At four corners Starbucks, it’s not uncommon to see students waiting 20+ minutes for an after school pick me-up, or not receiving it whatsoever because it got stolen or lost in the tsunami of strawberry refreshers.

When the final bell rings, a refreshing drink seems appealing to students and Starbucks is just across the street.

A swarm of students from Tahoma High School (THS) tend to spend their afternoons at Starbucks, causing the coffee shop to get extremely crowded.

It’s typical to see 20–30 people crammed in this not-so-large space.

Coming from an anonymous expert at Starbucks HR, she explains how the rush impacts workers.

Sharing that, “From a service quality perspective, partners [employees] may lack the proper friendly customer service and feel rushed.”

The pressure put on the employee’s shoulders can be invisible to customers, yet, the employees still have to handle it.

Nevertheless, they’re not just thrown into the waters of the rush, in fact the Starbucks HR employee expresses that the employees are trained and taught how to handle peak hours.

Even with this training, there’s no doubt it’s hard for employees to keep up with the long line of orders, but also for customers to enjoy the classic coffee shop experience.

Within this chaos, it’s easy for orders to get mixed up. When THS student Kaden Simpson was asked if she’d ever gotten her drink stolen, this was her response:

“Yes, I have, it was really packed and my order was taking a long time, so I asked where it was and they said someone had already taken it.”

Thankfully, Simpson was able to get her drink remade for free—courtesy of the Starbucks employees,—but this isn’t an uncommon occurrence at this location during these busy hours of the day.

Simpson also reports that she started going to Starbucks less often due to the congestion.

She says, “Now I only go once a week and I used to go two or three times.”

This rush is not only causing chaos, but also pushing away loyal customers.