One Starbucks supervisor urges customers to grant baristas more grace when little errors, like receiving the wrong drink lid, occur.
User Rae (@rachelllllnstuff) posted a trending TikTok response to another now-deleted video where TikToker Chelle (@Chelle.Caron) rants about failing to receive a nitro lid with her drink.
Rae explains that the barista should have given Chelle a Nitro lid, which is a drink cap with a bigger mouth. However, Rae rationalizes that the barista may have simply forgotten, or the store may have been out of those lids.
“We are constantly hiring new people at Starbucks, constantly having to train people,” Rae says in the video posted Monday that has collected over 764,000 views. “So it could have just been that this barista didn’t know what you were talking about. And in this case, you should have shown them a little bit more mercy.”
@rachelllllnstuff #stitch with @chelle.caron i swear the demographic that starbucks attracts WOULD get this mad about a LID. Sympathy goes a long way with people working in service. #fyp #starbucks #starbuckspartners #baristatok ♬ original sound – rae
Rae critiques Chelle, who referred to the nitro lid as “the bigger fucking lid” for failing to use the proper terminology. That may be the source of confusion, Rae points out. The Daily Dot reached out to Chelle via Instagram direct message. Rae was contacted via TikTok comment.
Many in the comments agreed with Rae’s critique.
“She’s mad because she was incapable of clearly communicating what she wanted,” one viewer wrote. “I had no idea what lid she was talking about until you said nitro lid.”
In the clip, Rae offers a final suggestion to solve any future problems customers may have regarding lid preferences: get to know a barista.
“We at Starbucks are constantly trained to remember every single teeny, tiny little thing that you like about your drink,” Rae, who appears to be recording from Boulder, Colorado, continues. “That’s not something that you get from the coffee shop, especially when it’s something as stupid as a lid.”
Rae suggests customers learn baristas’ names. Those moments of human connection get Rae through the times when she encounters “terrible” customers, she says.
Starbucks launched its new nitro lids to allow customers to receive the foam on top of a drink and the liquid at the same time while also eliminating waste from straws. But since the pandemic, Starbucks along with many other industry giants faced shortages of the essentials, including lids.
And some viewers in the comments agree that Nitro lids are difficult to obtain.
“Haven’t had nitro lids in MONTHS bro,” one user lamented.
