Where are all the terrible Buddhist customers? Nobody’s ever lectured their server on mastering right speech/right action/right livelihood, or demanded of a manager that they only be served by someone who’s attained at least three jhana?

If anything, this is an important reminder: crazy assholes pop up on the other side of the counter, too.

I would be vastly surprised if Shit-Weasel Greg (P.S.: I believe that's the new Five Nights at Freddy's character) didn't actually know about the depression. That's the sort of thing that easily gets gossiped about. There's no way the manager was somehow "clueless" enough to simply think of her as sad or uninvolved if…

There was no way for me to read that description of how we express our feelings for the first time without thinking of a Monty Python-esque diner waitress. “Spaz, spaz, spaz, spaz, spaz, spaz, spaz, spaz, baked beans, spaz, spaz, spaz, spaz, and spaz.”

True. I meant that in implication, but did not clearly communicate it.

Let me make this as clear and easy to understand as I can without using Sesame Street characters: nobody really has a problem with customers who come in “within the time limits” to order. What we have a problem with are customers who ABUSE that “time limit” technicality to make life more difficult for other people.

For the mild bit that it’s worth, Pinkham, most Starbucks locations aren’t franchised. They’re owned by the core company, which allows for several benefits like baristas being able to cover work shifts at other Starbucks locations with minimal fuss.

You've got to be at least 16 to work at Starbucks, but if you're still a minor, you can't do either an opening or a closing shift. That tends to make you a little less valuable/usable to managers, especially when they're trying to cover for worker attrition by eliminating middle shifts and just having an opening and…

To be fair, depending on the wait and what it is that you’re ordering, waiting is not always an actual option.

Somehow (I have my theories) people have been trained to believe that shouting and getting aggressive are legitimate methods of getting what you want, when politeness and willing to be reasonable work just fine.

Chewy tapioca balls added to a milk-based tea drink, primarily coming from Taiwan. Your drink is served with an extra-wide straw, so to accommodate the boba balls sliding up into your mouth while you drink, thusly stopping you from slurping and forcing you to chew for a while.

Well, don’t forget that the counter girl came back to me several minutes AFTER I’d placed my order and paid. The key point of that being that even she thought the boba was ready when I ordered, or at least would be ready enough in reasonable time. There was another worker in the back, undoubtedly the one making the…

There was no way you could have had one person run that.

I didn't mean it in a Who Has It Worse way, and I apologize if it came off like that. Sucky shifts suck. That's what sucky shifts do. I appreciate what you had to deal with. I just couldn't help having that kneejerk reaction of thinking, "Man, I'd have KILLED for three people on a slow day!" :)

A. It was my day off and, I must admit, her asking for boba made me want it, too. That’s why I got one for each of us. She’s a grown young woman, but whining transcends age, especially between siblings. Thusly, my petty vengeance of dragging out that thank-you period once I actually got home.

No disrespect, but I have to admit that when you described the slow-day staff as being three people, I had a hollow laugh caught in my throat. I was a manager of a three-screen movie theatre one summer. On slow days, the entire staff was me. Just me. All day. 14-hour shift. Sold the tickets, the concessions, ran the…

Alright, here’s my anti-sympathy anecdote for Milkshake Lady:

Now is the time to compose theme music. Lots of brass, major keys. Upload it to your phone and unleash it as you mete out justice.

Alright, goddammit, I’m drawing a line in the sand here. If your stupid Starbucks order is so complex that YOU have to be the one to draw your quarterback strategy on the cup yourself, then you forfeit your fucking drink. No second chances. The second you ask for the marker, you’re done. Go home and write fanfiction…

Well, yeah. It’s on the menu, so it’s fair game. I’ve never had a McDonald’s employee say, “Big Mac? Not familiar with that, sir. What’s in it?”