You’re talking about Starbucks or other similar coffee houses, I assume? Well here’s the thing. You cannot make coffee like us. It is a skill. That’s why some people become certified coffee masters. Because you really have no fucking idea what goes into making your drinks. It’s not like we’re just throwing patties on a grill like it’s McDonalds (which I assume actually has it’s own nuances that we’re both oblivious to).

The other thing is, if you really do just get coffee and a bagel, you’re an exception. Because you know who gets mad about tipping baristas? It’s not the chill dude who comes through every day and gets a tall Pike’s Place. In fact, he’s normally the one who tips. And far more than his total dictated he should by percentage. You know who gets mad? It’s the people who order off the “secret menu” (which we are not affiliated with, it’s just some dumb shit that I swear started as a tumblr blog and took off), then gets even more upset when we inform them that we don’t know how to make it or that simply don’t carry the ingredients, then doesn’t know how to order the simplest shit (even though they look at that drive through menu EVERY DAY), then tries to tell me how to make a caramel macchiato because yes, you TOTALLY know how to make it better than I do. What do I know? I just work there. Then you pull to the window and guess who wants to add three breakfast sandwiches and a drink that requires me to pull 4 more espresso shots, which further eats up our drive time (which is the ONLY thing corporate cares about) so now who’s getting chewed out because window times were too slow? Me. So fuck off with this holier than shit like you’re so much better than us and it’s unreasonable that we get tipped. Especially when Starbucks has been around for ages and I only got hired a year or two ago. I’m not asking for tips. They put the tip jar in front of me and say “GO!”

I’m not saying that being a barista is the hardest job ever or that I deserve to be some millionaire in Beverly Hills. That’s crazy. But you really have no idea what goes into the job and I’m so sick of being undercut by people like you because you think you know everything about my job simply because it’s hourly.