|
    
OPEN LEFT CAMPAIGNS
Less Recent
|
 Friends of the Earth thanks the OpenLeft community for the ideas you generate and your contributions to the progressive movement. blog advertising is good for you blog advertising is good for you
LIBERAL INSTITUTIONS
STATE BLOGS
|
||||||
I worked as a barista for about 2 years (while a student, then as a second job).
For what it is (a very crummy job), it's fine.
It always amazed me the perception people had of the barista job. Customers, friends, family members...they all thought you made good money slinging espresso....they thought you had a great benefits and made a lot in tips.
Truth be told, in the late 1990's you made about 50 cents above minimum wage (here in Seattle) and averaged about $1.5 per hour in tips. When they introduced the SBUX card....tips went down....when they eliminated the option to tip with a credit/debit card...in the name of efficiency....tips went down as well.
They introduced T-mobile wifi...and wanted you to sell it. They introduced music...and wanted you to sell it. They introduced warmed sandwiches...wanted you to prepare it, on top of your normal duties....and they wanted you to sell it. Of course, when all these things were added to your job description, there wasn't a pay increase.
They had already phased out their free stock bonus when I worked there...instead I had the option of buying stock at a discounted rate, something like 5% below market value. Stock purchase was capped at some percentage of my gross wages (something like 5-10% of my gross $250 per week pay for about ~30 hours of work).
In addition, if you qualified for AETNA insurance for working more than 20hrs per week the previous quarter, you paid a portion of that...something like $70 per month if I remember correctly.
I worked in an affluent area of Seattle. Our store had the highest in total dollar sales for espresso machines. My store manager had been with company for about ten years. I remember at one point, she was afraid she was going to get fired (signals she had gotten from her manager) for not meeting the ~5-8% YOY espresso machine sales revenue increase.
Nevermind that maybe the reason was the neighborhood was already buying machines at its capacity (there was little to no outside of neighborhood traffic in this store as it was on a peninsula, with negligible through traffic).
/rant