A Starbucks barista on TikTok recently went viral for sharing the difference between her demeanor when she first started her job and how she feels about it now, a year and a half in.
The TikToker, Avery (@aveave34), regularly posts videos about her work, which she notes in her bio. “I post a lot about Starbucks.”
“Me being so excited to to work at Starbucks and be a partner and have free coffee all the time,” Avery writes in the text overlay while showing a mirror selfie she took in her “Whoa Nitro” Starbucks T-shirt.
The video then cuts to an image of Avery crouched down to the floor to clean a drain.
“Me a year and a half in being exhausted all the time having to deal with rude people every shift, and constantly crying in the bathroom,” she wrote.
@aveave34 #greenscreen pretty much #fyp #foryou #starbucks #barista #coffee #starbucksbarista #ohtobeapartner ♬ original sound – Tik Toker
The video has been viewed over 161,000 times as of Monday. Many viewers in the comments were critical of Avery, claiming her exhaustion is normal at any job.
“Damn sounds like a typical job,” one user wrote.
“Y’all act like making freaking coffees is the hardest job in the world,” a second said.
Ave replied to the comment, claiming she loves her job despite how tiring it is. “I love my job, or i wouldn’t work there,” she wrote. “But are there things i’d change about it? yes. it is a mentally exhausting job.”
However, the video resonated with several alleged former and current Starbucks workers as they recounted their own experiences at the company.
“Literally same I cry almost every shift,” one user wrote.
“Hired in as a shift and quit after 4 months no amount of money was worth the insane shit i went thru during that time,” another said.
“Working at starbucks absolutely ruined the sanity I had left in me. So I quit,” a third commented.
Burnout is what drove several Starbucks workers to unionize at a store in Buffalo, New York in December 2021, per Reuters. Now, approximately 200 Starbucks stores have unionized.
The Daily Dot reached out to Avery for comment via TikTok comment.