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Comment by angry_moose | Hacker News Reader

First line:

Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan told employees Thursday that he’ll work a half day every month at one of the coffee giant’s locations.

Something tells me it'll be something like 1-5pm; not the 7am rush.

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I've mixed feelings. Many probably wouldn't want the semi-dead weight of big executive screwing up the morning rush.

I haven't worked retail, I know its unpleasant but is there really that much skill to it?

I have never worked as a barista, but I have worked as a line cook. It's not hard to cook one thing. It takes some time and practice to cook many things at once at a speed that keeps up with a good lunch rush. You can also easily compound the situation by trying to go too fast anyway, resulting in orders being sent back.

Yeah it’s like juggling. A non juggling person can’t really just decide they’re going to juggle a few hours a month and expect some balls won’t be dropped.

Yes. About the least-skilled position in retail is working the POS. Even with a touch screen, it takes practice. It makes a big difference if the operator knows where all the buttons are as opposed to having to hunt and peck. Yes, the machine tells you how much change to make, but picking up the right number of coins by touch instead of by picking up a bunch of them and counting them out into the other hand, that makes a difference. Picking up single bills out of the cash tray without fumbling takes some touch. Knowing all the sizes (short, tall, grande, venti, trenta?) and all the drinks. If you are at a store where they don't print drink labels, you have to know the order in which to announce a drink (size, modifiers, drink-type, but make sure the modifiers are in the right order) and the shorthand for the sharpie markup of the cups.

There's skills you need. None of it is that hard. But it is not easy to do it at speed without practice.

Doing things, doing things correctly, and doing things correctly and quickly are VASTLY different things.

At rush time, you don't have time to think. You must have muscle memory to carry you.

This comment is such a perfect microcosm of HN

Yes, working as a barista means you're running multiple independent instruction loops in your head at all times, while also having to act like a pleasant sociable human.

>Something tells me it'll be something like 1-5pm; not the 7am rush.

11am-6pm seem to be peak hours for cafes near me - and google data confirms this. Why would 7am be peak time there?

I believe Google’s data would reflect number of people hanging out inside more than number of customers passing through, since a customer that stays 10x as long has 10x the impact on average number of people inside the building. 11-6 sounds right for times the seating area is most full, but I’d imagine the biggest rush of in-and-out customers is just before work hours. Fortunately, there’s a Starbucks near me that I happen to know has had its lobby closed for a year or two due to a high crime rate, and Google’s data for it does indeed show a strong peak from 7 to 10.

Friendly neighborhood barista here: actual sales numbers have always shown a peak somewhere between 7-10. If might appear busier later in the day, but that's more likely a function of having less staff for afternoons.

Better not be during the rush. Someone who works half a day once a month is going to be worthless in a rush, and it isn't worth the trouble to train them because they aren't coming back soon enough to remember any skills.

During the less busy times, he might learn something, though. Especially if he talks with his partners. They still call the workers at Starbucks "partners," right?

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