Did I act/think morally and/or correctly by Objectivist standards?

[Dr. Radiaki]

I'm a barista at a Starbucks in Toronto, you may have seen me, I'm the one ranting about the evils of gun control, and the irony of enforcing a ban on firearms at the point of a gun. Anyway...

As of late, I've been working a lot of closing shifts, with various shift managers. Shift mangers being akin to assistant assistant mangers, slightly more pay than a barista, slightly more responsibility. As you can imagine, the quality of work done during the closing shift can have drastic effects on the opening shift the next day(not to mention whether the closers leave on time), and the quality of that work is largely determined by shift manger and his/her ability. Secondary responsibility, of course, falls on the barista(s).

One of my recent closes was colossally bad. Work was left undone or half-completed, and that was with about a half hour of unpaid work by the shift and I after official closing time.

Several factors were at work here, which, while not excuses, bear mentioning:

1.) We were greatly understaffed. With two major sporting events, and a large charity gathering, there simply were not enough employees present at any one time to be effective given the number of customers

2.) One member of staff we did have was from a different store, leaving him unfamiliar with the idiosyncrasies of our particular location(i.e Cleaning procedures, where to find certain tools, etc.)

3.) The shift manager himself is notorious for slow closes and his focus on secondary duties, rather than those that must be completed.

The next night, I was due to close again, with a different shift, who is almost terrifyingly efficient. She came down on me like a ton of bricks.

"What happened with that close last night? I didn't open but [the assistant manager] was complaining, it was just terrible, how do you explain yourself?"

I delineated the points above.

"Well, that's not the fault of [the outsider]. He should have been kept on cash while you two worked on the store."

I explained that I did not think it my responsibility to delegate responsibility.

"[Dr. Radiaki], you're a good closer, but those are the times you need to speak up, and tell [the other shift manager] that he needs to be doing other things or doing things differntly."

Now, for the questions:

1.) To be honest, I must admit that I resented the dressing down. How much responsibility should I take upon myself in a subordinate position? Do I have moral grounds to question my immediate superiors in the working world?

2.) Should I approach the assistant manager about these events? If I do, how do I treat the question of the slow shift manager? I owe him nothing, yet, at the same time, creating tension by complaining directly might make it difficult for me to work with him.

3.) If work is left uncompleted after the official closing time and I continue, I will no longer be paid. My first instinct is to insist that I be allowed to leave the store, since it seems to me that unpaid work for the benefit of others constitutes unhealthy altruism. Is this correct? Might there be a more moral course of action in this situation?

[themadkat]

My first response to this post is that you should be less worried about whether you are acting according to Objectivist standards and just make sure you are acting as rationally as you can by your own standards. Does your course of action make sense to you? Are you in concord with your values or struggling against them? What is your personal evaluation of your behavior and your responsibilities? That's what you should be asking.

That said, I've been in similar pickles before. My position at present translates roughly to somewhere between your shift manager and your assistant manager. I may be able to comment on it from a business perspective if you like. But I still maintain that the best judge of your circumstances is you.

I'm a barista at a Starbucks in Toronto, you may have seen me, I'm the one ranting about the evils of gun control, and the irony of enforcing a ban on firearms at the point of a gun. Anyway...

As of late, I've been working a lot of closing shifts, with various shift managers. Shift mangers being akin to assistant assistant mangers, slightly more pay than a barista, slightly more responsibility. As you can imagine, the quality of work done during the closing shift can have drastic effects on the opening shift the next day(not to mention whether the closers leave on time), and the quality of that work is largely determined by shift manger and his/her ability. Secondary responsibility, of course, falls on the barista(s).

One of my recent closes was colossally bad. Work was left undone or half-completed, and that was with about a half hour of unpaid work by the shift and I after official closing time.

Several factors were at work here, which, while not excuses, bear mentioning:

1.) We were greatly understaffed. With two major sporting events, and a large charity gathering, there simply were not enough employees present at any one time to be effective given the number of customers

2.) One member of staff we did have was from a different store, leaving him unfamiliar with the idiosyncrasies of our particular location(i.e Cleaning procedures, where to find certain tools, etc.)

3.) The shift manager himself is notorious for slow closes and his focus on secondary duties, rather than those that must be completed.

The next night, I was due to close again, with a different shift, who is almost terrifyingly efficient. She came down on me like a ton of bricks.

"What happened with that close last night? I didn't open but [the assistant manager] was complaining, it was just terrible, how do you explain yourself?"

I delineated the points above.

"Well, that's not the fault of [the outsider]. He should have been kept on cash while you two worked on the store."

I explained that I did not think it my responsibility to delegate responsibility.

"[Dr. Radiaki], you're a good closer, but those are the times you need to speak up, and tell [the other shift manager] that he needs to be doing other things or doing things differntly."

Now, for the questions:

1.) To be honest, I must admit that I resented the dressing down. How much responsibility should I take upon myself in a subordinate position? Do I have moral grounds to question my immediate superiors in the working world?

2.) Should I approach the assistant manager about these events? If I do, how do I treat the question of the slow shift manager? I owe him nothing, yet, at the same time, creating tension by complaining directly might make it difficult for me to work with him.

3.) If work is left uncompleted after the official closing time and I continue, I will no longer be paid. My first instinct is to insist that I be allowed to leave the store, since it seems to me that unpaid work for the benefit of others constitutes unhealthy altruism. Is this correct? Might there be a more moral course of action in this situation?

[adrock3215]

Your closing shift should be handled in exactly the same manner every night you close, regardless of how busy it is or how much everybody else screws everything else up. Just do your own job to the best of your ability every night. If there are complaints which are legitimate, take them up with your manager the next day. But don't leave the store a wreck, effectively making your shifts troubles the opening shifts troubles. If the manager doesn't change anything, respectfully request to be taken off of the closing shifts you are having problems with.

Edited April 27, 2008 by adrock3215

[pvtmorriscsa]

Howdy

Let me start by saying I have 15 plus years of experience in restaurant work, and when you boil it down that is all Starbucks is; a restaurant. I’ve played the role of both boss and minion, and though I have a great deal of experience; I would never claim to be authoritative.

Now my answers to your questions, take from them what you will, but understand that while I value the core tenants of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, I will never claim to be an Objectivist.

As to your first question, should you question your immediate supervisor? I would say yes, especially if you have more experience than your supervisor does, but even if you don’t you still have a brain. If you can provide helpful insight that will provide a more efficient work environment by all means do so; it will be in your own self interest.

However you do need to follow the “chain of command” and your immediate supervisor is your first step in the chain. Besides even if they won’t listen you can later on say you at least tried.

On your second question, I would first politely approach the slow person to see if there is any way to pick up the pace when “closing”. If that fails then by all means go to the next link in the chain.

I cannot really answer the last question, since I do not know the specifics of how you are paid.

Are you an hourly or salaried employee?

If you are an hourly employee, and Starbucks has some sort of weird, (in my experience), policy of clocking employees out right at closing time; then I would already be looking for another job if I were you. That is some pure straight up bullshit. Oh, and working off the clock is a big no-no here in the States, you should consider checking out the labor laws in Canada.

If you are a salaried employee, again I would be looking for another job that pays you accurately for your time. In my experience being a salaried employee in a restaurant is akin to slavery, and only worth it if there is a clearly delineated achievable bonus policy that will make up for the seemingly endless hours spent at work.

I hope this proves helpful.

Rob

[Seeker]

It seems odd to me that nowhere in your original post do you anywhere mention what the mission of Starbucks is. That is ultimately where the efficient shift manager is coming from - they want an efficiently run store which entails proper closings. So forget about who can delegate, as the efficient manager said, you need to speak up - and the reason why you ought to speak up is that, if, as you ought to have done, you have approached the situation from the standpoint of trade based on mutual advantage, then you can see how helping to run the store efficiently is in your own rational self-interest. Sometimes you have to work around an incompetent manager so that your real customers (those with whom you are engaged in trade) can get their part of the bargain. Forget about complaining about your unpaid hours, you either accept that as part of the mutually advantageous (overall) trade or not. If you think they lied to you about working conditions, then take that into consideration and leave if you must. Other than that I think that you should do what it takes to make the store run efficiently, and take justifiable pride in doing so.

Edited April 27, 2008 by Seeker

[D'kian]

1.) To be honest, I must admit that I resented the dressing down. How much responsibility should I take upon myself in a subordinate position? Do I have moral grounds to question my immediate superiors in the working world?

No one is exempt from being questioned over any matter. If your superior, immediate or otherwise, makes a mistake you can point it out. If you're given a task or order you do not understand, or that makes no sense, or is counterproductive, or is plain wrong, you should point it out.

It is not your responsibility to make decisions, but you should speak up, or even make suggestions, on such situations. If the manager then screws up it's entirely his fault. You did all you could do.

3.) If work is left uncompleted after the official closing time and I continue, I will no longer be paid. My first instinct is to insist that I be allowed to leave the store, since it seems to me that unpaid work for the benefit of others constitutes unhealthy altruism. Is this correct? Might there be a more moral course of action in this situation?

It depends on company policies and your superiors in management. There are managers who may be impressed with your dedication, and that might help you move up. Others may try to play you for a sucker ("Oh, let Dr. Radiaki do it. He (she?) doesn't mind staying late for no pay.") Still others simply won't notice one way or the other, except possibly until you're not there (that happened to me in one job. After I moved elsewhere, the former boss called to ask whether I really had done that much work).

One aspect of my work involves assembling samples under very tight deadlines. This means collecting, arranging and labeling lots of very specific dry goods, sometimes 90 or so, sometimes more than 200. I get them from the purchasing manager, who either has them in stock or can get them in short order. the thing is I do this under a variety of supervisors. Two won't come near the samples for any reason, much less offer any help, but they do stay out of my way and trust me to do things right. One gets actively involved and knows what he's doing, so we wrap things up quickly. The other has to approve every last detail of the labels, the samples and the samples list. The problem is he doesn't get around to it until late on the day prior to delivery.

As you may imagine, sometimes the samples provided don't meet with his approval (they're the right ones, but he thinks up objections anyway). Then there's a desperate scramble to find every open grocery store to look for the "missing" samples. 8 times out of 10 we don't find them because they simply don't exist as he wants them to. In any case, I get to stay late because we'll loose a lot of sales if we don't get the samples delivered in time. So far I've always managed to do it.

Now, you bet I've called him on it, and I've spoken to my and his superiors about it. The last time one of the owners told me "Do what you can. If anything goes wrong he'll be held responsible and I'll make sure he knows it."

So what did I get out of it? The owner and the department head trust me with more responsibility than they used to. Since then I've been sent alone to deal with out of town customers, something they didn't think I could do before. I also received a bonus last December for good performance, and I have more latitude when choosing vacation times. I think I will get a favorable hearing when I ask for a raise next month, too. So it has been worth it.

[AMERICONORMAN]

I'm a barista at a Starbucks in Toronto, you may have seen me, I'm the one ranting about the evils of gun control, and the irony of enforcing a ban on firearms at the point of a gun. Anyway...

Now, for the questions:

1.) To be honest, I must admit that I resented the dressing down. How much responsibility should I take upon myself in a subordinate position? Do I have moral grounds to question my immediate superiors in the working world?

2.) Should I approach the assistant manager about these events? If I do, how do I treat the question of the slow shift manager? I owe him nothing, yet, at the same time, creating tension by complaining directly might make it difficult for me to work with him.

3.) If work is left uncompleted after the official closing time and I continue, I will no longer be paid. My first instinct is to insist that I be allowed to leave the store, since it seems to me that unpaid work for the benefit of others constitutes unhealthy altruism. Is this correct? Might there be a more moral course of action in this situation?

The staying late after work, is something that I suggest you tolerate, and try to fix overtime through team work. If it cannot be resolved over time then, yes, leave. There are many Starbucks, perhaps, Starbucks has a policy where if you're not satisfied at a certain store, then you can find another one. I know there's a shortage of workers at Starbucks in Toronto, and so I'm sure there are stores where a more permanent worker will be welcomed.

You should approach the assistant manager and try to fix this as a team. He may be an ass and be on a power trip, or simply be incompetent. If this is the case, then you have to be more tactful about how you speak to him. But your focus should be him because of the chain of command. But take notes, no not during, but after. Carry a little notepad, because eventually you will have to go higher, and you should be able to present who was right and who was wrong.

But this assistant manager may be a good guy, and so try to work with him, and show him reason. In my experience as a co-worker, if I explain why a certain way of doing things is most effective, or why given the environment it has to be done that way, and why it is to everyone's best interest to do things a certain way, my co-workers will usually comply.

Unfortunately Starbucks is never going to issue a press release informing its customers that it has a shortage of workers, and so they should all be patient for a few years. You will shine if you are the obvious competent one, who knows the product, and who knows how to run the store properly. Even in the capacity of a subordinate, if you know your job well, others will come to you for help and guidance. Overtime, running the store is easily definable, and it shouldn't really change from Starbucks to Starbucks, and there's not much more that can be added to make the essential job more challenging.

See you around,

Jose Gainza.

[JMeganSnow]

Dr. Radiaki, your problems here boil down to "dealing with people", they aren't questions of ethics per se, but of how you approach dealing with people. The answers to your questions are not going to be found in general philosophy, but by examining your particular situation.

1.) To be honest, I must admit that I resented the dressing down. How much responsibility should I take upon myself in a subordinate position? Do I have moral grounds to question my immediate superiors in the working world?

You "should" take on the same amount of responsibility you take on at all other times: your actions are under your control. Other people's actions are not.

2.) Should I approach the assistant manager about these events? If I do, how do I treat the question of the slow shift manager? I owe him nothing, yet, at the same time, creating tension by complaining directly might make it difficult for me to work with him.

In general, it's best to assume people are honest and interested in improving themselves unless they've demonstrated that they're not. If I were you, I'd complain to the assistant manager *with the supervisor present*, mentioning that you were dressed down for something you thought was not your responsibility and that you want to prevent a repeat of this situation. Speak in the most impersonal, professional manner possible and insist on clear definitions of what *is* your responsibility. If problems ensue as a result (your shift supervisor turns out to be a petty asshole, your assistant manager refuses to do anything about it or is chronically ineffectual, it turns out that they *do* expect you to work with no reward to fix other people's fuckups) I'd turn my focus to looking for a different job and just doing what you can to keep them off your back. You can't fix stupid people and it's not worth your time even to try.

Good coworkers are a treasure beyond all treasures. The other kind can suck all the value out of something that is going to be eating up a large portion of the rest of your life.

3.) If work is left uncompleted after the official closing time and I continue, I will no longer be paid. My first instinct is to insist that I be allowed to leave the store, since it seems to me that unpaid work for the benefit of others constitutes unhealthy altruism. Is this correct? Might there be a more moral course of action in this situation?

This one, at least, has a simple answer: you're not working for Starbucks for your health. You are working because you expect to receive value (i.e. money) in return for your work. If they ain't paying you, you don't work. Period. If they want people to stay for as long as necessary, then they should have some other payment scheme that takes this factor into account--ideally one that still rewards people for getting their work done quickly and efficiently. One method of doing this would be to pay a flat rate per shift plus a bonus for every "prep" task you finish on a list. This could easily be done on the honor system because everyone in the store would have an interest in seeing to it that the record remains honest. I think a lot of corporate issues could be resolved by rewarding people for what you actually want them to accomplish instead of just for filling a chair for a certain number of hours.

The corrolary of this is, of course, that while you are there, you're working and focused on getting your work done. While everyone does have off days, you should always try to keep your average as high as possible.

[Alethiometry]

"[Dr. Radiaki], you're a good closer, but those are the times you need to speak up, and tell [the other shift manager] that he needs to be doing other things or doing things differntly."

I've worked in restaurants for years as both a supervisor and wage slave.

Sounds like this supervisor is trying to get the other shift manager to change his closing procedure THROUGH you, rather than confronting the slacker shift manager themselves. This seems pretty passive aggressive to me. Don't seem like the bad guy because the anal-retentive supervisor doesn't have the balls to confront the other shift manager themselves.