Niaja Stringfield

Prof. Julia May

Principles of Communication
13 May 2018
Midterm Assignment

Given the recent news items regarding the interactions between their management and

customers, I decided to observe communication at my local Starbucks. The first thing I noticed

was that most of the staff seemed to be within a certain age bracket- mid-twenties or lower-

which allowed them to communicate much more comfortably than they may have otherwise.

However, this also meant that downward communication was difficult to discern, as the

familiarity they used in communicating gave no clues as to who may or may not have been

management.

Over the course of my time at Starbucks, I was limited on how clearly I could hear and

interpret their messages, as I couldn’t stand directly beside the counter and workspace for

twenty minutes. Considering this, my observation relied very heavily on nonverbal cues. For

example, I could tell which of the baristas may have been a new employee by the way he

hovered hesitantly near the machines before starting each drink, as though he wasn’t sure he

was operating the correct one; conversely, the more experienced baristas moved around him

with a practice ease, but were quick to help him if he needed it. The cashier at the indoor

counter was a bit more chipper and eager to smile than the one at the drive-through window,

and I wondered if it influenced the tips they would receive from their customers. If it did, I
imagined the indoor cashier may receive more, though the brevity of customers’ interactions

with the drive-through cashier may have meant they didn’t particularly notice.

Despite Starbucks being often touted as a quiet place to read, work, or socialize, I

noticed a fair amount of communication noise in the establishment while I was there. Physical

noise manifested mainly in the form of the machinery used behind the counter; it can be

difficult to communicate your order to a barista while competing with the sounds of two

blenders and an espresso machine, especially at a place like Starbucks where drink orders are

often relatively complicated. There was also an occasion of semantic noise, where a customer

(the sender), due to what seemed to be an accent of African origin, had difficulty encoding their

order (message) to the barista (receiver). This caused both of them to get a bit frustrated, but

once they were able to carefully navigate the language barrier, the customer seemed happy

with his drink order and even left a tip for the barista.

Toward the end of my time observing the communication at Starbucks, I was finally able

to pinpoint what I thought was the manager due to her extended dialogue with the new,

nervous barista I mentioned earlier in my analysis. I was concerned that he may have been

getting reprimanded for his relatively slow performance on what was a particularly busy day at

the establishment; even though I couldn’t hear them, her face and body language seemed

stern, and his feedback seemed to mainly consist of nodding. However, I did manage to hear

them thank one another at the end of the interaction. Additionally, the barista was smiling

when he returned to his duty of making coffee drinks, and when the manager returned from

the back a few moments later, she was smiling as well, so perhaps the downward

communication was more positive than I initially thought it to be.

 Overall, I don’t think my observation of the communication at my local Starbucks was

particularly informative with regards to the establishment’s practices, but I did really enjoy

observing the concepts we’ve studied in the real world and will be keeping my eyes peeled for

them much more often.