In a viral TikTok video, a Starbucks worker shared an interaction she had with a customer who ordered a white hot chocolate but requested there be no white mocha in it.
“Um, what are you putting in that?” TikToker Jordan Perkins (@jorlala) says, pretending to be the customer. The TikToker is in uniform, in what appears to be the back of the store.
“Since it’s a white hot chocolate, I’m adding white mocha,” Perkins recalls telling the customer.
“I don’t want a mocha. I want a white hot chocolate,” “the customer” responds.
Starbucks’ white hot chocolate is made with white mocha sauce, which does not have any coffee in it. However, the customer allegedly continued to insist their drink be made without white mocha.
“OK, so if I don’t put the white mocha in this, it’s just going to be a steamed milk,” the worker recalls saying.
“OK, you clearly don’t know how to do your job. All I want is a white hot chocolate,” Perkins says as the customer.
The TikTok received over 1.6 million views, but several users in the comments felt the worker should have explained that the white mocha sauce does not actually contain coffee, despite its name.
“You literally just have to explain that white mocha is white chocolate. That’s it. Sometimes you have to explain things to people who dont have ur job,” one user said.
“The easy way to avoid this whole convo is ‘white mocha is just the name, it’s not actual mocha sorry for the confusion’ instead of being snotty,” another said.
“Why can’t you just explain it instead of repeating it? Starbucks workers are the worst lmao,” a third claimed.
However, many other Starbucks workers empathized with Perkins. Some said they’ve experienced difficulty with customers even after explaining the ingredients.
“And i always say ‘so mocha is chocolate. and a white hot chocolate is white mocha chocolate sauce.’ and somehow they still don’t understand,” one user said.
“My favorite is explaining mocha does not equal coffee, and the non coffee drinking karens losing their minds and telling me they taste coffee in mocha,” another said.
“I would’ve clocked out right then and there,” a third user said.
“Mocha is chocolate???? People think it means coffee????? I’m so glad I don’t work in a coffee shop anymore lol,” a fourth said.
Update 2:45pm CT Feb. 8: When reached for comment, Perkins told the Daily Dot that she was “just as confused as the customer” in question.
“I didn’t realize she was confusing the terms ‘white mocha’ and ‘white chocolate’. I assumed she was confusing just the terms ‘mocha’ and ‘white mocha,'” she explained.
She said she “made this video to show how rude customers can be when there is a misunderstanding on BOTH sides.” “Just because I am an employee doesn’t mean I can read a customers mind. Which is why in the video I tell her ‘Im honestly not too sure what you’re asking me to make,'” she said.
Perkins said she has “never [had] a problem explaining anything to any customer” and that the customer was impolite. “Had she been more polite, and spoken to me in a tone that wasn’t degrading, I think maybe the issue would have been solved faster,” Perkins said.
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