It's harder to explain what it's like working at Starbucks than it is to chronicle the misery that is working at Dairy Queen. Dairy Queen's a pretty straightforward fast-food hellhole. Starbucks has a different target market. As I remark on my info page, "I have extensive hands-on experience with yuppies." The whole drink lingo thing, the fact that there are regular customers, that you are expected to provide good customer service, and that you are constantly being monitored either by management or by a shift supervisor, make "The Starbucks Experience" very... unique . They've got the maximum-production-for-the-least-amount-of-money thing down. Multi-tasking is a given, and we're basically always understaffed - when we've got enough people to get everything done without stress, it means we're "overstaffed." The longer you work there (and the longer you study Marxist economics, I suppose), the more you realize they treat you like fucking shit, and that they are making a killing. And it's all under a paper-thin layer of morale-boosting JPT bullshit. You've got to be positive about everything! :)! There's even a Mission Statement you're supposed to be able to at least paraphrase.
So yes, even though many would call Starbucks a step up from Dairy Queen, there are still millions of reasons to hate it. It gives you so many more reasons to hate yuppies, and the children of yuppies. Because any sixteen-year-old (or anyone in general) who can afford to drink a triple-grande-nonfat-no-whip-extra-hot-white-chocolate-mocha every day of their Louis-Vuitton, cel-phone, SUV-ridden life is fucked-up. By default.
Anyway. Though the majority of Starbucks customers are yuppie zombie-creatures, yuppies come in many shapes and sizes (but their IQs and respect for other human beings hover around the same miniscule figure), and for every person there is at least one annoying quirk. This page is mostly dedicated to the annoying quirks that, when added together, make working at Starbucks the hell that I have attempted to describe.

A guy orders a tall americano. "Would you like anything else?" I ask. "Yeah, I'd like some cream in it," he says. He's rocking back and forth at the counter as we're talking. I explain to him that we have cream at the condiment stands and he can help himself to it there. "But I want it from there," he says, gesturing in the direction of the espresso bar. "Oh, you mean you want steamed milk in your americano?" I ask. "Yes," he says. "That's the way the Italians do it." "Okay," I say, "that'll be $2.14." "I want to do it that way the Italians do it," he says again, and gives me the money. I give him the change and say thank you, and he says, "That's the way the Italians do it."

I'm sweeping the floor because it's finally died down enough that I have time to do so. A woman sitting at a table nearby says, "Can you stop sweeping? I'm allergic to dust." This seems completely absurd and neurotic to me. But fine, I stop sweeping. She stays for an entire hour, and by the time she's gone, it's too busy for me to sweep.

There are two places you can get hot water for drinks like tea and americanos - there's a tap at the bar, and at the coffee brewers, also known as the shuttle area. There's a man who comes in once in a while who insists on getting "shuttle water" in his americanos. The first time he does this, I'm outwardly baffled. "Why can't it be water from the bar?" I ask. "Oh, that stuff is just terrible," he says. It probably comes from the same fucking pipe.

If you get a venti (extra-large) coffee with hazelnut, it regularly comes with 5 pumps of hazelnut syrup. There's a guy who gets 17 pumps of hazelnut in his coffee.

There's also a guy who comes in and gets eight, yes, eight shots of espresso poured over ice.

There's a lady who comes in every day and gets the same kind of oatmeal cookies. When I serve her and I'm like, "Are you getting an oatmeal cookie today?" she says, "Yes, it keeps me regular." It's strange enough to mention that once, but she mentions it almost every time. She must be really fucking conscientious about her bowel movements.

When I say every time, I mean every single time I clean the washroom, there's these spurts of crusty white stuff on the wall in one corner - the same corner every time. We've taken to calling it "the come," and I've been thinking about checking the washroom several times a day to find out when it appears.

One time when I was cleaning the washroom, someone had pissed in the garbage can.

If there was a leper colony for pastries, the end pieces of the banana loaf would probably be sent there. Not only do people specifically request (when they ask for a piece of banana loaf) for it not to be an end piece, but I've actually had people come up to the counter in shock and disgust after the realization that although they didn't request a middle piece, I've done the unspeakable and given them an end piece, and demand that they have one of the non-leper pieces of banana loaf instead.

Along similar lines, people always say, "Can I have that date bar? No, the one in the middle at the front there. Yeah. That one's the biggest." What is it, like, 2 millimeters wider than the other one? Or, "Can I have that cinnamon roll? It's got the most icing." These are the kinds of things Starbucks customers worry about. Personal vendettas are formed around such issues.

I hate it when people think they know more than you do about making espresso drinks. This guy came in once and ordered an extra-hot no-foam latte. No, no, wait, it was even worse than that - his friend ordered a 175-degree latte, and he ordered a 185-degree latte. These can be difficult sometimes because if you've just heated the milk, particularly if it's extra-hot, it's harder to separate the foam when you're pouring it, and sometimes you have to scoop a bit off the top before you serve the drink. This is what I was doing when he started freaking out, telling me I was "scooping away the crema." This is bullshit because the only time the crema (the part of the espresso shot that makes it foamy, sweet and kind of creamy) sits at the top of a latte is if you do it macchiato - that is, pour the milk and then the shots over top. Anyway, I didn't say anything, so he said, "You do know what the crema is, right? You know you scoop the crema away when you do that?" Fuck you, buddy.

I've had a few chances to shock Mandarin-speaking customers at Starbucks. After this lady had gotten her coffee, she was asking Wes, who is Korean, if he spoke Mandarin. "I don't, but she does," he said, pointing at me. She looked at me and kind of laughed because she thought he was kidding. "You meiyou wenti?" I asked. (that means, "do you have a question?") She laughed again and asked me for a daizi (a small bag - I guess she didn't know the word for it in English). She thought I was pretty cool.

Just a few weeks ago, these two guys came in speaking Mandarin to each other, and they ordered their drinks and everything, and they were looking at the Starbucks Card display at the till. One of them asked me how they worked. After my explanation, one of them said to the other something like, "That way they get the customer to come in every day" in Mandarin, and I smiled and said, "Yes, that's exactly right." They both looked at me in shock. "How did you know what I was saying?" one said. They and their friends come in and talk to me once in a while, but most of them have Cantonese accents and it's hard for me to understand what they're saying, and I think they think I'm weird anyway.

If you look at the word "mocha," and you've never heard anyone say it before, I guess it would make sense to pronounce it "mah-cha" instead of "moh-ka," but I still think it's funny when people do it.

I hate when people pronounce the word "grande" like "grand" or "grandy." Somebody will say, "I'll have a grand latte," and I'll say "So you wanted a grond-ay latte?" And they'll reply, "Yeah, a grand latte." I guess you can't be subtle with these things.

Also, it's not ex-presso. It's espresso. And it's not a frap. It's a frappucino. Only mall rats call them fraps. It's not "carmel," it's caramel (I looked it up in my oxford concise dictionary). And don't ever call a cappucino a cap.

I hate when people are like three cents short and they think they can just grab money out of the tip jar without asking. They're our goddamn tips. And then you comment on it, and they just laugh at you. They think you're kidding. If you're that tight for money, you shouldn't be spending your money on coffee at Starbucks.

I also hate when you're on the bar (especially when you're really busy) and someone stands at the counter and stares at everything you do. And they think you're making their drink (and you're not), and suddenly you're putting whip cream on it or something, and they're like, "I asked for no whip!" What's even better is when you put up a tall americano, and someone that's standing there says indignantly, "I ordered a grande latte!" Guess that's not your drink, retard. Or when the person has ordered a hot chocolate like 30 seconds earlier and there's a big lineup of drinks on the bar, and you put someone else's hot chocolate on the bar and then they take it (yeah, I just made all of the other drinks in front of yours in the last 30 seconds), and then the other person has to wait twice as long. Or when the person doesn't know what they ordered - they ordered a cappucino and you put up a tall mocha and they take it. Or when there's a big lineup of drinks and you put up a drink and someone says, "Is this mine?" It's like, how am I supposed to know? I didn't take the fucking order! Or when people ask you to bump their drink ahead of everyone else's because they're in a big hurry. Or when there's a big lineup, and someone at the end of the line comes up to the bar and tells you to start making their drink so they can get it faster when the people in front of them haven't even ordered yet. Or when there's a big lineup and the people get to the till and are like, "Let's see... I'll have... uh... uh..." Why weren't you thinking about it when you were in line? And then the people in line get mad at you for being slow. It's always somehow your fault.

There's a guy who's probably 65 who comes in every day, and every day when he gets his coffee he says, "thanks, dear." Every day he somehow slips in the word "dear" somewhere. It's like, where were you in the 70's? Do you not remember the whole women's liberation deal where you're not supposed to say stuff like that anymore? I want to say "you're welcome, cupcake," to him, but if he gets mad at me, I still have to see him every single day. It's like that with a lot of annoying customers.

I hadn't been working at Starbucks for very long when I was commenting to this regular customer about his half-caffienated tall 1% easy-foam latte. "Sounds like you like everything in moderation," I said. "Yeah," he said, "except for my politics. I'm really right-wing." I didn't say anything. "I bet you're left-wing," he said, "Like, I bet you're a vegetarian, right?" I hate him. NO, I'M A FUCKING COMMUNIST!

I don't understand people who come in every single day, and every day they manage to find something we "screwed up." They're always so grouchy, and you try to be nice to them, but they treat us like we're mentally handicapped. If you hate Starbucks so much, why do you come here every day?

Starbucks has a deal on kids' drinks - hot chocolates, steamed milks, and apple ciders for kids are $1.00. We make them at a lower temperature so they don't burn their tongues. There are adults who come in and order "kids extra-hot hot chocolates" just so they don't have to pay the regular price of a short hot chocolate.

If you ask for extra caramel on your caramel macchiato or whatever, you get charged for it. There are people who come in every day and "forget" to ask for extra caramel until they get to the bar and their drink is being made, just so they don't have to pay for it. When I'm on the till and I see one of them, I'm like, "You want extra caramel, right?" They either say no or they just glare at me.

I put up this guy's mocha and he said, "Livin' la vida mocha!" I bet he'd been saving that one just for that moment.

There's an Australian lady who comes in every day who says "Hi, Marla!" It's painful because every time she does it I want to tell her, "No, it's Marlo," which I would've done in the first place, but I wasn't sure if that's what she was saying because of her accent, so now it's much too late.