Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month • Hacker News Board

Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

#321

Post by bigiain » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 11:20 PM UTC

indymike wrote: post #295

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These "king gets wisdom from dressing as regular person" stories are great, and it's definitely a great idea for higher level folks to sample the ground truth themselves on a regular basis. CEOs are at a real danger of being surrounded by yes-men, and it's very possible that through conditioning and repetition they might actually start believing insane corporate positions. However, there's a real smell of something g…

> Was there a manager in charge of the stores who did not notice the problem? Probably. But there are often three to six layers of filters between the CEO and a service worker. Those managers may not see the effect of a small problem across the entire system. Sometimes those managers have incentive to hide problems to protect their bonus. Other times, the problem seems unimportant. In Starbucks case, a company with a…

> Sometimes those managers have incentive to hide problems to protect their bonus.

I guess one important thing to look out for to judge this as either a PR stunt, or an actual well meaning practice - will be toi see if store managers get any advance notice that the CEO is gonna be working there.

If an ambitious career oriented manager knows the boss is gonna see everything that hopes on tomorrow, you can bet there's be extra staff rostered on the day before to make sure everything is better-that-normally prepped for the next day, that all the most compliant staff and the staff who are most beholden to the manager will be rostered on and they'll all be coached about what to say and threatened if they say the wrong thing, and probably a whole bunch of friends of the manager will show up as stooges on the day cosplaying happy and satisfied "ordinary customers".

Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

#322

Post by jamesliudotcc » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 11:21 PM UTC

angry_moose wrote: post #66

thrdbndndn wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming he actually works the whole shift, he still can experience what works as a barista in his company is like (workload, how to deal with customers assuming they don't recognize him) somewhat truthfully. I think it's worth something.

First line: Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan told employees Thursday that he’ll work a half day every month at one of the coffee giant’s locations. Something tells me it'll be something like 1-5pm; not the 7am rush.

Better not be during the rush. Someone who works half a day once a month is going to be worthless in a rush, and it isn't worth the trouble to train them because they aren't coming back soon enough to remember any skills.

During the less busy times, he might learn something, though. Especially if he talks with his partners. They still call the workers at Starbucks "partners," right?

Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

#323

Post by xutopia » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 11:23 PM UTC

Except he'll be paid 100 times more an hour to do so.

Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

#324

Post by bigiain » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 11:28 PM UTC

rfrey wrote: post #317

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These "king gets wisdom from dressing as regular person" stories are great, and it's definitely a great idea for higher level folks to sample the ground truth themselves on a regular basis. CEOs are at a real danger of being surrounded by yes-men, and it's very possible that through conditioning and repetition they might actually start believing insane corporate positions. However, there's a real smell of something g…

It could be that working in the store for a day is a good way to get candid and unfiltered input from those workers and managers. Agreed that information should flow up the chain freely, but there are a lot of incentives working against that, some of which are just human nature (e.g. desire to fix the problems in one's own backyard without escalating.)

> It could be that working in the store for a day is a good way to get candid and unfiltered input from those workers and managers.

Yeah, nah.

Can you imagine any low level AppleStore worker giving Steve Jobs "candid and unfiltered input"???

If that's what you're after, you don't send in a very public top-of-the-org-chart face. At least not in any place with at-will (or right-to-work, whichever it is?) employment laws, where they could fire you on the spot for no reason at all. (Most likely not the CEO doing the firing, but the workers direct or one up or regional manager - who'd just been shown up as worthy of "candid and unfiltered input")

Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

#325

Post by bigiain » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 11:31 PM UTC

don-code wrote: post #302

otikik wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The CEO working a single shift noticed something that needed to be changed? Did none of the thousands of workers who work those shifts every day notice that problem? Obviously , he's much more intelligent than all those other people, that's why he's the CEO and way richer than them. Rich people are more intelligent and better than poor people in most aspects. That's why the laws favor them.

I understand that your post is sarcasm, but it does bring up the underlying issue of who's been empowered to make changes, and ultimately, who's had (correctly or incorrectly) trust placed in them. An interesting thing happened at a company I worked for: the engineers were, during a time of intense labor pressure, asked to staff the fulfillment center. The fulfillment staff worked under a supervisor, and were suppose…

This _might_ not be Amazon.

But it sure as hell sounds like exactly the sort of thing that would have happened at Amazon.

(And, as a plot twist, those same engineers went back to their coding jobs earning 8 or 10 times what the fulfilment staff make, and started on a project using machine vision to algorithmically detect "rote task violations" and have the computer fire people for them...)

Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

#326

Post by jamesliudotcc » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 11:31 PM UTC

sebzim4500 wrote: post #135

badwolf wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've mixed feelings. Many probably wouldn't want the semi-dead weight of big executive screwing up the morning rush.

I haven't worked retail, I know its unpleasant but is there really that much skill to it?

Yes. About the least-skilled position in retail is working the POS. Even with a touch screen, it takes practice. It makes a big difference if the operator knows where all the buttons are as opposed to having to hunt and peck. Yes, the machine tells you how much change to make, but picking up the right number of coins by touch instead of by picking up a bunch of them and counting them out into the other hand, that makes a difference. Picking up single bills out of the cash tray without fumbling takes some touch. Knowing all the sizes (short, tall, grande, venti, trenta?) and all the drinks. If you are at a store where they don't print drink labels, you have to know the order in which to announce a drink (size, modifiers, drink-type, but make sure the modifiers are in the right order) and the shorthand for the sharpie markup of the cups.

There's skills you need. None of it is that hard. But it is not easy to do it at speed without practice.

Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

#327

Post by jamesliudotcc » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 11:38 PM UTC

stcroixx wrote: post #132

parker_mountain wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Occasionally fairly major changes like what? I'm curious. There's nothing that shows the flaws of a process like running it yourself.

Probably better to just listen to the people that do it all day than to think you pop in as an outsider and have some special insight.

It is a good way to get exposed to the baristas once a month. When I was a barista there, I saw my manager's manager a few times. I think I knew the name of that person's manager? I think there's at least 2 more layers before the executive in charge of all of the stores.

This is the most direct way of accomplishing that.

Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

#328

Post by elliotto » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 11:41 PM UTC

dahwolf wrote: post #319

pkaye wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that the premise of the Undercover Boss show?

No, my story is much better. Undercover Boss doesn't fire anybody as far as I know. The premise of Undercover Boss is a company that is starving their employees. To distract from this awkward reality, the Undercover Boss picks an employee that is double-starving, say a single mother. And then radically improves her life. Everybody claps and is in tears not realizing that everybody else continues to be fucked. Not my…

This is a great description of all feel good American media

Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

#329

Post by greedo » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 11:56 PM UTC

screwturner68 wrote: post #185

kotaKat wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And depending on the franchise owner, could also be the franchise. My first McJob was at an owner-operated McDonalds where the owner would roll in at lunch on a Saturday in his BMW Z4, see the lunch rush, wash his hands, throw on some gloves, and call out to turn on the other side of the grill for assembly and start packing orders himself on that side to help out the workload. Gained a lot of respect as an impression…

I don't know if it's still the case but you used to have to go to Hamburger U before you could own a McD's so you knew how to do the job. I actually see it all the time and you can always tell who the owner is, instead of some really uninterested 17 year old you get a middle aged man in a pressed (insert fast food name) polo who is super happy to take your order.

HU is still mandatory, though I didn't feel it was that challenging. A lot of rote memorization basically.

Re: Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month

#330

Post by greedo » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 11:59 PM UTC

kotaKat wrote: post #73

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC McDonalds still does this for some subset of its corporate workforce.

And depending on the franchise owner, could also be the franchise. My first McJob was at an owner-operated McDonalds where the owner would roll in at lunch on a Saturday in his BMW Z4, see the lunch rush, wash his hands, throw on some gloves, and call out to turn on the other side of the grill for assembly and start packing orders himself on that side to help out the workload. Gained a lot of respect as an impression…

Our Owner/operator was a former bicycle salesman who knew hot fries, and that was it. I wouldn't say he was hands off (he insisted that I violate civil rights/labor laws may he rot in hell), but he really didn't understand much more than squeezing out every penny.

The worst thing was that Ray Kroc's wife live in the next town over and routinely came through our drive thru. Once the lot was being re-surfaced and she was royally pissed that the drive thru was closed and she had to come inside and mingle with the hoi polloi.