Starbucks: ‘More than making coffee’

By Jonathan McFadden
mcfaddenj@mytjnow.com

Starbucks first opened in Seattle, Wash. in 1971. The coffee hub made it’s Winthrop appearance with the DiGiorgio Student Center in 2010, and has gained popularity as a common meeting area, quick pit stop and relaxing hangout. Though some students pop in and out of the café, few realize the work needed to maintain cleanliness and proper customer service. Photo by Aimee Harman • harama@mytjnow.comDezirea Jones puts on some good music and a smile every Tuesday and Thursday at 11 a.m.

It’s the ritual that puts her in a good mood while she braces for a tidal wave of caffeine-craving undergraduates, graduates and faculty who are about to sweep in and flood the obviously popular café. 

But what about the other days: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday?

“Starbucks is Starbucks,” she said. “It’s a lot more than just making coffee.”

For a year, Starbucks has provided Winthrop students, faculty and staff with fancy-named blended coffees alongside smoothies, cinnamon coffee cake, vanilla scones and salted caramel drinks.

At the beginning of this semester, the café was swamped—in a good way.

“We ran out of everything,” Jones said.

More than that, the café racked in $16,000 in sales during the first week--$5,000 more than anticipated, she said.

Fridays make for easier days. When students pack their bags and head home for the weekend, Jones and her fellow employees take advantage of the low-student traffic and clean the café, making it spic and span for another week of business. 

On Monday, it all goes downhill again, Jones said.

But, it’s not that she’s complaining.

“My friends are a little jealous.”

Each day, Jones said she gets to make coffee and interact with people, and she’s no novice at performing either task.

As a biology student at Erskine College, she worked at Java City.

Once she graduated, she took six months off to take a Medical College Admission Test (or MCAT) preparation course at the Medical University of South Carolina. She then submitted her application for entrance into medical school. 

She didn’t get in.

Undeterred, she applied for the lead supervisor position that opened up in May at Starbucks on campus. 

She got it.

Now, every week during Common Time, the first question to enter her mind when she witnesses a growing line of students become longer is, “How many people do we have up here?”

When she’s not supervising, Jones floats. If there are two people working the front, then she jumps in and lends a hand. If there are three, she provides support—stocking and re-stocking and re-stocking again.

She’s not one to buckle under pressure either. Working with what she calls a “competent staff,” Jones doesn’t have a “whew” moment until after the lines disappear and her shift is over.

As it is with any fast-food industry, the customer is always right, Jones said, even when they’re impatient or occasionally rude.

“If it’s wrong, we’ll make it again and again and again until we get it correct,” Jones said. 

Almost as if she were prophesying, a customer walked into the café while Jones spoke with her visitor and said something was wrong with the milk in her coffee.

So, Jones did what she always does. She made it again.

“You asked why Starbucks, but I say, why not Starbucks?” Jones told her visitor. 

The paycheck is also a nice bonus, she added.

For Jones, the reach of medical school isn’t long forgotten. 

Just this week, Jones will receive news whether she will be admitted to medical school after taking the MCAT’s again. 

It’s a smooth and sophisticated operation Jon Wilson deals with every Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The junior graphic design major has been working at Starbucks for almost five weeks now, after an extended tenure at Barnes & Noble.

The difference is uncanny and the on-campus café much more desirable, he said.

“I like this a lot better; I’m mostly serving students here—people my age,” he said. “I met a lot of people on campus working here.”

Still, Starbucks doesn’t play any games.

Each month, employees are tested. During on-the-job training, they are taught how to manage multiple tasks at once and watch a video displaying the correct way to mix certain beverages.

“There’s a hot drink side and a cold drink side and you have to go back and forth between the two,” Wilson said. “You have to make the drink a certain way, and they weigh it and everything,”

On the weekends, there may only be two employees manning the fort. Last Friday, Wilson was the sole barista.

But even on days like these, the café can get unexpected rushes. 

“It hits within seconds and it gets so busy…and we’re running all over the place and making a mess back there,” Wilson said.

When the rush comes, Wilson goes into the zone.

“I can’t talk to anybody,” Wilson said, referring to instances where customers try to carry on side-conversations with him while he’s mixing drinks.

Sometimes, Wilson finds himself making four different drinks at a time and he said it’s easy to mess up.

When encountering disgruntled customers, Wilson remembers that the students are most likely in between classes.

“…We would kind of make them late a little bit” if the wait is long, Wilson said. “I can understand why that’s frustrating to them.”