Barista Reminds Customer That She Chose To Join A Long Line After She Complained About Her Delayed Order
Looks like the customer has to find a new coffee shop.
@cutzle1 / TikTok Gen Z is changing the working environment in customer service jobs and people are all for it.
Many Gen Z employees working minimum wage jobs are not afraid to call out entitled customers and poor management as they realize their worth.
One barista put a ‘Karen’ she was serving in her place and other customers praised her actions.
The barista reminded the customer that she chose to wait in a long line after complaining that her order was taking too long.
In a TikTok video posted by @cutzle1 that has been viewed over 3 million times, a man described the incident he witnessed while at a local coffee shop.
“This new generation of workers are built differently,” the man says. While waiting in a long line to pick up coffee, he noticed another customer, whom he refers to as a “Karen” berating a female barista working behind the counter.
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“Karen’s like, I’ve waited 25 minutes for my coffee and bagel this is ridiculous.”
The barista took it upon herself to remind the unhappy customer of what she signed up for.
“The young lady looks back at her and she goes, ‘ma’am when you came in here and you saw that that line was 13 people deep, what the h–l did you think was gonna happen,” the man says. “If you’re unhappy with the wait time, maybe you need to start brewing that s–t at home.”
The customer demanded to see a manager, who approached and apologized for the inconvenience.
When the customer criticized the manager yelling, “is this really how you run a business?!” the barista decided that she had had enough.
In what he calls “the greatest speech I have ever heard an employee give,” the man claims that the barista lectured the customer on how difficult her day-to-day job was.
Looking her dead in the eye, the young woman said, “Ma’am, I make minimum wage. I’m not doing anything extra for you because I don’t care. I literally come to work to make this paycheck.”
The barista acknowledge the customer’s frustration but pointed out that she was not the only one who was feeling this way. “I deal with everyone’s bulls–t all day because their coffee is too cold or the coffee’s not right, I don’t give two s–ts,” she told the customer.
The barista then quit in front of all the other customers.
The man shares that the entire coffee shop fell silent as they watched on. “She looks back at the manager and says, ‘if you didn’t take that as me quitting,’ she takes off her apron, hands it to him, and walks out,” he says.
After she walked out, the silence was broken by a customer clapping before most of the shop erupted in applause from others.
“I want to find this barista, 'cause I would go to any coffee shop that she moves to,” the man admits.
The customers in the shop were not the only ones applauding the barista’s exit speech.
TikTokers praised the barista for standing her ground.
“Stories like these make me proud to be part of this generation of workers,” one user commented.
“You just lost a customer” became “you just lost a worker!” another user pointed out.
“I want her to know I'm ABSOLUTELY proud of her,” another user wrote.
Other users believed that the barista’s manager should have defended her.
“It would have been great had the manager protected the employee,” one user shared.
“Managers need to defend their staff when a customer is wrong,” another user added.
Looks like Karen will be making most of her morning coffee at home now.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.