The Verismo

Wed, 05/25/2005 - 1:12pm -- southbux
Starbucks Forum: 
Working at Starbucks

I would just like to ask how everyone feels about the Verismo and how it affects working life at Starbucks. I see that it makes our lives a little bit easier as far as speed of service is concerned but I worry whenever an employer does something to drastically de-skill a job. I feel as though the knowledge of how to do a large part of our jobs (making espresso drinks) has been mechanized and thusly making us (the partners) less important. I just wanted to see if I could get anyones thoughts on how the Verismo has affected any aspect of your store. Anything from less labor hours to higher turnover to a drop in respect from management. All of these problems and more can arise from de-skilling in any workplace. So if you've seen any changes since you got your push button espresso machines lets hear em.'

Submitted by southbux on

The issue here isn't customers its baristas having the skilled aspects of their jobs removed and having more labor instensive, physically draining, and mentally tedious (not challenging) aspects added on.

More than ever before we are janitors who have machines make coffee for people once in awhile. The more we allow Starbucks to take away the skilled aspects of our jobs the more time we will spend cleaning and fetching which takes no skill at all. You might think hey, less work, same job, whats the problem? The problem is Starbucks is making its business more valuable by devaluing your job.

I don't mean this message to be insulting to newer baristas who never worked on the old espresso machines or to baristas who welcomed the 801s (even I was happy at first). But everyone should consider this; who is Starbucks really making our jobs less skilled for? I would say quality control and consistency but Starbucks has supposedly always had the best training for its baristas so one would have to assume that can't be the whole thing. Maybe its issues with speed of service but I worked on the Marzoco for a couple of years with lines out the door every morning and never had an abnormal amount of complaints about speed of service.

I think its a combination of speed and quality control that comes with the added bonus of making the workers primarily a smiling, happy, dancing, clean up crew. Thats would be fine, but along with that we are going to see and already see devalued schedules, devalued working conditions, devalued paychecks, and devalued benefits, and a big boss who is crying like hes going to qualify for food stamps if he has to continue to help pay for just 42% of his workers health insurance.

And then we gaze in awe as the stock shoots through the roof. Starbucks clearly knows how to play this game and its time the baristas learned how to play too. Go union!

Submitted by surestrange on

Reply to SarahMurdoch:
Since you've asked, although it's not relevant to the discussion, I've worked in retail for about 15 years, as a barista for about 11 of those years, and at Starbucks for about 1.5 years - first in 1997-98, and then again this year. That was the longest sentence ever.
Sounds like your customers are kinda rough. I feel for you.

I worry about the de-skilling of our job. I was kind of appalled when I re-joined the company this year and saw the Verisimo (sp?) for the first time...the machine measures the milk's temp and stops steaming automatically? the machine grinds, tamps and pulls the shot? all you do is press a button? what the hell happened? I felt my stomach drop when I saw that machine. And the frappuccinos! Those awful frappuccinos! There are so many of them! What have the frappuccinos done to de-skill our jobs? They're so far away from a nicely-crafted espresso drink.
And how about the value and skill of customer service? How is that valued? Customer service takes a great amount of skill: intuition, problem-solving, communication....very VALUABLE skills. There's for sure a HUGE gap between what we're paid and what the value our customer service work is. We serve hundreds of customers a day and endeavor to have a personal and meaningful interaction with each and every one of them. We all know how difficult that is. Probably very few of our customers would be able to handle the strain of our jobs.
However, that too is off the subject.
We ought to be able to set our price and earn it. I'm all for organizing. I'm all for democratizing the workplace as much as possible.

Submitted by SarahMurdoch on

I agree ... fraps are awful. They are NOT coffee .... there is no art in pouring sugar gunk into a blender with ice.

Submitted by mr.sbux on

I have worked with both bars. There are artistic benefits to both bars and the La Marzocco adds an art to it, however the Verismo makes working the bars more efficient. Consistency with shots, able to have up to 99 combinations of shots to pull setup in a queue, and then the automatic stop on the steam wand at 160. That is great.



Tamping added to the environment of the store, watching your milk and adjusting the steam pressure was great. If the consideration was for work related injuries, i am sure there was also consideration for the customer service aspect as well. In the extra time you have, not watching the milk, then you could be starting a conversation with a customer.



Great aspects to each bar, but I have to say that the Verismo made life easier, there was a great amount of skill to using the La Marzocco but there is still alot of skill to keeping up with the rush and being organized.



Lets put a La Marzocco and the Verismo side by Side and take on a rush, oh by the way we have to keep a few frappuccino's and iced teas in there too to make the competition realistic.

Submitted by ignorantrob on

I think if I had to tamp all the shots of espresso every morning when there's 20-30 people in line my head would fall off.

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