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  2020-03-04

  Making Coffee During a Pandemic

  I work at one of the local Starbucks in my city. It was around late February when I saw a notice at my store that told us due to the recent occurence of the disease that was being spread around China named COVID-19, we would not be allowing customers to use their own personal cups to prevent the spread of germs. At first, I was surprised that Starbucks made this decision since this has never happened before, but I figured they did it to be safe and also be respectful to the current situation that was occuring in another country but gaining news coverage in the United States. I wasn't quite aware about what COVID was, but rumors spread that a quarantine would occur and I remember being a little worried, but I told myself it was unlikely to happen. Later that week, it was announced by Starbucks via email that all employees would be given the option to take a paid leave of abscence if they were concerned about the spread of COVID. Almost every Starbucks in our city closed due to a lack of employees who were willing to work. My store was one of the only ones and I was one out of eight people who decided to stay and work. During this time, we began to wear masks while we worked, we had new, shorter store hours, and we had new cleaning tasks. Honestly, this time was very stressful at work. We all basically worked open to close which was from six in the morning until twelve in the afternoon. This may not seem like a lot, but we were severly understaffed and worked nonstop besides our few breaks. Customers were also either very upset with the situation or very understanding. We dealt with a lot of confrontations about our lobby doors being locked to having to wear masks. This went on for a total of forty-five days, in which, I continued to go to school online full-time. After that time period, more stores opened back up and the rest of our store's partners returned, but things didn't and still have not gone back to normal. Every day it seems that there is a new standard being added to our daily routines, such as the addition of a guard in between two baristas working on the espresso bars. Our lobby is still not open to customers, which causes a lot of unhappiness among our customers. Every day, however, we try to help our local neighbors and customers by giving them a sense of normalcy and a cup of coffee.