Shifts getting shafted; no benefits

You only want to work 7:30am - noon, Monday through Friday? If you don't get 20 hours a week and come back here and bitch it's going to be pointless. Sure the union will side with you and tell you you're not being treated fairly, but the truth is you're not really giving Starbucks enough hours to be picky on whether you get 20 hours a week or not. By the looks of it you are only giving them 22 to 24 hours to work with, and other people want hours as well. So, if you're hoping to get 20 hours a week, either find a Starbucks that is really hurting for a morning person, or give them more hours. I wish you the best of luck, but at the same time I wont be here to hold you and tell you it's ok if you don't get what you want.

I put your availability into the ALS system; you'll average 9 assigned hours per week the way it is right now [assuming my store labor resembles anything like any other store labor would be]. That's a lot of extra work to assign you more hours. Not to mention; I'd be shafting everyone else out of hours to get you what you wanted.

Also, working a constant schedule at Starbucks is nearly impossible to work out. I think somewhere in the rulebook it says "If you like a constant work schedule, work somewhere else." Not verbatum, but you get the picture.

It's not a big conspiracy on hours. Here's the simplified equation. First and foremost; availability. If you're available to work, you'll get to work. If you're limited with your work schedule, your work schedule will be limited. Second, energy. If you come into work dead as hell for the first 2 hours, and the next 2 hours you're still slugging around at less than full pace, you're not going to get hours. If Starbucks wanted a slug to do your job, they'd import them from Taiwan or something. Lastly, upselling. Like it or not, your job is to make money for the massless machine some of us call "Starbucks." The computer rates each Barista according to a number of statistics it gathers. How often your till is off, your average ticket price, your transaction rate, how often your time punches are off from the expected as well as manually interpreted information that your manager may put in the computer [i.e. level of service or speed]. This is all accounted for by the Automated Labor Scheduler.

I'll be honest, if you're motivated while you're at work, that's always a plus. If you're fun to work with, or uplift the experience at all, you'll be alright. It's the people who expect something for nothing that usually end up not getting what they want... and luckily for us, they're also the first to complain.

I wish you the best of luck, if you try even just a little bit, I'm sure things will fall into place as you want them to. Make sure that when they hire you, though, that they know you have a pretty rigid schedule to work around. You may have to make some sacrafices.

Wow-Are you joking? Is there any job out there that would give you full benefits with the availability that you have? If there is, more power to you. Someone that is only able to work the schedule that you want is usually a student, not really needing hours, or someone who isn't really wanting to work at Starbuck's for the right reason-to provide legendary customer service, enhancing peoples daily lives. I wish you luck in your quest to find benefits handed to you!

If you want to work enough hours to get benefits, I recommend to all prospective employees to look around for a business or location where there is a need for coverage that you can best fill. None of the stores around my home have the same needs for coverage because every employee has their own schedule.

[quote=pixie]I read a number of your posts of employees not getting enough hours per week/quarter to get the benfits.
THIS IS VERY SCARY FOR ME TO READ, since I am hoping to get a PT job at a NYC Starbucks for the excellent benefits. I have 7+ years in customer service...service with a professional smile, prompt, reliable.

My hope is to work monday - friday, 7:30am - noon, at a Starbucks near my home. I get benefits now (i pay for them) via NY state and am forced to live in a poverty situation in order to keep my Healthy NY benefits(i can barely afford the premium for that + my $80/month copays) It would be really bad if I worked for Starbucks, and got chintzed out my hours so that I could not get benefits, meanwhile, i would end up going above a specific low income, and end up losing my Healthy NY benefits, and be left with nothing.

So you see it is REALLY SCAREY for me with the advent of my getting work there, I am/was hoping to work at one starbucks only, for a particular steady shift, monday- friday 7:30am - noon, or tuesday - friday, 7:30AM-12:30PM, for many years to come. I have no intention of quitting or being a slacker.

If employee's shifts are really getting shafted, why hasn't anyone taken it to the media??? I'm not telling you what to do--I am MERELY MAKING A SUGGESTION! TV station would love news like this! The TV stations could send people there who could pretend to apply for jobs and then they could see for themselves if a number of starbucks don't give these phoney employees at least a 20 hour shift per week, and/or make it difficult to get benefits.[/quote]

With availability like that, I wouldn't hire you. It takes more than a professional smile.

After the way you seem incapable to control your emotions or refrain from hurling insults it’s surprising Starbucks would hire you. Much less allow you to pose as their spokesperson.

no gods no masters

why don't you organize a protest about it...

i speak only for myself.

I know that reality is a cruel bitch for someone like Organize, but most of us live in it. Maybe when you out-grow your immature ideologies you will understand...but that seems un-likely.

So you misrepresenting yourself in this instance when you said "We (Starbucks)…" and signed a statement "-Management?" Actually you were only speaking for yourself and not for Starbucks despite unambiguously language to the contrary?

http://www.starbucksunion.org/node/384

Posted by
OrganizeThis
Sat, 09/10/2005 - 00:14

“To get things straight; the company speaks for itself, not the people posting on message boards.

We (Starbucks) have always built our success around the high calliber of the people who work with, and for us. With that philosophy, Starbucks has become the #2 best company to work for with over 10,000 employees, and #11 with less.

I hardly think that "organizing" is going to help us maintain those standards.”

Posted by
OrganizeThis
Sun, 09/11/2005 - 01:38

“I came here to "bitch" about it precisely because I care about it. Any industry that has gone union has become a miserable failure. I always looked at the hourly partners as a pretty well spoken and well educated group perfectly able to negotiate the terms of their labor on their own. I hardly think that they require the so-called services of some union goon to get their shift covered. Apperently the same can't be said about the guy who bags my groceries.
Wake up. This pathetic idea will never leave the dusty pages of this fetid web-site.

-management”

Further more I find your misogynist rhetoric of the “cruel bitch” offensive. It’s no wonder that Starbucks has trouble historically with treating women with respect and dignity if they persist in having such insensitive and impolitic persons such as you on their payrolls. That is if you even are an empoyee, which I hope for Starbucks sake you are not.

no gods no masters

Being called a cruel bitch by someone proves Starbucks historical troubles with treating women? Do you seriously think before you type? Do you seriously believe every letter you press when coming to these forums. It's hard to imagine you do. You spew out so many illogical ideas, you could write a best selling fantasy novel. No joke. People would read it and be like, "Oh wow, a successful company where the entry level employees can vote for the CEO, what a silly world that would be." Yeah, then Starbucks can start hiring orcs and vampires to make coffee too. Then, instead of driving to work, we can fly unicorns. Yeah, I think the unicorns will appear long before your crazy workplace ideas.

[quote=DontFormAUnion]Being called a cruel bitch by someone proves Starbucks historical troubles with treating women?[/quote]

No. This proves it http://www.nurseatstarbucks.org/

The fact that Starbucks employees use misogynist language in their interactions with other people explains it.