How Has COVID-19 Affected the Starbucks on Kent State’s Campus?
Limited seating, required mask-wearing, and strict health inspections: these are all things restaurants and dining services around the country have had to deal with due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s no different for the student workers at Starbucks on Kent State’s campus, who have been adjusting to a new way of schooling and changes within their part-time jobs.
The two Starbucks on Kent State’s campus are franchised out by Aramark, the company that manages all of the food services for the University. This means two different sets of safety requirements.
“It gets kind of wishy-washy and messy, because Starbucks will say we’re okay to do one thing while Aramark will be like, well, no, you can’t do that,” Kennedy Shelton, a former Starbucks employee, said.
Just like other restaurants across the state, student workers must clean all surfaces multiple times a day, enforce social distancing and mask-wearing, and ensure safe workspaces for the baristas. All while making sure they can regularly pass health department inspections, which add a whole new layer of responsibility.
“There’s a whole list that they have to follow from the state. When we come in to inspect, they’re going to look at everything from: are they timing and dating their food, are they cleaning appropriately, if they are washing dishes. Do they have logs and temperature checks and chemical checks that are up to date?” Joan Seidel, Kent City Health Commissioner, said.
“It’s every single day that I have to ask customers to pull their masks up above their nose and stay on. We constantly have to correct that; we have a few people that will come in without a mask at all and we do have the authority to tell them to leave if they do not have a mask on,” Marina Charlson, Starbucks worker said.
I reached out to Aramark for comment, but they did not respond. As for the student employees, they say the adjustments have been a process, but they are working through it each day.
Working for Aramark during a pandemic: From the students perspective
On March 15 2020 at 5 p.m., Kent State University shut down due to the spread of COVID-19. Jeremiah Zingale, like many other student workers on Kent State’s campus, was suddenly out of a job.
Zingale worked as a shift supervisor at the Kent State Library Starbucks. For him, the loss of income made life a little difficult, but he was able to get by. He had some coworkers who weren’t as lucky.
“For me personally, it was fine,” Zingale said. “I was just going to be moving back with a friend, I didn’t have to pay any rent and I had enough money saved up for bills. But for a lot of people, that was very difficult to hear because they needed to be working, you know, 35 or 40 hours a week to support themselves.”
Employees were offered the opportunity to stay behind and deep clean the store for a chance at one more week of pay. Zingale, who hates cleaning, opted out of doing so but says he has coworkers who did. But after that, Starbucks was closed for the remainder of the semester and the summer.
The Kent State Library Starbucks is not run by Kent State. Instead, it’s run by Aramark, the company Kent State has outsourced their dining services to. Aramark did not offer any sort COVID-19 relief pay to its employees, despite rumors that said otherwise.
“It was a rumor at first,” Zingale said. “The way it was communicated to me, it definitely sounded like the talks with Aramark and Kent went through and we were going to get paid.”
Zingale said the rumors he heard said that each employee’s last four paychecks would be averaged and then that amount would be paid out to them every two weeks for the remainder of the semester. But that never happened and by mid-March the rumors had died down. Aramark has not responded to our questions regarding this rumor.
When the Library Starbucks reopened at the start of the fall 2020 semester, Zingale opted not to return, choosing instead to pursue other jobs. But he hasn’t heard good things from his friends who are still working at Starbucks.
“I know a few managers have left,” Zingale said. “Like managers who were really, really good at their jobs, so I know that has been difficult for a lot of people. There’s not a whole lot of incentive for a lot of people to work there and hours have been cut. We used to be open till midnight and now I’m pretty sure they’re open till like nine. That’s a lot less opportunity for people to be working.”
Marina Charlson is one of the employees who returned to Starbucks for the start of the fall semester. She has worked at the Library Starbucks since she was a freshman and is now in her last semester at Kent State.
“Starbucks is like a personality trait to me at this point,” Charlson said. “It would be really hard to leave.”
Despite knowing it would be hard for her to leave, Charlson said it has also become hard to stay. She thinks about leaving constantly. But ultimately, she has decided that staying makes the most sense for her last semester in college.
Managers that she has worked with since 2017 have left and their positions have remained empty, making it more difficult to know who to turn to when an employee is having difficulties. In addition to a decrease in hours and a lack of clear communication from higher ups, COVID-19 regulations have also made it more difficult for Charlson to do her job. Everyday she finds herself having to remind customers to put on their mask and to keep a distance from other customers. It is even hard for Charlson to keep a distance from her coworkers, due to the tight space behind the bar.
“It’s just always so much going on,” Charlson said. “If their drink is wrong, we’re not supposed to take it back. We just have to completely remake it, even if it’s just a small thing. We have handwashing timers that go off every 30 minutes. We’re constantly sanitizing, doing everything we can. But it’s hard because it’s such a small space. So we naturally run into each other.”
The Library Starbucks will only remain open until Kent State’s Thanksgiving break, at which point the campus and the store will be closed until January. For Charlson and so many of her coworkers, a job they once loved has turned into one they can’t wait to get out of.
Work Divided:
Lexi made the “Check-List” graphic, created her portion of the post including all the interviews used in the video, added the tags, and posted her tweet.
Gina contacted the health department and got the updated health department inspections, created her portion of the post including all the interviews used in the written portion, and posted her tweet.
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