Last Monday I rolled through the Starbuck’s drive-thru at 7:32 a.m., just like every other weekday. That Monday, I wistfully remembered my uncle telling me twelve years ago that I should move a good portion of my investment dollars over to this coffee company called Starbucks. He had looked at its business plan and he felt sure they were on to something. I ordered my normal grande caramel macchiato, extra fat, extra caramel drizzle, and waited a few moments for the box to tell me it was time to contribute my $4.38 to the corporate machine.
"To both of you,
I've worked for Starbucks and find this completely infuriating. Not only are there no health code violations for serving personal mugs out the window (I've worked at a drive-through before and served people coffee in their personal mugs all the time) but Starbucks as a company has no directive that says you can't serve personal mugs out the window. As far as quota of cups to be sold, the answer to that is no. Starbucks has retail goals (which can be reached in a multitude of ways, ethically and unethically of course) but nothing that says to every employee "You must sell 'X' amount of dollars each day."
To clear up the refill issue, the policy on that is buy your first cup, stay on the premises for up to two hours and refills are fifty cents. I've seen people who have visited the same Starbucks for 10 years - a.k.a. "regulars" - and get charged the refill price every time.
Also Starbucks has a "just say yes" policy, for your refill the partner should have explained the refill policy, said "We can take care of it this time but next time I'm gonna have to charge you" and then filled up your cup. I've seen it many times, especially now during hard times, people come in and want to save money, using a cup that looks like it's seen WW III. We politely explain the refill policy, give them a new cup, and charge the refill price. The customer returns the next day with his old cup but more money.
All in all Starbucks is a great company, ask current and former employees. Are there bad apples, yes, but does that make the whole bushel bad? I would hope the answer would be no, but you ask different people the same question and you get different answers."
