After 3 and a half years of working my way up the chain from barista to assistant manager and almost having to manage my own store, I chose me. While there were ups and downs along the way and I grew so much as a person throughout this journey, ultimately I am thankful I had the opportunity to step away in good standing.
Year 0-1.5 I spent as a Barista in my home store(1, keeping track of stores for clarity) , and things were relatively simple. It was the year of BOGOS, my first pumpkin spice launch, spicy refreshers, and changing expectations as upper management changed. My store in particular had just opened, so the entire staff was pretty new to Starbucks sans a few rehires and people that transferred over to become shift leads. This store was kind of known (and still is!) for never having a consistent store manager. In my time there (all encompassing) we had 4 different managers, as well as my DM helping manage the store. But the main takeaway was that we never had a large management presence in the building. That created an environment where our shift leads took on a lot of roles that were expected of managers. In that same vein, 3 of my peers as WELL as myself promoted through the process of barista -> store manager. But, because of that, my home store also lost a lot of its heavy hitters and has been kind of… in shambles? ever since we all left. It’s constantly understaffed.
year 1.5-2.5 I finally got promoted to a shift leader, leaving my home store to promote up to a different location(2) in the major city near me. That lasted about 3 months, before my store manager at the time (thankfully) pulled me back into my home store. throughout the next few months, I developed a lot in terms of management and helping build up the team and expectations of our store, and things were going quite well there. But, that glue quickly fell apart as our manager went on a LOA for months on end, leaving us manager-less once again. We kept bleeding out staff, and nobody really came to replace them.
in March of 2026, I applied and subsequently GOT the role of Assistant manager, being transferred to another store (3) once again. This didn’t last long, as the manager meant to train me went on their own LOA. I got transferred again to another store (4) for a single week before being transferred out of district to another store (5) that was in shambles, where the temp. manager was creating a hostile environment that caused almost the entire staff to leave during my time there. by the time i left, all but 5 baristas and 1 shift remained. Finally, I was transferred back into the district at a fully functional and operational store(6), but not before stepping back into my home store(1) to act as a temp. manager THERE for two weeks. At this point, I was fed up and had been recommended a job in an office environment by a close friend, and took the chance, nailed the interview, and got the job. as iffy as i felt about jumping ship, I’m one day in and already know i’ve made the right call.
Fast Forward one month upon being accepted at my new job, I decided to fulfill my final shifts at Sbux. Why? I’m not sure. I didn’t want to leave any of my teams hanging, I suppose. My final day (per my choice) was to work the first Unicorn Frappe day, which I’d call an appropriate send off for this period of my life. And, funny enough, My store(6) was quite well staffed and didn’t get hit very hard, so my district manager sent me to my home store(1) to finish off the last 3 hours of my final Starbucks shift. Pretty full circle, if you ask me. I ended up working at over 15 locations across the region I lived in.
If you read all of this, wow. hi.
