11.29.08

Got M.U.G.ged again today. This one reads, “I love your concentrated efforts to enhance your personal knowledge as well as our customer’s. 🙂 You’re doing a great job and it’s a pleasure working with you!” My apron is not big enough for all of these M.U.G. awards. 😮

The store is so festive and packed with red and gold Christmas trimmings! We even got a live Christmas tree last night, donated by a Barista who works for us and also works at a Christmas tree farm. It’s an exciting time of year and I can only but think that January, when all this stuff is gone, is going to be pretty boring!

The 1/2 Marathon on Thanksgiving morning went pretty good. No PR here but I was just happy to be able to complete the course considering how little I’ve run lately. It may very well have been my last race for a very long time at best. Standing on my feet all day and working 50-60 hours a week has taken it’s toll. I just don’t think I can work running in there as well. We’ll see… BTW, the shirt we got this year is a SUPER NICE, long-sleeved, technical shirt. I really like it.

Thanksgiving Day at my uncle and aunt’s 3-story log cabin on the BIG Cotton Indian Creek was a wonderful time with family. I think though that someone tainted the turkey with tranquilizers!

This is basically what most all of us did [or felt like doing] after the big meal in the afternoon– including me. I was worn out!!!

Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, meant extra hours at the store. We opened at 3:30 a.m. which meant my feet hit the bedroom floor at 2:15. It was a nice steady rush most all day [I wish it were like that every day!] and we beat our closest competitor store in sales for the day by only $39.00!!! YEAH!

I opened again this morning and will open every morning, Monday – Saturday, next week. Our probably most reliable shift is going to have a baby this next week which will more than likely mean more hours for some of us over the next 6 weeks while she’s out on maternity leave.

Any day now I should receive my “official” partner card in the mail! I can hardly wait and am looking for it every day. On Monday I can sign up for the stock options program — Bean Stock. I feel it’s really a good time to do so as Starbucks stock is at it’s lowest point ever I believe. It’s 1/2 of what it was the day I was hired– probably all because I don’t buy my drinks any more. 😮

Today, I had my store manager go to the Newnan store and pick up my Christmas present. It’s better that way. I can purchase it through our store and it looks good on our books.

She was REAL happy to do so. There’s a special going on now through the end of December and if you purchase this Starbucks® Sirena™ Espresso Machine you will save $110.00 on the Burr Barista Coffee Grinder– it’s regularly $150.00. + starting next week, our discount increases [just during the holiday season] to 40%. So, I’ll get a $150.00 coffee grinder for about $25.00. I’m not sure who needs a $150.00 coffee grinder. I was planning on getting one that cost $59.95, but this one ends up being even cheaper and I guess it must be pretty nice– you’d certainly think, right?

Anyway, I’m excited about my Christmas present. I’ll wrap it and put it under the tree– that is IF we put the tree up, and open it on Christmas morning– or Christmas afternoon… Actually, I think I might be working Christmas morning. Since we don’t do the BIG “Christmas morning” thing any more– the kids being all grown up and all they don’t want to get out of be too early. So, I signed up to work at the store– it’s time and a half.

And the whole Christmas tree thing… Well, I just haven’t been in the mood to drag all that stuff out the last couple of years. So, if nobody else does, well… it just probably won’t get done. But trust me, somebody WILL! Then I’ll just have to put it all back. But that’s ok. I don’t mind that too much. I just don’t like messing with all those tangled lights and trying to figure out where to put everything and all. I’ll hang the stocking– at least I’ll do that much. 🙂

I wore my Santa hat to work today! 🙂

This is the BEGINNING OF TECHNOLOGY for me.
I think I was in like the 3rd grade and this is my very first TRANSISTOR RADIO!
Whoo Hoo!!!

11.25.08

I got M.U.G.ged again today. Now I have one for every day of the week. Next goal= every week of the year. he he he… This one reads, “I just wanted to say thanks for all of your help. You are a wonderful partner who always does a great job. You are truly an asset to Starbucks.” 🙂

I wasn’t schedudled to work today but worked for 2 hours this morning to help out another partner that needed to leave early. The cafe was full when I arrived and we stayed steady and with a pretty much full cafe the whole time. We have a billboard on the highway so with the holiday travel season in full swing we get lots of holiday travelers. It’s nice to wish them a safe trip.

Tonight we do the set up for Christmas and I am SO excited!!! All the Christmas stuff is SO beautiful this year. Maybe I’ll post pictures here later. We “officially” roll out the Mint Brownie, Ginger Loaf and Cranberry Bliss Bar tomorrow morning, although we “unofficially” served them today. AND, we [4 of us] get to wear RED aprons beginning tomorrow as the new RED Campagin begins on Thursday.

“…(STARBUCKS) RED. Starting November 27, every time you buy a special (STARBUCKS) RED product, a contribution will be made to the Global Fund, to help save lives in Africa. It’s all part of our commitment to give back to the communities where we do business, which is a key component of Starbucks™ Shared Planet™.” read more…

Other retailers like Dell, Microsoft, Apple, GAP, etc., etc., etc. are also participating in the RED Campagin.

Starbucks set up

10.23.08

Yes, I’m still alive. AND, I appreciate SO much friends who are concerned about me when I haven’t blogged in several days or Twittered in several hours 🙂 thanks Michelle!

I’m full time at Starbucks now. So, I’m working between 30-40 hours a week there and 20-30 for another job. Plus, I have two other clients waiting for a bunch of web updates, one waiting for a billboard, and one that I’m producing 4 sports programs for in the next two weeks.

I wasn’t in church [or Sunday School] Sunday morning because I went to pick up my running partner and her CPA at the airport. They didn’t both make the same flight so she and I waited there for his flight to come in. They were in Kansas City where she ran the KC Marathon on Saturday. Then Sunday night I WAS in church, however, I got stuck out in the lobby with my laptop doing some work– but that’s OK, cause I could hear the speaker just fine! As a matter of fact, he was so loud I had a headache by the time we left.

Monday there was a Starbucks store meeting from 4:00-7:00 p.m. in Peachtree City. So, I worked 8 hours and then went to that.

Tuesday night a Junior Class meeting at school…

Sometimes I seriously don’t know if I’m coming or going I didn’t even know about a friend’s mom being so seriously ill and in CCU until late Tuesday afternoon. I felt SO bad because I had been sending her all kinds of emails about stuff and she hadn’t responded to any of them. I had no idea! 😦

Wednesday I was off from Starbucks but trying to get 2 of the sports programs done. + clean a very messy house etc., etc., etc.

I do have a little break the next 2 weeks.

Next week I only work 2 days at Starbucks, unless I pick up a shift on Saturday. I will spend 1 day at a Chick-fil-A First 100 campout and 1 day at the hospital with my sister-in-law whose husband will have 6-hour surgery. But I do have the third of those sports programs due next week as well.

Then, the week after that there’s another program due [#4 of 5 to be exact]. We were going on vacation so I took 4 days off at Starbucks, will only work 2 days that week as well, unless I pick up some shifts. We’re not going on vacation now I don’t think– changed plans…

SO… that’s about it. Just CRAZY busy! But still alive…

I ran the Peachtree Classic 15K on Saturday and had a GREAT time!!! That is without a doubt my favorite race of the year and the weather Saturday was absolutely PERFECT!

Don’t I look like I was having fun!?! My time wasn’t as good as I had hoped– 1:40:03. I was hoping for 1:30. But it was fun nevertheless 🙂

November 1 we will do a 15-miler at the Rock in preparation for the 1/2 marathon on Thanksgiving Day.

Running really readjusts my mindset and attitude and gives me so much energy and stamina. I wish I had more time to run and that my running partner and I lived closer!

I’m really looking forward to the CFA First 100 next week! Just a day to hangout with family and friends. I can hardly wait!

I’m looking forward to spending Friday with my sister-in-law although I’m sorry about the circumstances of her husband and his 6-hour surgery, days in the hospital and weeks of recovery. But I’m so glad that he has her to help him get through it all. She’s an excellent nurse 🙂

Oh, BTW, I got M.U.G.ged again, for like the sixth time, Monday night at the Starbucks store meeting by the store manager in front of all the other employees 😮 [I wasn’t the only employee to get M.U.G.ged.] This one says, “Thanks for jumping right in the trenches and making it easy to reward one another.” It’s for making the Green Apron display 🙂 how nice…

10.10.08

The glamor and glitz of working at Starbucks died today 7 weeks into it, all the romance flew out the drive thru window this morning at approximately 7:45 a.m.

I recalled this afternoon, one of my first few days working at Starbucks and the other partners talking about a partner who just walked out one morning when there seemed to be no direct leadership and chaos took over. Well, that’s what it felt like this morning– not leadership, just chaos. Fortunately, no partners walked. However, all though it did not cross my mind this morning, if there ever were a legitimate reason to walk, this morning would have been it.

I can’t really put my finger on one significant problem– there were many.

For one, the expediter has been broken for a couple of days now. The expediter is a labeling machine that takes the details of a drink order rung at the drive thru and prints it on a label at the bar. When it’s broken, like this morning, the person working the drive thru [me this morning] has to not only ring the drinks but also mark the cups, which are at the bar. At the height of rush hour this becomes very challenging not only because there is just one order after the other coming through the drive thru [it never stops] but the person working the drive thru [me] is also taking payments, handing out drinks, taking orders and dodging partner traffic as they try to make their way to the bar to mark cups. And while you are doing all this there are voices in your head [the headset] customer voices… partner voices… WHEW!

If it only worked that well…

However, every partner has a headset on and can hear the orders from customers at the drive thru. [Something to remember next time you pull into a drive thru– you wouldn’t believe what all we hear!] So, sometimes other partners will step in and mark the cups. Which is not really helpful when you don’t know this– you end up with double drinks being made. That happened several times this morning 😦

Then, just when you figure they are going to mark the cup, they don’t, and you end up with someone at the drive thru and no drink in sight. This backs up the drive thru quick!

And even worse is when you are so tied up that someone else answers the drive thru on their headset– trying to be helpful of course. This would be a help except that they may or may not ring the order, and may or may not mark the cups. You may get a customer at the drive thru window and the order on your screen doesn’t match what they ordered because their order was never actually rung into the system. And who knows if their cup was marked or not?

It can get SO CRAZY SO FAST!

Then there are the customers who really don’t know what they’re ordering and couldn’t tell a Cappuccino from a Frappuccino. You get them every day. They order one and really want the other. They order a Chi Tea and want a Chi Tea Latte or they order a Caramel Macchiato when they really wanted an Ice Caramel Macchiato 😦 I had two of these during the height of the rush this morning.

It’s not really a written policy, but at my store when this happens we will of course remake the drink, but also ask the customer if they are going somewhere where someone might want the original drink we made for them. And if they say, “Yes.” we give them the drink at no charge. I’m pretty sure that one of the customers I had this morning has caught on to this little trick and has pulled this one before– it wasn’t really that they didn’t know what they were ordering 😦 And keep in mind, this not only backs up the drive thru but the cafe as well as the Barista has to put things on hold and remake a drink.

Another thing, there didn’t seem to be any real clear leadership on the floor this morning. There were two shifts there. I never looked on the books to see who was actually in charge, but I should have to. I should be able to tell just by their direction.

Also, there were a lot of people coming and going on and off the floor for various reason– breaks and other stuff as well. That made things even more confusing and chaotic.

Even one of the girls that has been working there a long time commented this afternoon on how chaotic things were this morning. And no other morning I’ve worked in the past 7 weeks has been anything like it. So, maybe it won’t happen again– at least not for another 7 weeks, and I hope not tomorrow 😮

I did get M.U.G.ged again today and the card read, “You’re very steady. That’s good. With time I know you’ll harness the skills to survive any chaotic situation! You’re an awesome addition to the store!” …harness the skills to survive any chaotic situation… I think I’ve already done that

10.7.08

2 more M.U.G. Awards today:

1. “You’re constantly active sampling! Thanks for boosting our pastry sales!”
2. “You show the greatest loyalty & dedication to us & it’s a pleasure & a joy to work with you!”

Nice 🙂

If you missed the earlier post where I described what a M.U.G. Award is, it’s an award, including a pin and card, given by Starbucks partners to Starbucks partners and the card reads: “The M.U.G. Award helps partners recognize co-workers for ‘Moves of Uncommon Greatness’ that help them archive their goals. It’s a way of saying ‘Thanks for helping me out, I couldn’t have done it without you!'”

So, again today, I got M.U.G.ged! TWICE!

Still waiting for my Coffee Passport pin, and I am soon to complete [this week] my Tea Passport– so, I’ll get a pin for that as well. They say I have a lot of “Bling”. Soon I’ll get a M.U.G. Award for just being able to wear this green apron around my neck with all this “Bling” on it 🙂

We have a community bulletin board at Starbucks just over the condiment bar and on it people can place fliers and info about things happening in our community, business cards and stuff like that. Well, we [Starbucks] also occasionally place info on the board. The following two signs [if you can call them that] were recently placed on the board by a Starbucks partner.

Well, I thought the one was totally irrelevant and unnecessary and the other I thought could be done a little better. So I took on that challenge– secretly… he he he he… And this morning, when no one was looking, I hung two new signs.

The store manager noticed them about 10:00 a.m. or so and I overheard her talking to another partner about who could have done this– she liked them. The other partner wondered out loud if it could be a partner who is attending the Atlanta School of Art & Graphic Design… Nope. I kept my mouth shut. Actually, I was busy with a customer as the store manager took the sign about the Family FUN Night down, took it to the back, scanned it and made color copies to hand out to customers. 🙂 She put the sign back up when she was done. Eventually she will probably find out it was me but I won’t say anything unless someone asks. Tomorrow some 5.5″ x 4.25″ color copies on white card stock of the Family FUN Night will magically appear on the counter… shhhhh… I’m not even scheduled to work tomorrow, just going in for breakfast with Sari Beri, so they’ll never suspect 🙂 he he he he…

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9.12.08

A friend of mine sent me this link to 2 web cams at CERN. Really funny Brian!

Another coffee tasting at Starbucks today and another M.U.G. Award! This one for my realization that not all coffees are created equal. I have to finish my coffee passport by next week. There are still lots of coffees to taste 😀 Tough job!

Today was a momentous day in our household. We’ve been waiting for this day for several years. Our Suburban finally turned over to 300,000 miles! And I watched it happened. It’s been an AMAZING vehicle and I think God for it. I remember having a very specific list of what I wanted in a Suburban and praying over that list. I remember the night I sat down on the floor by the side of our bed and prayed over that list and then started making some calls to dealerships inquiring as to if they had my very specific Suburban. I remember getting a salesman named Jimmy Worth from Bellamy Strickland in McDonough on the phone– and he had my Suburban! I praise the Lord for the good service it has given us. It’s all because of Him and the very good mechanic [my bff] we have who sees to the routine maintenance that it needs. Now, I think the agreement was that when it turned over to 300,000 I get a new Mini– wasn’t that the agreement?!?

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9.9.08

OK, time for some funny stories…

The last 2 days I’ve worked the drive thru at Starbucks for about 8 hours a day mostly morning and some early afternoon, and I have 4 funny stories to tell.

The first and second are sort of 2 in the same, they happened on Monday. Basically, what happened was that Monday morning I had 2 customers, probably within 30 minutes of each other, [that’s one thing that makes it so funny] that drove off without their drinks. The came, they ordered, they paid, then they just drove off. These people are REALLY in a hurry!!! I don’t even KNOW if they NEEDED caffeine!

The second story happened today. This guy comes to the drive thru, I open the window to greet him, confirm his drink order and take his money. As soon as I open the window this HUGE, and I mean HUGE, spider drops down on a web right in the middle of the window about nose high to me– right there between me and the guy at the window. The BIG spider proceeded to climb back up his web to the top of the window and though I looked for him every time I opened the window for the rest of the day [or at least it seemed so] I never saw him again. However, it so FREAKED me out that I took the guy’s $20 and totally forgot to give him any change. I gave him his drink and then laughing at me he reminded me that I hadn’t give him his change. He could tell the spider scared me bad. Well, opening the register drawer that I had already closed by this time is an ordeal in itself. Needless to say– that was a memorable Starbucks experience for him. Not necessarily good, but memorable.

My third and final funny story for the day came when a certain pastor of a nearby church came through the dirve thru– he comes through every morning. The register randomly picks customers to participate in an online survey and if they participate they are entered into a contest to possibly win $1000. So when this happens the person at the register is prompted to tell the customer this when handing them their receipt. So, I tell him he’s been selected to participate in an online survey and if he participates he will be entered into a contest to possibly win $1000. to which he replies something to the effect of, “I could use $1000.” to which I was oh so tempted to say [but refrained], “It Pays to Serve God.” ha ha ha ha ha, it would have been SO funny to see the look on his face!

I got mugged today! Seriously, I got the M.U.G. Award at Starbucks. The M.U.G. Award helps partners recognize co-workers for “Moves of Uncommon Greatness” It’s a way of saying “Thanks for helping me out, I couldn’t have done it without you!” And the guy who gave it to me wrote on the card, “You’re a fast learner and you’re doing an excellent job! You fit right in!” [Well, I’m not so sure the “fitting right in” part is a real good thing– especially with some of the people I work with] The award though is actually a pin you get to wear on your hat or apron. Most people wear them on their hats, because that’s the easy thing to do, but I choose to wear them on my apron. I think that looks a little more professional.

I actually feel like I am doing very, very well! Oh there is still LOTS to learn, I learn more every day. But I’m really shocked at how quickly it seems I’ve caught on. The store manager says I should get my Barista certification next week 🙂

Tomorrow morning Sari Beri and I are going to breakfast, at Starbucks of course. I look forward to our weekly breakfast outtings. On Saturday morning I’m going to run 2 laps around the Rock with my running partner. I look forward to our monthly runs at the Rock.

Oh yeah… and today [funny story #5, I guess] a lady came through the drive thru and she still had on her PJs and a big pink fluffy bath robe… I guess if you’ve got to have it, you’ve got to have it. Maybe she just couldn’t wait to get dressed… maybe should couldn’t get dressed without it. I’m hoping she wasn’t late for an appointment or work!

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