Today must be my lucky day, because I had my first ever personal encounter with a Gertrude. Sorry in advance cuz this is gonna be a little lengthy but I just really need to vent lol. Some context: it was my first early morning to mid shift at a high-volume store. I'm put on cafe bar at peak, which I'm fine with because I LOVE making drinks and testing myself. Drinks are printing out on the stickers, I'm grabbing them and whipping 'em out, and overall having a ton of fun. A little hiccups here and there since I'm no bar whiz yet but I was feeling really good about myself.

Then the worst happens. Our sticker printer for cafe, which was working just fine an actual second ago, goes wonky and tries to print the backing with the sticker itself. It gets jammed and the manager has to come over and fix it while the green bean on front reg days out of training is taking a ton of orders. There is a huge line, which means a ton of drinks that aren't printing, which means I can't get started on them. The printer gets "fixed" and starts printing two different orders on one sticker, or cutting off drink modifications, and DTO has to come over and help me make a behemoth amount of drinks since I'm inevitably behind. Eventually, she catches me up and goes back to her duties and I finally have some room to breathe.

A few minutes pass, and I notice that some customers are still lingering by the handoff plane but no stickers have printed. At first I thought nothing of it, but then I had the inkling to press the "feed" button.

Sticker. After sticker. After sticker. Endless. Stickers. Some from ten minutes ago. The machine is vomiting Venti Iced Caramel Macchiatos and PSLs like nobody's business and my stress level exceeds through the roof. As I'm making the drinks I make a little announcement to the people at the handoff plane that our sticker machine wasn't working before and it delayed their orders. I'm about to start on a Grande Strawberry Smoothie when the same DTO comes back and asks if I'm okay and starts helping me crank out drinks. I get sidetracked and start making another drink, and then another until I finally get back to the smoothie.

Enter Gertrude. The sticker says "Mocha Drizzle." I pour the smoothie into the cup and drizzle some mocha sauce on top and call out the order when Gertrude picks up the cup, makes a face and says "um, I wanted the mocha drizzle around the cup." First off, sorry, I didn't know that's what 'drizzle' meant. And second, it's been fifteen minutes do you really have the energy to nitpick at that point?? I apologize and offer to redo it but she says whatever, and mumbles something about how people who ordered after her have already gotten their drinks before her. Okay, sure, sorry.

I start making a PS frap for another order and Gertrude is still there, lingering. When I'm pumping the sauces, she stops me and, very rudely, asks: "are you going to give me the other coffee I ordered??" This exchange happens:

Me: I'm sorry, I'm getting to it, all our drinks are backed up.

G: You are LITERALLY making another drink right in front of me! Four or five people after me already got their drink!!

Me: I'm sorry, your drink didn't print our sticker machine wasn't working so I didn't see it. What was your order?

G: No, it's fine, go ahead and finish that drink instead. AGAIN.

I'm furious. I do not tolerate disrespect. I feel myself getting visibly upset when I start to explain, "okay, ma'am, our stickers were not printing your drink. I did not take your order. I do not know what you ordered. What was your drink, I'll make it right now," and with the bitchiest, passive aggressive laughter, she exclaims "it was a tall Pike!!"

A tall Pike. Brewed coffee is not my responsibility. Green bean at the reg must've been overwhelmed by the amount of people in line and forgot to make her drink. Shaking with anger at this point, I pour her coffee into the cup, and as I'm handing it to her, I say, "I understand that you are frustrated but please respect the people who are making your coffee." She shuts up, takes her coffee and leaves. After that, I was trying to keep myself from getting emotional by rinsing pitchers and doing other small distracting things. Front reg green bean goes on her break, and I overhear my shift manager telling her that she needs to make the brewed coffee for the customers because one lady didn't receive hers.

I was okay after a while (interacting with nice customers at the reg helped) but I was so frazzled and angry after that. In hindsight, I probably could've handled it better but her attitude astounded me. I am a person just like you. I am not a coffee machine, I am not perfect, sorry I can't do the simplest thing like pour mocha around the cup instead of on top of the drink but you must be very entitled to think that you would berate me for a meaningless thing like that.

tl;dr completed my rite of passage, am now a real Starbucks partner cuz i lost my Gertrude virginity