Canadian Supervisor here, and more importantly a new supervisor of only 2 months. Chronic closer. TLDR at the end.
I was the closing shift this past Sunday and I would consider our store to be high volume in our district (in comparison to other stores in our specific district).
So Sunday was incredibly busy starting around 11AM and onwards, my shift started at 1:30 and I walked into the middle of peak.
When the store gets that busy, I will usually try to get some closing chores done a little early before all the mid shift baristas leave to help keep our team on track to be fully cleaned and closed by the end of our shift. We’re not supposed to start cleaning tasks until 6PM, earliest 5PM (we close at 9:30PM). Now this is manageable when it’s the fall/winter season, but incredibly draining nowadays with the spring/summer season because we get huge waves of customers now and it doesn’t give us a chance to start any cleaning tasks.
When I say I’ll start some tasks early, I mean the easy ones that don’t really interfere with customer orders. Ex, cleaning urns because we switch blonde and dark to pour overs only, cleaning warming dishes (any that isn’t entirely necessary to keep all day like there’s no need for 2 tongs etc), I’ll clean the hot bar and cold syrups cause they get really gross after peak is done and I don’t want bugs to get attracted, maybe I’ll move our teas into Trenta cups to clean the tea pitchers. Cleaning behind fridges, etc etc you probably know the drill.
Anyways, even thought I was supposed to be playcaller when I started my shift, all of my decisions kept getting overrides by another shift. If I brought out a sanitizer bucket to clean syrups, the shift would take it away. If I closed a garbage can (after peak and was barely used anymore) the shift would open it back up and much more. I was only cleaning in between waves when there was a lull in customers, and we were already good for backups and cafe checks and even dishes. So I’m not going to waste time doing nothing and let people stand around, we may as well clean!! The main reason I was focused on cleaning early is because all of our mid baristas were all leaving at the same time at 5PM (idk why the schedule wasn’t spaced out properly). But no, I was overruled, the mids left, it was just me and my 2 closing baristas left and it was just as busy as it was earlier in the day. My baristas were losing their minds trying to keep up, and I couldn’t even really help them considering I had to do the counts and also put away the ginormous gfs order that came early at 4:30Pm (manager ordered too much food and there was no space, I had to leave my baristas alone to the massive rush to try and find space for the food before it defrosted, to no avail, so much food and money waste)
My main concern here, my manager did not answer my messages or calls for support or turning off mobiles even ONCE. It was so busy we delayed taking our meals because there was no one else to help cover them for their meals given the rush that was happening. I didn’t even take my meal break until an hour before close and skipped my last 15. So I decided to turn off mobiles anyways, the rush still didn’t die down. Then I decided to go above my manager to the DM and asked for more support, they said we could close drive through temporarily. The DMs boss called us and said we’re okay to just shut down drive through. AMAZING, customers finally got the hint and left us alone, we hustled like crazy and caught up with cleaning in an hour, we turned mobiles back on since we could handle it now. It helped us tremendously (albeit tired as hell, sweating like crazy) and we didn’t have to stay past our scheduled shift. Cool, amazing. Manager still never replied to me, but replied in our shift group chat about the opener’s call out for the next day (so purposefully didn’t answer me?).
Today, manager had another shift text us in the chat with an update saying next time we’re not allowed to keep mobiles and drive through closed all day, only temporarily to catch up. Well, DMs boss said we could close it, and I did turn mobiles back on after we caught up because it’s not like we WANTED to keep it shut down the entire day but it was just what was necessary. But this message from the other shift has me concerned that my manager is pissed at me and may or may not give me a coaching even though i did everything with permission from the DM (only because my manager never responded). Did I go against policy? I just wanted to access whatever resources were available to support my closing baristas because they were burnt out and slowly breaking down. If someone has a link to the partner handbook (specifically for supervisors?) that would be helpful so I can review it before I go in for my next shift.
TL;DR
Wasn’t allowed to run my floor as playcaller even though I was playcaller. My manager made a bad schedule with no evening support despite high volumes of orders, and never responded when I asked for help. Turned off mobiles, and went above her head to the DM and DMs boss for permission to shut down the drive through, turned mobiles back on after we caught up and kept drive through closed to control the flow of traffic for sequencing purposes. Manager today now had another shift supervisor contact our shift chat to tell us not to close down mobiles and drive through the whole day again, even tho I did turn on mobiles and kept drive through closed with permission. Worried about a possible coaching or write up, please give me advice, or send me a link for the partner/shift supervisor handbook. I APPRECIATE ANYONE WHO READ MY POST IN FULL IM SORRY I DIDN’T THINK I WAS GONNA WRITE OUT THIS MUCH