Be nice to your barista

If you're a fan of "The Big Bang Theory" like I am, you may have seen the episode "The Love Car Displacement", where Sheldon (unknowingly) makes a snarky remark to his waitress, Penny. Her reply:

You know, for a smart guy, you really seem to have a hard time grasping the concept: "Don't piss off the people who handle the things you eat."

Now, take a brieft glance at the I hate Starbucks forum and have a read thru the following posts:

• Who did you decaf today?
• Has a customer ever made you cry?

These two seemingly dissimilar threads have a common theme: abused and mistreated baristas generally post to both.

When you go to Starbucks and order a drink, you can be like Sheldon, and not realize that angering the individual who handles your food food & drink isn't the smartest idea. Ways to annoy your barista include:

• not treating them like a human - i.e.; talking / texting / playing games on the phone while refusing eye contact);
• saying "please" and "thank you" - if you are one of those idiots who thinks that you don't need to say these words when you are buying something, you're beneath my notice and any comments you make will be deleted;
• refusing to tip - I don't tip everytime, but yesterday, my patient barista kindly allowed me to put a huge bundle of change that was clogging my wallet onto my Starbucks card. When she was done, I realized I had no change left, so I broke a large bill and tipped from that.
• any other disrespectful behavior - yelling, swearing, belittling the staff.

Most people that lack the understanding of social conventions (like Dr. Cooper) lack the brainpower to realize what the barista can do to your drink (unlike Sheldon). Having worked at Starbucks, I know that baristas can punish rude clients by screwing up their drinks. Methods include:

• substituting caffinated shots with decaf shots - the buttons to dispense decaf and caffinated shots are right beside each other on the Starbucks espresso machines, and unless you're an ex-barista like me, you'll never realize when they are being used.
• rinse shots - sometimes, the espresso machine needs to clear out excess grinds and water, and so they barista will clean it out with a rinse. But if you're a real jerk, that rinse might make it's way into your drink... and you won't notice (until later, when you're wondering, "Why am I so tired?")
• substituting non-fat milk or sugar-free syrups with unhealthy alternatives - generally, if you are a large person who treats his / her barista poorly, and then decides to order a non-fat beverage w/ sugar free syrup, I can guarantee you it's going to come with homogenized milk and the regular sugary syrup in it.
  
  This also happens when rude people order soy drinks; they get dairy. But sometimes, they can tell the difference. At that point, the barista will just apologize and claim it was made "in error".
• spitting in your drink - this doesn't happen often, because customers can see baristas that spit in their drinks.
  
  But if the store is empty, and you're being a jerk whilst using the drive-thru...

If you treat your barista poorly, you deserve whatever they put in your drink. I could tell you how to detect a rinse shot or a decaf shot, but I won't. I'm not interested in enabling disrespectful behavior.

Next week's rant: Starbucks managers who don't back up their employees (thanks to their misguided "Just Say 'Yes'" policy).