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

cnbc.com

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

#331

Post by dahwolf »

elliotto wrote: post #328
dahwolf wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I would complete the description by mentioning that the one employee that was helped probably had to return whatever help was given as it was just for TV.

They can keep their 20% discount though on the after-work course "5 ways to financial success" so that personal issues stop disrupting productivity.

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

#332

Post by wahnfrieden »

sebzim4500 wrote: post #146
coldpie wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. The role of executives at large companies is to most effectively move resources away from labor and towards the owners of capital. They decide where to open the next branch to crush competitors who treat their workers and customers better; they negotiate deals with suppliers so those suppliers and their workers have fewer resources; they coordinate with other large competitors to hamper workers' attempts at imp…

That sounds like a lot of work to me. Whether it is good for society is an entirely separate question.

you're conflating work and, uh, "activity", so you're just talking past the OP instead of understanding them.

a common usage definition of work being used here is in terms of creating "use value". the ceo's activities do not. they do generate profit for ownership though. which is not the same thing as "use value" and serves a different purpose in society.

this is basic analysis, not a judgment.

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

#334

Post by ethbr0 »

swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #289
ethbr0 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The ideal scheme would be anonymous reporting + objective third party prioritization + financial compensation if benefits realized. The lack of compensation always baffled me. If an employee comes up with a change that saves the company $x, why don't they get bonused Make it subject to approval or somesuch, to prevent gaming and weed out edge cases, but every employee should be incentivized to find a way to d…

You aren't paid based off the value you provide. Companies don't know how to measure that anyways. Your salary is based off of how expensive it would be to replace you.

Value > Salary >= Replacement Cost

Companies can ignore that for awhile, but eventually it needs to be true.

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

#337

Post by llbeansandrice »

daedalus_j wrote: post #144
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.

pricing stuff, metrics stuff, customer flow changes. Real day-to-day stuff. One of the ones I personally witnessed related to the services that salespeople were expected to sell along with the computers. There was some kerfuffle going on about stores not meeting the expected "attach rates". He spent a whole day selling computers, and could not meet the expected attach rates himself. Couple weeks after that changes to…

I feel like this just highlights the incompetence of executives and management at various levels more than anything else.

The only solution was to take an entire day from the CEO to figure out that the goals were unrealistic? Wasn't the very first clue that stores were generally unable to meet the expected attach rates?

It just highlights this dumb idea that executives are these ungodly force multipliers. I bet if anyone had bothered to ask the day-to-day labor about the proposed attach rates (and actually listened) they wouldn't have had to burn a day's worth of CEO compensation to figure out they weren't achievable.

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

#338

Post by nitwit005 »

wincy wrote: post #102
jackson1442 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This should absolutely be a thing for vertical integration developers. If you're developing cashier software for Target, you should have to use it under realistic circumstances sometimes. Same for Amazon driving software, helpdesk software, sales, etc.

When I worked for a large logistics company we’d have a few days a year where we’d go downstairs and shadow someone using our software. It was very informative. The UX people were redesigning workflow to be “easier” and less information dense and the experienced people (who worked mostly on commissions mind you) where very pissed and wanted their hot keys and their at a glance information. It was very eye opening.

This is a constant fight. The UI design people want a bunch of pretty white space, and the actual users want dense information. Despite people insisting they're "data driven", the design people rarely seem to appreciate the feedback.

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

#339

Post by Smoosh »

thrdbndndn wrote: post #63
roflchoppa wrote: post #46

The only way things like this really work is by not giving any heads up to the store or the store management. Otherwise store management spends a huge amount of time trying to tidy up before “corporate” comes by. At least that was my experience when things like this happened at the fruit stand.

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.

Will he be remunerated the same as a barista for that time? I'd guess not. And that is an important part of the motivation/attitude.

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

#340

Post by 8bitsrule »

Getting to a working store will be hard if he's in Seattle, considering how many stores they've shut down in/near downtown Seattle in the past couple of years. Maybe he'll be flying to stores in the Caribbean region.

Article sez he 'plans to work a shift', then later sez 'he'll work a half day every month'. So I guess they mean a corporate shift?

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