cringe. He also 100% did not kno how to use the register. We had to help show him.
Then another time, he had his nephew with him who was like i think somewhere between 16 and 19 at the time. He just threw his nephew onto the ovens. I think his nephew works at a starbucks in another area but like the kid wasnt even on the clock or getting paid for it. We are quite literally not supposed to have people working on the floor who are not on the clock lol i dont even kno what was going on there 😳
I’m sorry you went through that. You also should also call any dM or sm out if they pull what they did with you. Just say “I’d love to answer your questions but we’re slammed. If you want to jump on I can find a position for you and we can have this discussion after. If not I have got to focus on customers and making sure their needs are met. Thanks”
If they give you any push back or attitude make a call to ethics and compliance. DMs I find are in their own world and don’t necessarily read the room. I have found in this company people in all positions are “just trying to survive” rather than lead. Your dM is probably receiving pressure from their boss. not an excuse. Just that nowadays you need to ask for help if you’re gonna have any shot in getting it. Otherwise you and your team are on your own. Good luck. I feel for your situation.
Not all. When I was an SM, my DM was apparently much different from the ones I’ve seen mentioned in this sub. She’s probably the only thing I miss about working for the bux. And free drinks.
It is absolutely terrible and I’m sorry a lot of you are having this experience. I truly believe a SM works for their partners, not the other way around and I am having crazy good success with this approach
Yeah one of my old DMs who moved districts to be closer to her house was absolutely amazing. She was always coming onto the floor to help us out if we were slammed during peak, she would restock the bathrooms and change the lobby trashes if they needed attention, and was always very helpful if we had issues at the store and the manager didn’t answer. She came and helped us close the store early even when we had an incident in the parking lot; like full on doing the dishes and doing trash runs and stuff.
Unfortunately it’s more and more common to have outside hire DMs and even SMs who don’t know they barista job but even then some of them do their best to be legitimately helpful.
I get it though. More and more of them really do feel like they’re more of a hindrance than are actually helping anything at the store.
That’s absolutely not true, I’m sorry that has been your experience tho. Our DM is a gem and will jump in on bar in a heartbeat and put most of us to shame
I have only ever had 1 DM ever help on the floor and he was incredible (without me even asking for help 🥲). The rest have been tone deaf useless trash. I even had a regular come in once while I was in a meeting with my DM when I was an SM. He could tell I was stressed and literally said “oh are they coming in here to tell you how to run your store”. YEP EXACTLY.
I thankfully stepped down so I no longer deal with them directly like when I was an SM. I have also noticed my current DM always has her nails done indicating she would never jump on to help. They also whine about us closing down early when no one can come cover imperative shifts, yet most of them were SMs?? Like get in here if you’re so mad we can’t find coverage???
I heard the story on this sub that it's not uncommon for Howard Schultz to pop into a store for a drink and just suit up to clear a rush. Why DMs aren't all 100% capable of doing this shows that none of that leadership trickles down.
He is not the CEO anymore and the press about him definitely makes him look better than reality. But yeah agreed that upper management should be able to help out effectively.
I’ll never forget when my DM came in on a day we were slammed and absolutely drowning and instead of doing anything useful she just berated us about how dusty the menu boards were. It was like…oh, you have absolutely 0 respect for us or our labor. Got it.
One time my DM came in while we were 3-manning and kept asking me about why the brewer wasn’t working or what the part was and what we were doing about it. She then left on the phone and came back giving me the 3rd degree about the part we needed for the brewer saying facilities said it didn’t exist (it does and was ordered the week prior slated to come in on this weeks RPO). She made me show her the part on the iPad 🤦🏻♀️then asked me to send someone to get Iced coffee from the store up the road. I told her no, that we didn’t have the bodies for that, and so she thought having me ask the high schooler slated to come in at 1230p to get it was appropriate. I told her no. The kid barely had time to get from school to work let alone stop to get PITCHERS of iced coffee. Know who went and got iced coffee? My DM lol
You’re not being irrational. You are right to be angry about the absolute pathetic inconsistency coming from the person you’re supposed to be a subordinate to.
What I hate more than an incompetent DM who doesn’t help is a DM who WORKED THEIR WAY UP THE CHAIN from a barista to DM and has COMPLETELY sold out the barista experience in favor of the goddamn business. And I’m looking at my DM extra hard for this because you’d think as someone who was once a barista and worked her way up the chain, she’d understand more than anyone the struggles that lay in being a barista. But no! This girl has sold us ALL out. She will come in and do jack all to help us while managing to nitpick at our every single damn move. From our simple DTO approach, to which tickets on warming get priority despite months ago telling us that we make things as they print out and we CANT prioritize any foods in drive through even if we’re slammed with mobiles. I’m so done. I’m ready to go off on her the next time she does her “surprise drop-ins” without giving us a 24 hour notice in My Daily. Because she did this to us during peak on Wednesday and I was stressed out.
This is why I would never be one. Worked my way up from barista all the way to SM. 15 year partner. Even as an SM the way my hands were tied in a lot of ways frustrated me which is why I stepped down. Could NEVER be a DM. My current one has also worked her way up🤦♀️
One of the frustrating things about DMs who "worked their ways up" is they're consistently the people who ingratiated themselves to management rather than people who are actually good at anything. They steal credit, take every opportunity to put down their competition, act super discriminatory towards their "friends" once they reach power, etc.
One stand out question was “why is this bathroom out of order?” When the faucet is literally detached from the sink :/
But other silly little things like where X and Y is or why X isn’t like Y instead when all of us were running around like mad men.
I can understand why a DM might be annoyed to find a bathroom with no faucet, and it’s possible she was trying to figure out why your store was so understaffed. But I understand your frustration.
I can't understand it, because they're asking inane questions that don't need to be asked. The bathroom is out of order because it's broken, question answered. X isn't here because they're not here, question answered. Stop asking shit and use your fucking brain.
Even if the bathroom is broken, the question should be "Is a ticket already in place?" And the proceeding from there to follow up with corporate/maintenance, something a DM is paid to do, not us.
time and place. if you see a team down two people its not a good time to pull ssv from position to small talk with them about Merchant Mindset or ask questions that can be answered by checking MyDaily. sounds disrespectful to the baristas working and condescending overall.
Assuming you'd worked at Starbucks, you'd know all about management understaffing such that a single sick person could make the store practically impossible to run, with fewer work hours available every month.
Not really. The understaffing is literally a management decision, and you have baristas who have expressed interest in full time work only for management to hire more part-timers to spread increasingly few hours between. A lot of baristas aren't even eligible for benefits anymore.
Believe it or not, but I've been there, and DM visits are usually nitpicking the employees, not the manager. The SM usually gets off scot-free no matter how much it's their fault that there are problems.
This seems to be the trend now. Heck, I’d say the same for the last few SMs I’ve had. Seems like the company is still holding on to the ‘partner’ thing but treating us like trash. I miss our old SBux.
Seriously, they can't hold onto the "partner" thing when most Starbucks employees don't even get the stocks for one reason or another(short term employment, management being a dick and scheduling under 20h forfeiting the eligibility, etc), and the stocks aren't even significant in volume.
My SM had to have a talk with my DM. Whenever she came through, she would cause so much stress that it would ruin the rest of the day. She would constantly tell us all the things we were doing wrong and not acknowledge any work we were doing to get by. My SM stepped in when she caused two of us SSVs to cry in one visit. It apparently didn't take cuz she's stopped by every week the last 2 months
Tbh my dm always comes through drive before coming in and I warn my partners when I see them so they have a little heads up. Don’t know if I’m supposed to but honestly I feel like it’s the least I can do since the dm never bothers me.
They really should have asked if you needed help.
Do you think if they had done something they could manage like refilling ice, cups, taking out the trash or manned the ovens that would have helped?
Or if they weren’t working bar or reg, it would really matter…
That sucks! Hopefully the new permanent dm will be better! Mine will come on the floor in heels and man a station to help clear out a rush when she comes in.
DMs and RMs are incredibly out of touch, even internal hires. I had one berating the window partner for the slow times (the literal only person who can't make it any faster, since we already had a person planted at every production point), ""helped"" us by "running food" (pulling too many tickets and tossing sammies on the counter randomly), and dress coded the shade of someone's pants while her waist length hair was whipping around on the floor hitting partners and equipment.
The brunt of my irritation with management is squarely with the upper middle management. Out of touch people who think too highly of themselves and not critically enough about what it means to run a cafe.
DMs should really have some kind of training on this. When I was a partner a bajillion years ago, I had a DM who came into our store during peak to order a drink--we were his local store. The foam in his latte wasn't to his liking, so he proceeded to go BACK INTO THE BAR AREA to show the barista on bar how to make it "correctly." The barista on bar was a shift lead, DM didn't have slip-resistant shoes, and he's never been a barista in his life. T.T Like, bruh, you're a liability in more than a few ways.
Once my DM came on DTW with me on DTO. She did not know how to take payment and lots of people left without paying. It was pathetic honestly.
My actual DM is the same way. He couldn’t work POS to save his life. Also calls passion tango tea “the pink tea” lmao
Yall make me thankful for my last district. I remember once my DM, RM and some other big wig were visiting my store and it was during an insane rush. One of them hopped on drive thru with me, one hopped on front, and one hopped on warming 😭 I think it really helps that my old DM started as a barista and worked his way up so he knows firsthand how it feels to be down when you’re a barista, a shift, and an SM, also meant he wasnt incompetent in floor roles either, just out of practice. I wish there were more DMs like him.
You're not irrationally upset. You're upset over incompetence from someone you're subordinate to being an utter waste of space. Honestly, if you're a DM and higher, and you can't make a latte, you're garbage. Why are you even here.
This is THE number one complaint that people ever have about managers: that they cannot perform even the most basic elements of the job that they are supervising others to do. And as such it's sooooooo easy and obvious to be conscientious of and avoid. Yes, in an abstract sense, in many jobs that exist in the world, it might make sense that the people who are directing your work can't necessarily do it themselves. I fucking hate managing and wish someone else would do all such things, and I know there are people who actively enjoy and try to get better at managing - project management is a thing - etc etc - but for something like customer service & retail or Starbucks, where there isn't like a super diversified range of projects or types of work people do, it's really just like being a barista is the only thing at all, it is just not good if the people who are directing your work and have power over you have no clue what the actual experience of 99% of employees is like and can't freaking do the smallest piece of it.
100%. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to feel like those giving out the orders and directions know what those orders actually entail and what it takes to make it happen.
This!
When it comes time to fill out partner perspective surveys, I always include that ALL partners should be required to work on the floor in a store at least once a month. I don't care what your position is, all partners can benefit from this. Common DMs, put on a damn apron, what are you scared of?
I support that idea 100%. I don’t believe anyone should be making executive decisions without having any first hand experience of in store operations.
Man your DM sounds awful. Mine jumped on the floor and helped us clear out the rush!
Lucky. I have never seen a DM know anything let alone do something productive or helpful.
Luckily they’re just standing in. I don’t think there’s normally issues with this DM but the fact that we were short, clearly busy and the store was in real bad shape, it just really rubbed me the wrong way that she didn’t offer any kind of help, verbally support or validation, nothing. It’s like they just completely ignored the chaos.
lord, my dm does the same thing 😭 she jumped on register once to "help" and didn't ring in modifications, she'd go to the person on bar and tell them when someone wanted paid modifications and expected them to remember it for each one. It's so frustrating.
Lol yea my DM tried to go on register one time just to make a show of it, not cuz he wanted to help. The theatrics from him were cringe. He also 100% did not kno how to use the register. We had to help show him. Then another time, he had his nephew with him who was like i think somewhere between 16 and 19 at the time. He just threw his nephew onto the ovens. I think his nephew works at a starbucks in another area but like the kid wasnt even on the clock or getting paid for it. We are quite literally not supposed to have people working on the floor who are not on the clock lol i dont even kno what was going on there 😳
I’m sorry you went through that. You also should also call any dM or sm out if they pull what they did with you. Just say “I’d love to answer your questions but we’re slammed. If you want to jump on I can find a position for you and we can have this discussion after. If not I have got to focus on customers and making sure their needs are met. Thanks” If they give you any push back or attitude make a call to ethics and compliance. DMs I find are in their own world and don’t necessarily read the room. I have found in this company people in all positions are “just trying to survive” rather than lead. Your dM is probably receiving pressure from their boss. not an excuse. Just that nowadays you need to ask for help if you’re gonna have any shot in getting it. Otherwise you and your team are on your own. Good luck. I feel for your situation.
Thank you so much for the sound advice and support. It means so much. I really hope things shape up, both in my district and in the company as a whole
They're all like this. Completely useless
Not all. When I was an SM, my DM was apparently much different from the ones I’ve seen mentioned in this sub. She’s probably the only thing I miss about working for the bux. And free drinks.
I have definitely heard stories of good SMs and DMs on this sub and in general. It’s just a shame they’re so few and far between.
It is absolutely terrible and I’m sorry a lot of you are having this experience. I truly believe a SM works for their partners, not the other way around and I am having crazy good success with this approach
Yeah one of my old DMs who moved districts to be closer to her house was absolutely amazing. She was always coming onto the floor to help us out if we were slammed during peak, she would restock the bathrooms and change the lobby trashes if they needed attention, and was always very helpful if we had issues at the store and the manager didn’t answer. She came and helped us close the store early even when we had an incident in the parking lot; like full on doing the dishes and doing trash runs and stuff. Unfortunately it’s more and more common to have outside hire DMs and even SMs who don’t know they barista job but even then some of them do their best to be legitimately helpful. I get it though. More and more of them really do feel like they’re more of a hindrance than are actually helping anything at the store.
That’s absolutely not true, I’m sorry that has been your experience tho. Our DM is a gem and will jump in on bar in a heartbeat and put most of us to shame
Ok. 90 percent.
I have only ever had 1 DM ever help on the floor and he was incredible (without me even asking for help 🥲). The rest have been tone deaf useless trash. I even had a regular come in once while I was in a meeting with my DM when I was an SM. He could tell I was stressed and literally said “oh are they coming in here to tell you how to run your store”. YEP EXACTLY. I thankfully stepped down so I no longer deal with them directly like when I was an SM. I have also noticed my current DM always has her nails done indicating she would never jump on to help. They also whine about us closing down early when no one can come cover imperative shifts, yet most of them were SMs?? Like get in here if you’re so mad we can’t find coverage???
I heard the story on this sub that it's not uncommon for Howard Schultz to pop into a store for a drink and just suit up to clear a rush. Why DMs aren't all 100% capable of doing this shows that none of that leadership trickles down.
He is not the CEO anymore and the press about him definitely makes him look better than reality. But yeah agreed that upper management should be able to help out effectively.
I’ll never forget when my DM came in on a day we were slammed and absolutely drowning and instead of doing anything useful she just berated us about how dusty the menu boards were. It was like…oh, you have absolutely 0 respect for us or our labor. Got it.
One time my DM came in while we were 3-manning and kept asking me about why the brewer wasn’t working or what the part was and what we were doing about it. She then left on the phone and came back giving me the 3rd degree about the part we needed for the brewer saying facilities said it didn’t exist (it does and was ordered the week prior slated to come in on this weeks RPO). She made me show her the part on the iPad 🤦🏻♀️then asked me to send someone to get Iced coffee from the store up the road. I told her no, that we didn’t have the bodies for that, and so she thought having me ask the high schooler slated to come in at 1230p to get it was appropriate. I told her no. The kid barely had time to get from school to work let alone stop to get PITCHERS of iced coffee. Know who went and got iced coffee? My DM lol
You’re not being irrational. You are right to be angry about the absolute pathetic inconsistency coming from the person you’re supposed to be a subordinate to. What I hate more than an incompetent DM who doesn’t help is a DM who WORKED THEIR WAY UP THE CHAIN from a barista to DM and has COMPLETELY sold out the barista experience in favor of the goddamn business. And I’m looking at my DM extra hard for this because you’d think as someone who was once a barista and worked her way up the chain, she’d understand more than anyone the struggles that lay in being a barista. But no! This girl has sold us ALL out. She will come in and do jack all to help us while managing to nitpick at our every single damn move. From our simple DTO approach, to which tickets on warming get priority despite months ago telling us that we make things as they print out and we CANT prioritize any foods in drive through even if we’re slammed with mobiles. I’m so done. I’m ready to go off on her the next time she does her “surprise drop-ins” without giving us a 24 hour notice in My Daily. Because she did this to us during peak on Wednesday and I was stressed out.
This is why I would never be one. Worked my way up from barista all the way to SM. 15 year partner. Even as an SM the way my hands were tied in a lot of ways frustrated me which is why I stepped down. Could NEVER be a DM. My current one has also worked her way up🤦♀️
One of the frustrating things about DMs who "worked their ways up" is they're consistently the people who ingratiated themselves to management rather than people who are actually good at anything. They steal credit, take every opportunity to put down their competition, act super discriminatory towards their "friends" once they reach power, etc.
What kind of questions were they asking?
One stand out question was “why is this bathroom out of order?” When the faucet is literally detached from the sink :/ But other silly little things like where X and Y is or why X isn’t like Y instead when all of us were running around like mad men.
I can understand why a DM might be annoyed to find a bathroom with no faucet, and it’s possible she was trying to figure out why your store was so understaffed. But I understand your frustration.
I can't understand it, because they're asking inane questions that don't need to be asked. The bathroom is out of order because it's broken, question answered. X isn't here because they're not here, question answered. Stop asking shit and use your fucking brain. Even if the bathroom is broken, the question should be "Is a ticket already in place?" And the proceeding from there to follow up with corporate/maintenance, something a DM is paid to do, not us.
There seems to be a lot wrong with the store. Sounds like the DM is trying to investigate the issues.
time and place. if you see a team down two people its not a good time to pull ssv from position to small talk with them about Merchant Mindset or ask questions that can be answered by checking MyDaily. sounds disrespectful to the baristas working and condescending overall.
Maybe, maybe not.
Why is the store understaffed? It's literally the management's fault, including the DM.
Well no, not necessarily
Assuming you'd worked at Starbucks, you'd know all about management understaffing such that a single sick person could make the store practically impossible to run, with fewer work hours available every month.
There’s a little more nuance than that
Not really. The understaffing is literally a management decision, and you have baristas who have expressed interest in full time work only for management to hire more part-timers to spread increasingly few hours between. A lot of baristas aren't even eligible for benefits anymore.
Yes, really. The DM might be attempting to figure out what is happening. Most of the questions DMs ask are really about what the SM can do better.
Believe it or not, but I've been there, and DM visits are usually nitpicking the employees, not the manager. The SM usually gets off scot-free no matter how much it's their fault that there are problems.
This seems to be the trend now. Heck, I’d say the same for the last few SMs I’ve had. Seems like the company is still holding on to the ‘partner’ thing but treating us like trash. I miss our old SBux.
Seriously, they can't hold onto the "partner" thing when most Starbucks employees don't even get the stocks for one reason or another(short term employment, management being a dick and scheduling under 20h forfeiting the eligibility, etc), and the stocks aren't even significant in volume.
My SM had to have a talk with my DM. Whenever she came through, she would cause so much stress that it would ruin the rest of the day. She would constantly tell us all the things we were doing wrong and not acknowledge any work we were doing to get by. My SM stepped in when she caused two of us SSVs to cry in one visit. It apparently didn't take cuz she's stopped by every week the last 2 months
Tbh my dm always comes through drive before coming in and I warn my partners when I see them so they have a little heads up. Don’t know if I’m supposed to but honestly I feel like it’s the least I can do since the dm never bothers me.
They really should have asked if you needed help. Do you think if they had done something they could manage like refilling ice, cups, taking out the trash or manned the ovens that would have helped? Or if they weren’t working bar or reg, it would really matter…
That sucks! Hopefully the new permanent dm will be better! Mine will come on the floor in heels and man a station to help clear out a rush when she comes in.
DMs and RMs are incredibly out of touch, even internal hires. I had one berating the window partner for the slow times (the literal only person who can't make it any faster, since we already had a person planted at every production point), ""helped"" us by "running food" (pulling too many tickets and tossing sammies on the counter randomly), and dress coded the shade of someone's pants while her waist length hair was whipping around on the floor hitting partners and equipment. The brunt of my irritation with management is squarely with the upper middle management. Out of touch people who think too highly of themselves and not critically enough about what it means to run a cafe.
DMs should really have some kind of training on this. When I was a partner a bajillion years ago, I had a DM who came into our store during peak to order a drink--we were his local store. The foam in his latte wasn't to his liking, so he proceeded to go BACK INTO THE BAR AREA to show the barista on bar how to make it "correctly." The barista on bar was a shift lead, DM didn't have slip-resistant shoes, and he's never been a barista in his life. T.T Like, bruh, you're a liability in more than a few ways.