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Starbucks Employee Claim: "Euthanize Your Suffering Dog at a Time More Convenient for Our Business." [1]

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Date: 2022-08-08

So this is one for your books. In a nation absolutely beset by criminal disregard for labor, overwhelmed by a wave of greed and indifference to human suffering, and a general feeling of leaping fascism, comes Starbucks.

Starbucks is one of those companies that seems to be everywhere, to the point where they have started to economically cannibalize their own market. For the most part, they stand to recede as a force as “premium coffee” becomes easier to procure and the needs for their overpriced services fade. And lately, workers in several locations have unionized, fed up with the conditions and attitudes.

But this-telling someone to euthanize their dog at a different time, so they can have coverage, is beyond the pale.

A 21-year-old college student quit her job as a Starbucks barista after her manager asked her to reschedule an appointment to put down her dog so that she wouldn't miss work. Auralee Smith said her family's rescue dog, Gandy, was her "best friend." The family adopted Gandy when she was around eight years old, and Gandy was "really scared and stuff when we got her," Smith told Insider. It was devastating when Gandy's family discovered she had cancer, and the vet recommended against operating due to Gandy's old age. While dealing with the pain of choosing to put Gandy down, Smith said the last thing she expected was for her Starbucks manager to be "literally asking me to change the day I put her to sleep" when Smith said she asked to get her shift covered. "I'm really gonna need you to find coverage," Smith's manager responded. "I understand it's a tough situation but you have plenty of notice so it's not going to be approved if you don't come in. Is there a way you could do it on a night where you don't work the next day?"

Auralee, having none of that nonsense, immediately put in her two weeks. The poor poochie had cancer, in tremendous pain, and this corporobot manager’s response is to suggest she delay the procedure so *&^%$#@! Starbucks can have coverage?

Let me say this, I haven’t seen a busy Starbuck’s in literal years. Their app has removed any vestige of interaction the brand once touted, and their coffee is easily replaced. In short, they are poised to be the Sears of beverage retail. But Starbuck’s is not only fending off the publicity from this story.

Last winter, another young person claimed that she was shamed for missing work due to the passing of her dog. The following is a re-enactment of the conversation the young woman is speaking about.

https://www.tiktok.com/@stephaniezullo/video/7044344001067207983

“It’s me, Steph, I’m not going to be able to come in today,” she says in the video. When her “manager” asks why she will not be coming in that afternoon, she tells her “my dog is literally dying in my arms right now,” and that she and her family will have to take her beloved pet to the vet to be euthanized. “I’m starting to notice a pattern with you,” the manager, also portrayed by @stephaniezullo, says. “In the year since you’ve worked here, you’ve called off twice. One because your grandma was sick and now because your dog is dying?”

Twice in a year. Pattern. Uh, ya. Grandmas do take ill, and poochies do pass. In fact, one of the most common traumas for young persons is the death of grandparents and pets. The responses to her video were epic:

“My old manager threatened to fire me [because] I kept having [doctors’] appointments for medical issues, I left mid shift and never came back,” one commenter wrote. “I told my GM that I had been exposed to COVID and they made me come in anyways, without getting a test,” they wrote. “Finished my shift and turns out I was positive.”

Starbucks is notorious for accusations of its mistreatment of employees and over time, has lost much of its once hard-earned progressive reputation, a reputation it probably never deserved in the first place.

It is just an over-saturated retailer selling average coffee with premium branding. Any number of local shops in your area are as good or better, and your patronage of these establishments will likely do more to help your neighborhood.

I won’t step foot in another one, as one line you can not cross with me is allowing an animal to suffer. I know what cancer is about, and Gandy’s euthanasia should have never, ever been treated with anything other than reverance and empathy. Euthanasia is a traumatic experience, as I know first hand, and no, I could not have gone to work the next day. It was not an elective procedure.

But Starbucks is an elective purchase.

And I elect not to give them any business.

-ROC

If you like my work you can support me at https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-todd-rule-of-claw-rebuild-life

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/8/2115013/-Starbucks-Employee-Claim-Euthanize-Your-Suffering-Dog-at-a-Time-More-Convenient-for-Our-Business

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