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Training, Caring, and Management
I have a question for the readers out there in the Blogosphere.
Which is the more dominant issue? Ignorance, or apathy?
Now, let’s extend this question farther. Is this weight heavier on the barista or on the management/ownership of retailers?
I realize that may sound a bit unclear, so here’s an example.
1:An owner cares about quality, but cannot seem to instill the same care for craftsmanship into their employees, so the quality suffers. 2:An owner doesn’t care at all, but the majority of the barista staff care a great deal, yet lack the training to “make it happen”.
Which seems more likely the case, and is it more likely that either of these two is the case compared to total apathy?
More often than not, I find baristi who care quite a bit about coffee quality. Maybe not to the extent that we’d all like to see, but still.. they care. They applied for the job because they like coffee, so it would make sense that they have a desire to learn more about it, and/or to excel at their craft. In the same situation, I find owners and managers who just don’t have the same desire, or who lack the training themselves, and thus, cannot adequately train their staff.
Assuming the latter is the case, Is the issue a lack of training, or is it something else?
MANY of the recognizable names in the industry (aside from those who started out at a major player like Intelligentsia, Stumptown, CounterCulture, etc..) started out by doing research, self-teaching, and discovery on their own. Is this to be expected of the AVERAGE manager/owner? What about the AVERAGE barista?
Consider this an introspective look at the state of the industry on an average. Not on the cutting edge, not on the progressive front, but as a random sampling mean of the retailing side of the Specialty Coffee business.
What are your thoughts?
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No matter how good you yourself are at making coffee/latte’s, if you train a beginner barista what you know, they should end up with a decent cup even if they don’t care. I know when I started with this company, I couldn’t believe the quality of machine they had for us to use and I find it somewhat funny that people getting into the industry wouldn’t know how lucky they are to get to use it. There are baristas yes that care, the others are the ones just looking for good paycheck.
Recently, I have the joy of becoming a store(co-)manager. I cannot forget the days of working for shop after mismanaged shop where the apathy of a manager/owner would trickle (gush) down onto the Baristi and infest like a plague.
Ignorance is curable, but requires care on the part of the administrating doctor. I think one of the largest problems in dealing with ignorance is lack of care, but the largest problem in dealing with apathy is a lack of consistent reinforcement. Management tends to be either way too harsh in remedying problems, or inconsistent in applying ‘punishments’ or other forms of negative reinforcement. As much as I love where I work, the issue of being short-handed, I feel, can limit the consistency of punishment. Of course, as the punishment becomes more consistent, it falls on salaried workers to pick up the slack. It happens.
It goes to show my thoughts and theories on relying on your hierarchal level: that, usually, your biggest supporters come from your own level of ‘management.’ I have seen cream-of-the-crop baristi trying to lead by example almost achieve success in getting fellow baristi to cast off their top-down apathy, only to be reprimanded by said management for ‘overstepping their boundaries.’ Of course, then on out, the other baristi shunned the now ‘overachieving’ barista.
As a barista, in the end, I do believe a barista can only be as good for a company as his/her management lets him. If a barista has skill, desire, and knowledge, it then becomes that barista’s duty to shop jump until he/she ends up where they belong. After three years, and I would say 6 shops, I think I finally found a good company for which to work.
As a manager, in conclusion, I also believe that rules = care. I look beyond the scope of my store when training a new partner. I believe in setting up the rules and regulations for coffee that are universal, so that they may achieve success more quickly than I had – or teach a new person these fundamentals. Each one, teach one. I call on management to trust their well-trained barista and have their back at every turn when they are in the right.
Well stated, Chad. I agree wholeheartedly on almost everything you said.
Thanks.
Ironically enough, I feel like once again, I fell a bit victim to an inconsistently applied reprimanding. I believe that the coffee industry may just be plagued, maybe just in the Houston area, with quashing creativity and people who want to be soldiers for their coffee shops, giving over countless hours and countless turnaround shifts.
I think coffee and I get along; maybe it’s just this city and myself that do not.
It’s not coffee. It’s not the industry. It’s not the city. It’s the people.
What it comes down to, is that baristas who are coffee soldiers can come across as a threat to their shop’s owner. If the shop-owner is more concerned with maintaining control than with pushing forward with quality, it can be a tough predicament indeed.
Keep your chin up, Chad. It’s about the coffee.