Starbucks

Tomorrow Susan starts her new job. She is going to be a Starbucks store manager again, finally. I have told her for years that she should apply at Starbucks, since the store she'd managed was closed so many years ago. She finally did it.

Susan has been working for Serious Coffee since December but it was not what she was looking for. There was not really any opportunity for advancement past what she was doing. She is the type of person who needs to be challenged and thrives with a full plate. Now she will be challenged and the advancement opportunities are limitless. She will finally be in a position where she can use all of her talents and knowledge and be recognized for it as well.

The change in her is very noticeable. Susan is so happy and excited and it thrills me to see her this way. In all of her previous jobs, the store owners have never really taken advantage of what she could do for them and as such, she got bored and frustrated. She still always gave 110% but was never recognized for it.

Susan is an incredible teacher and mentor for her employees. She takes them under her wing and teaches them everything they are capable of learning. She can read people like no one I have ever known and gives her employees confidence to bring out the best in them. She takes into account their strengths and weaknesses and teaches them to utilize them the best they can. She is also uses this ability for reading her customers. She gets to know them and personalizes each conversation, tuned to each individual. They love her for that and is one of the many reasons she is such a success.

She also has an uncanny ability to remember people's drinks. Usually after one or two visits, she can have a drink started for a customer before they even order. This impresses her them to no end. By the time she left Liberty Cafe a year ago, she knew over two hundred regular customers, their usual drinks and at least something about their personal life which was important to them such as their job, their family, their weekend plans, etc. She is simply amazing! Because of this, she has had some customers follow her to each different shop she works in.

She will be going through eight weeks of training and at the end of it she'll find out which store she gets to manage. I am so excited and happy for her. With all of her previous jobs she always seemed to get a raw deal. I know that with Starbucks she'll be happy and challenged, with an incredible support program behind her to help her attain all of her goals and objectives. Susan is an incredible individual and deserves to be in a positive environment more than anyone. I am so proud of her and know that she'll have the best run Starbucks store in Victoria, North America, even the world; that's how much I believe in her.