Your Dad taught me how to drive a 5-speed when I was 16 - in a yellow Capri that was used for deliveries at the Riverview Pharmacy. I’ll never forget it. We sat in that huge kitchen of your house on Clay and he explained to me exactly what was going on under the hood when the clutch was pressed and what to expect if I used too much, or too little, gas. We drove around Ferguson practicing - searching for stop signs at the top of hills until I could start at a dead stop in first without killing the engine or squealing down the street. When he thought I had finally mastered it we stopped at the Golden Greek Tavern and he ordered a beer. It took me 20 years to appreciate that stop at the Tavern on the way home that day. What a brave and patient man he was to take on the job of introducing me to a manual transmission!

I’m sure you don’t remember but I lived next door when your family lived in Ferguson. I babysat you and Hans when you were very small. Your Dad was a great guy! I was still just a kid then, too, but looking back - he was the kind of adult I wanted to grow up to be ~ someone who brought the party with them!

Thank you,
Kay

Let me clarify my earlier post:
Take the case of Tameca. If she truly is “inspired by brightening so many people’s days,” then perhaps you can learn that not all joys in life come from the size of one’s paycheck. And if she brightens the days of others, those customers will keep coming back. That’s good business. A good businessman needs that type of employee. A good boss/supervisor needs to learn how to keep an employee like Tameca without always affecting the bottom-line. Raises are fine, but there are other ways to keep employees happy and at work.

If you’re being sarcastic, then maybe you both need a change of scenery.

Now let me back up several months. Why did you start working at Starbucks in the first place? Do your customer service skills need tuning? Can you learn from a successful corporate business structure? If you ever want to be an entrepreneur, you need to take the time to learn those skills required to be successful.

A quote from Brad Weber: “Unfortunately, there are no entry-level CEO positions out there.”

Kurt, you’re teetering at a point that may determine your future career. Make sure you’re happy & comfortable with the direction towards which you tip. You’re taking a lot of different directions at the same time, and so you run the risk of getting burned out quickly. Or, you risk being a “jack-of-all-trades, but a master of none.” Either way, it’s hard to find success. You’re either miserable or the quality of your work is poor…and it’s hard to find people who want to do business with you.

It might help to think of your situation like this: you’re getting paid to learn. If you’re not learning anything, then you need to enroll in a different class.

I just can’t figure out if you’re being serious or sarcastic.