Children

We get a lot of little children (with their parents) in our Starbucks and the parents seem to see it as an opportunity to relax. This is all well and good but unfortunately it means the children are running around trashing everything, holding doors shut so people can't actually get into Starbucks or the toilets and, as was the case the other day, sticking stickers everywhere. When doing my usual rounds of the shop, cleaning up the dirty mugs, plates and whatever other random things people have left behind I kept finding stickers stuck to the tables. Then I started to notice them stuck to the floor, coffee mugs and plates, the packets of coffee for sale and, in the evening while cleaning the toilets, I found them stuck to the tiolets, sinks and mirrors.

Some other child that day also managed to spill 2 glasses of water over two different tables (the mother came up to me, informed me the child had spilled the water and then walked out). This was on a very busy day with people queuing up at the tills and no free tables. I know it was an accident and anyone can accidentally knock over two full glasses of water, but, when you see the staff stretched out as it is serving the long queue of customers, I would have thought it to be courteous to at least try and mop up with the 100s of tissues you had taken (and which your children had sprawled out over the tables, chairs and floor) the spill just a bit. Its not like you were too busy keeping an eye on your child because you'd been happy to let them run around trashing the place previously. But it didn't matter. With the help of my starbucks partners we managed to serve all the customers and I then cleaned up the mess. Problem solved. Or so I thought. It seems its the teenagers who are the worst culprits of making a mess. And at least with little children its expected and they go about it in a cute way. That can't be said of teenagers.

We keep getting large groups of teenagers coming in. One member of the group will buy a drink and they then think they're all entitled to take up half the shop, scream and shout constantly and stay for hours. The manageress has informed many a group of teenagers that they can't stay without actually buying something because it then means theres no room for those who actually do. Yet they keep coming. On this day, as I mentioned, we were very busy and there was no room. Yet a large group of teenagers who were being extremely loud and who hadn't actually bought anything were using up two tables and a large proportion of our chairs. So we informed them they couldn't stay and they couldn't use starbucks as a hangout if they weren't actually going to buy anything. So they then left, screaming things as they left (god knows what they were saying). We were left with a table stacked with paper napkins, mixing sticks, chocolate, cinnamon and vanilla powder containers, straws and lids (topped off with some chocolate powder sprinkled on it). If they had intended it to be some sort of sculpture I can say for sure they won't be passing their art GCSEs.