Customer puts a tuna panini melt on the counter followed up by an egg cress sandwich and a bag of cheese crisps. After scanning the tuna melt, the customer snapped at me when reaching for the egg cress sandwich to scan, saying she didn't have time for the sandwich or crisps as she had a train to catch. This is despite the egg cress sandwich and crisps being ready to eat, with the tuna melt to be heated up and an extra 5 seconds to scan two items. I made her aware that the item would be ready before her train departed. She pays, in goes the tuna melt into the Merrychef oven.

After serving another customer, I go to check on the time remaining and to my horror, I jump out of my skin as the customer is unexpectedly standing centimetres away from me and tried to get out the tuna melt with her bare hands by grabbing the Merrychef drawer handle. I prevent her doing so by holding the Merrychef oven door shut and telling her assertively to stand back at the customer side of the counter. By which point the oven beeps and I get the tongs to retrieve the tuna melt panini. There was no anxiety of it not being ready as the display counts down the seconds.

Customer returns requesting to be given the panini directly and when the tuna melt was bagged up trying to snatch it out of my hand. I had to remind the customer to stand back over the other side where I will give it to her. She moves back. I turn around anti-clockwise in order to give the food to the customer at the till, she has left storming off. I would have given the tuna melt to her to the side between customer and staff area, but not behind the counter in the staff area which is unacceptable.

The train didn't leave for another 3 and a half minutes. Panini ended up in the bin.

This highlights an interesting customer attitude I have observed whilst being a barista. Some people buy into the Starbucks marketing and have faith in our abilities (even when we are new to the job or are visually having a bad day) including doing the seemingly impossible while others see you as a problem, a liability, an obstacle in their way.

In this above scenario, the woman was clearly concerned about missing her train and at every point felt she could do better and I was delaying it, despite given pre-sale reassurances that the item will be ready in time and the task being very simple.
Heating up food in a Merrychef oven is a really simple part of a Starbucks barista's job, much easier then making drinks, cleaning or operating the POS.

It is as simple as putting the item in the oven on a piece of baking paper with the correct colour coded tongs, closing the oven door, selecting the product on the touchscreen and letting the Merrychef do the rest with the timed cooking programme. It beeps when the product is ready to be taken out and bagged before hand off to the customer. Food has to be heated to end of the programme time to ensure its thoroughly cooked/reheated through, basic food safety, although the customer didn't seem to have any concern for her own health and safety.

(For those wondering... the tuna panini is able to be eaten cold too but it isn't quite the same. )