Oh how I loathe pre closing
Night Crew Vs. Day Crew: Throw Your Gang Signs Up
(87 posts) (67 voices)-
Posted 1 year ago #
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I like midding because I know I'm **** good at it. The closers come in at 4 and all their dishes are done, trash is taken out, whips and carafes are done, the pastry case is turned over, mats are pulled back, sure shot has been closed down, and I'm probably working on closing one of the bars down. I don't know what the other mid shifts do when I'm not there because NONE of this is done when I come in to close, but they always have some lame excuse like "we got really busy..."
You did not get busy enough that you needed four people on the floor all afternoon and couldn't spare one of them to make me some effing whips and restock RTD. You did not.
Posted 1 year ago # -
When I first started, I was an opener, but that's just because they liked to put me on the bar in the mornings, and I really did enjoy it, that was for only six months though... I moved and became a closer (I prefer being up later anyway).. I loved closing!
But alas, we never close now, and I miss the after work conversations with fellow partners, sitting on the patio and laughing as the customers sit in the dt for five minutes when the store is obviously closed.
Now it is more like night shift vs overnight shift vs morning shift.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Dolly, can you please come work at my store??? I would love you forever! lol
Posted 1 year ago # -
Here I come to throw my $0.02 into a two week old thread.
As a closer I feel like it's my responsibility to get AS MUCH done as humanly possible, which means traying pastries, prepping iced coffee and iced tea, leaving everything clean including both bars and the pastry case, running all the trash, sweeping and mopping lobby to perfection, stocking everything including condiment bar; sleeves; lids; whole bean; RTD&E; and the like, because we're definitely LESS busy at night, even though sometimes we get rushes like the morning people couldn't believe, but we also get the benefit of taking home extra iced coffee; iced tea; "expired" RTE stuff; and we can pretty much take the downtime to experiment with making drinks and stuff. Plus I always HOPE that if everything's done for the morning people it gives them time to make mocha and frap roast and everything so we don't have to do it, and they SHOULD be able to prep the midshifters and closers better the next day.
But alas, that isn't how it works and all the hard work I'm able to put in is shot to hell when the openers, I assume, stand around picking their noses instead of doing what they should be.
Posted 1 year ago # -
lol this reminds me of when I used to work for Burger king and Panera. the closers and openmers were like rival gangs!!! I just started at sbucks so I dont have a bad story to tell
Posted 1 year ago # -
I used to open at the store I was at before I quit. It was a kiosk in an outlet mall, so thankfully, we didn't have any lobby or anything, and we could leave our metal window thing closed until we were done. But, never again shall I open. Ever. I am not a morning person.
I work mids and closes and love closing. Yeah, it's annoying when the openers/mids don't get anything done and closers are stuck doing everything that should've been done during the day, but I have also been there during some of those mid shifts when it was quite literally impossible to get anything done because of the business. Meh.
Also, welcome to the Partner-Ship Starbucks_Chick....forgive my pun.
Posted 1 year ago # -
@starbucks chick, I worked at Panera too! One of our bread bashes ended in a closer screaming at a crying opener because she never restocked the pastries or orange juices or whatever else you had to do and the rest of us just sitting around awkwardly. Good times :D
Came in at 4 today... no whips had been made. Thanks, team! :/
Posted 1 year ago # -
I kick my own **** every night for the openers and instead of 'holy crap, thanks for everything you did last night! you set us up so perfectly every time!' I get 'you didn't do another values walk' in so many words in passive aggressive post-its, DCR scribbles or whiteboard notices with my name circled.
I think tomorrow night I'll just not do half the crap I do and see how they like opening to that. .. homeboy.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Its busy in the morning and busy at night get the fuc ova it and get to work, our do we not get paid for that anymore
Posted 1 year ago # -
Hehe. I'm glad you're able to look past the crap and get your work done.
You're a better barista than I.
Posted 1 year ago # -
the last shift i worked i pre closed like a maniac.
It was good times!
It was a slow day too so there really wasn't any reason not to.
and i needed to make up for the previous day because i didn't do the mats.
woops!LOL
sometimes you just get busy...
Posted 1 year ago # -
I think the most annoying thing about openers isn't that they nitpick about every god damn little thing, it's that they like to tell you how to do your job when they have no idea what they're talking about. At my store, the SM and morning people give us **** if we start any closing tasks earlier than 6. I'm sorry, but how in the hell are we supposed to finish the pastry case, RTD&E, drains, oven, dishes, bathrooms, condiment bar, restocking, counting inventory, bean wall, money, mats, sweeping and mopping and scrubbing down the entire **** store in less than 3 hours, meanwhile still handling a steady stream of customers with only three people. We usually start doing things quietly anyway, but god it's obnoxious when they're being adamant about waiting; it makes the close so much more stressful.
I totally respect what openers have to deal with, but no offense, they open at 5, finish getting the store ready at like 5:30-6, and then spend an hour or two twiddling their thumbs, gossiping, and wasting time while a handful of customers trickle in. I think that's plenty of time to change out the vanilla that, I'm sorry, I didn't notice was almost out. I'm sorry you had to be up so early, but you're not getting paid to stand around and wait for the rush.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I think the most annoying thing about openers isn't that they nitpick about every god **** little thing
This is really annoying and I hate it. I wish people would be grateful for all the things us closers DO do for them instead of getting on us about the things we don't do. Sorry we didn't stock teas for you. Sorry we didn't dry the bean hopper by hand so that it doesn't have water spots on it. Sorry I didn't put one of the grounds drawers through the sanitizer, even though I wiped it out by hand after emptying it. Sorry I didn't know you needed to brew 2 decaf iced coffees in the morning and only brought out one. Be grateful I brought out any.
At my store, the SM and morning people give us **** if we start any closing tasks earlier than 6.
At my store, we're normally done with pre-close and some closing tasks by six.
Sounds like your SM is a bit crazy. Why can't you do closing tasks before six? Makes no sense. 5-7 or so is normally the least busy time, at least in my experience.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I'm a clopen! My shifts varies, but now my manager is making me his primary opener...-_____- that won't let me advance. If that's the case, I'll be a closer when I start school in the fall.
Posted 1 year ago # -
At my store my ASM told the closers that ideally the openers are supposed to get there and should only be held responsible for brewing coffee, tea, and putting the pastries in the case, which we already set up for them all they have to do is unwrap the pastries. Its ridiculous. Not only do they not do any tasks, but our openers are also horrible at deployment, I come to work and see everyone extremely confused, the place looks like a tornado hit it, none of the pastries have dates, the trashes are overflowing. Its ridiculous, you would think with 7-8 people ALL on the floor at ALL TIMES from open until 11 am, that they would be able to at least turn the **** sanitizer on. When I get there at noon, the sanitizer is still off from when i turned it off the night before since the lazy **** didnt turn it on.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I used to be a opener/closer but i've been the opener everyday for 2 years now (I don't even know how the closing routine is anymore). We really appreciate what the closers do at night and we can tell if they've had a rough close or put in extra effort to make the place better. Prepping the store properly means a lot cuz we have to count inventory every single morning of the stuff left over from the night before. I never see the closers or even Mids ever unless they have a weird shift in schedule. But we have great partners throughout every shift so if a close or open sucked it's genuinely because the day is understaffed or it was a day full of accidents and machine was down that required extra attention. I am sad to hear so many negative complaints about openers who can be efficient too. Just from walking into the store on open before we even punch in time clock, we would have turned on all the machines n grabbed a roll of stickers to date things , carry as much as we can on the way out so to minimize unnecessary walking trips back and forth. We hv to prep the day's pastry and ice via samples in advance so the people can just open the lid n put it on sampling tray and go out and active sample. On top of the count n putting away the pastry and Unisource order we get every day, Tell me that's not a lot to do within just 30 minutes before we open, we may not have to wash a whole lot of dishes but these things require attention to detail too.
Posted 1 year ago # -
i work mornings, and am kind of the go-to quasa cleaner at my store, and our openers work just as hard as our closers. by midday after the morning rush the store is still generally SUPER clean (unless, like LemonPenguin said, it's been a particularly rough morning for whatever reason). it's when the closers first get in that the cleanliness goes to shxt. i guess they let it get kinda bad because they know they're going to make it spotless again later on. we work about evenly and there's no animosity between the two groups.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Wow, it sucks that so many of you seem to have ungrateful/slovenly opening teams. Everyone at my store gets on pretty swimmingly and both teams do their best to take care of each other. I'm an opener and I bust my **** keeping everything stocked and orderly, and I work with some real champions who try to get all of the daily tasks/deep cleans done before the closers come in so they don't have to mess with any of it. In the middle of the day when there's a lull, everyone pitches in to get things in shape for when the closers come in. And as far as I can tell everyone makes an effort to show appreciation for stuff the other team does. Guess I'm lucky and got a good store!
Posted 1 year ago # -
Our problem with this is staffing, for sure. We just do not have enough people scheduled... well, it's more the way the days are scheduled now, really, since we got a new SM. My old SM was great about scheduling and she would have a mid shift scheduled... some people would have 6 hour shifts... instead, now, we have an opening barista who is out at 8:30 or 9:30 at the latest and then 3-4 other people who all need lunches during the times when we're also doing our mid cleaning tasks. On the days when there's 4 of us it's easier because then there's always 3 people on the floor, which means one of them can be doing stuff not related to customers... but most days we run about 2.5 hours of the afternoon on 2 part coverage, which of course is exactly when we get busy. We still get stuff done, don't get me wrong, but I do know that some days are more hectic than others. There is less opening/closing rivalry now than we had a few months ago, because everyone has kind of realized that with the way things are done now at my store we have to stick together and just do what we can to keep things fun, or else we'll hate work even more than we already do lol
Posted 1 year ago # -
hahaha oh goodness, my store has the rivalry as well!!
I work closes mostly, but lately a lot more openings so I see both sides. But my store treats morning shift like a princess.
Closers come in by the early afternoon, and they do EVERYTHING. even dishes from 6:30am sometimes!!! we prep a ridiculous amount to the point where it would take 15 minutes to open.
There's definitely a give and take. So since i've been opening I've been trying to make it fair.
but our order day is crazy. even if it comes in by noon it's left untouched in the back until night crew comes to do it all. include clean up after them, pre-close, and close.
I guess we aren't the only ones dealing with these problems...
Posted 1 year ago # -
I've been both, I still do both, I'm one of the only 'universal' baristas at my store. I like opening so much more but I always represent the closers. hollaaa Closing is a ton more work, opening is a piece of cake, hence, why everyone likes it more.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Opening is a breeze. You come in and the worst part of it is being tired (which if you're a habitual opener I'm not sympathetic in the slightest.) You get coffee and tea brewed, set up a pastry case and (at least in my district) deal with the same volume of customers the closers have to deal with, but with the added cushion of better floor coverage and a lack of urgency in regard to getting anything done, because if it isn't, THAT'S WHAT THE CLOSERS ARE FOR!
I've transitioned from opening five days a week to closing five days a week because that's what my SM needs me to do, so when I come in at two to a sink full of dishes and nothing having been stocked, knowing that there's gonna be four of us for the majority of the afternoon in comparison to the six or seven on the floor at 11, I tend to be more than a little vocal about my dissatisfaction.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I've done both.
I think if you work at Starbucks, you should be required to work a couple of shifts that you normally wouldn't... just to get a feel for things. I hate the divisions we have between the closers and the openers. I haven't worked with half of our morning people.
Closing sucks. You do get bombarded with cleaning/prep/stocking... but it's usually slow as hell and you don't have to deal with customers.
They both have their ups and downs. At my store, opening is for the adults. Closing is like sitting at the little kids table.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I've been midshifting. That means I just about hate everyone.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I've been closing since I started. It definitely stresses me out, because I literally never see my manager, and don't get respect for everything I do. I love my night crew, and we definitely have way more fun than everyone else, while doing twice the work. It sucks though, because working full time, at night means that I never ever get to see my friends and my SM is TERRIBLE at scheduling. I worked from 7pm to 11:30pm tonight. Like, wtf kind of shift is that anyway? I've been trying to switch to mids so I can have somewhat of a social life, but no such luck so far. /:
Posted 1 year ago # -
I close a couple nights a week and my other shifts I clock in at 630, so I see a big difference between openers and closers habits. It's frustrating to me to see my coworkers stand around and chat or laugh while I'm doing fridges, making backup whips or mochas, or anything else that should to be done. Is it so hard to grab a sanirag and clean up after yourself, or knock out an easy cleaning task instead of leaning over the bar?
Maybe it's me being a new partner but I always put 100% effort when I'm on the clock. I want to see more of that too so closers (myself included) can breathe a little at night! The pressure can be insane, just as intense as a morning rush. I hope all Sbux partners can spread the loving kindess and communication - we are a family you know, if we want to be :)
Posted 6 months ago # -
I'm in the same position as you, nowaterchai. I mostly open but close often enough that I know what a pain it is. I try to keep busy all the way through my shifts and do what I can to keep the place neat.
I'll monitor whips, milks, syrups, etc to make sure they're stocked for the incoming shift.
I hate coming into the store and having it look like a bomb went off.
Posted 6 months ago # -
Reading this thread made me sad.
I thought we were partners? :-(
I want to come to each of your stores
and clean your bars and drains and such.Posted 6 months ago # -
You know, I've been a opener and closer, but mainly stay a closer for obvious reasons. Here is what I say to those opening bitches, "Kiss My **** ****."
Posted 6 months ago #
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