“Manner店员泼顾客咖啡粉”、“Manner店员掌掴女顾客”，打工人直呼爽文？
From June 20 to the present, Manner, a coffee brand known for its "affordable but high-quality" coffee brand, has been frequently searched, but it is really not a good thing.
On June 17, two Manner coffee shops in Shanghai got into an argument with a customer on the same day: a male clerk in one store got into a physical altercation with a customer, and a female clerk in another store threw ground coffee at the customer.
On June 20, two videos of the conflict were leaked, and the Manner brand also responded, saying that the girl who splashed the coffee powder had been dismissed, and the clerk and customer who had the physical altercation had been mediated by the relevant departments, and the official part of the handling shall prevail.
The even-hearted response, in stark contrast to the hoarseness in the video, also failed to calm public opinion. Video from the scene shows that the cause of the two conflicts was that the customer was dissatisfied with the waiting time, and did not accept the "chargeback" plan proposed by the clerk, and believed that the clerk's attitude was poor, and the conflict continued to intensify during the dialogue, which eventually led to the conflict.
"It's so suffocating" is what many people feel after watching the video.
At the beginning, the clerk barely adhered to the work norms of the "service provider", like a functioning AI customer service, maintained a polite posture after professional training, could not hear the tone, referred to "you", explained the reason for the long waiting time to the customer, and said that he had been reminded of the need to queue up when placing the order.
Seeing that the customer did not accept it and took "chargeback" as the solution, but in the face of unrelenting urging or mobile phone face shooting, [AI Barista] finally couldn't help but recover the sense of being alive, and roared angrily "You complain", "You call the police", and even attacked the customer personally.
The emotional breakdown of the two clerks has aroused widespread concern about the working conditions of Manner Barista, and has also aroused the empathy of many workers, some of whom say that "the whole person is comfortable after that slap", and some people say that "I just hope everyone can be less angry". More people began to wonder how tightly Manner tightened the strings of the clerk's part-time job.
In fact, the topic of Manner baristas busy with sparks has long been discussed, and "one person, one store" is the norm in Manner, and the clerk will put a timer on the countertop when he goes to the toilet or eats to indicate how long it will take for customers to be served.
In "The Man of One Dimension", it is written that individuality is suppressed in the socially necessary but tiresome mechanized labor, behind which it is for the sake of more efficient and productive large companies.
On December 19, 2023, Hydrogen Business published a report titled "What it's like to be a barista at Manner", which is republished today, hoping to provide you with an angle and factual background behind this series of controversies.
There have long been Internet giants that have made employees lose the freedom to go to the toilet, not only digitizing their physiological needs through the countdown outside the toilet door, but also providing VIP pits for executives to bring their rank and power to the most primitive place.
Source: Xiaohongshu @ Gulu meat, @张吗喽
Nowadays, the wind in the big factories is blowing more and more violently, and finally the barista has lost the freedom to go to the toilet.
When the clerk came back, I saw her working alone: taking orders, making coffee, washing utensils and packing, and I was embarrassed to urge her to see her busy.
"Is it illegal to have two employees in the Manner store?" Xiaohongshu netizen @天天曾asked.
"One person doing one shop" has become a unique scenery of Manner. Xiao Wang, a former employee, revealed that there is only one employee in stores with a general performance of less than 4,000 yuan, "working 12 hours and 5 days in a row." ”
Employees of major Internet companies are forced to enjoy the "pleasure" of countdown to the toilet, but Manner has realized that employees have taken the initiative to accept the countdown to the toilet, take out the garbage and eat. As a result, consumers have become the most intimate people, and in the spirit of why should workers be embarrassed by workers, they can not only wait patiently, but even take the initiative to help look at the store.
Therefore, Manner is far smarter than the Internet giants, and now Manner has successfully become a major manufacturer in the coffee circle, and even consumers have become supernumerary employees.
Industry insiders once said that Manner is the "Whampoa Military Academy" in the domestic chain commercial coffee. The first thing all baristas do after joining the company is to go to Shanghai for a 5-week group training. The built-in halo of the "Magic City Free Tour" illuminates the Huangpu River tonight, not only wrapping up and paying training, but also learning coffee knowledge for free, so that Manner's name has some charity flavor.
Not only that, but Manner's salary is enough to beat his peers. According to boss Zhipin, the recruitment salary of Manner Shanghai baristas is between 8k-13k, Luckin 5k-7k, and Starbucks only 4k-5k.
Source: Xiaohongshu @ Spend 200,000 yuan and then go to work
Someone in Zhihu once asked: What is it like to work at Manner Coffee? Answerer@PiPi Mao's answer was deafening, and he asked 13 "can you stand it" to partners who wanted to join Manner, from salary to working hours. Every problem can hit a migrant worker hard.
Among the many respondents' descriptions, this sweet work became a "Manner Passion".
The shining Shanghai training mainly learns the corporate culture, the daily operation content of the store and the simulation practice of the store ordering situation, and then conducts practical learning in the next store: the basic opening process, "when the old store staff is free, they will teach extraction, milk and latte art." ”
Optics does not practice fake handles, and Manner spends a lot of money on training employees, so it is natural to see the results. Just like Luckin University, which conducts random exams for employees from time to time, Manner is now directly on the next level - "there are in-class exams every day".
Source: Xiaohongshu @enn
"All-weather Technology" once interviewed a clerk Ah Tang revealed that the training will conduct a big test, including three categories, such as latte art, hand punching, machine debugging, milk foaming, etc., as well as more than a dozen sub-categories. But what if you haven't taken the test? "If you fail 2 subjects, you will have to take the make-up exam, and if the make-up exam opportunity is used up again, you may be persuaded to quit."
Some netizens believe that such rounds of exams are more like [disguised layoffs]. "In addition to taking exams every day, I also have to go to the store during the day to study practically, and come back at night to memorize the formula, and the accommodation conditions are bunk beds for 6-8 people."
"Looks good, doesn't it?"
Xiao Wang said, but you don't know when it will be a head. Shanghai is a training place, but everyone can only be considered a regular employee when they return to the establishment place (the original place of work), "they may not be able to go back, and they have to wait for the recruitment demand in the establishment place." ”
And when you can endure it, then you become the person Manner wants.
Netizen @ user has been logged out, "8000 yuan looks like a lot, right? The 1,000 yuan for full attendance is also counted as this, as long as you are 1 minute late, there will be no more. ”
Last year, three former employees exposed Manner's salary payment situation on the Internet: when the salary was about to be paid, the rules were changed, resulting in a 20% discount on the money received, which won the support of a group of former employees. Later, Manner directly sued the employee in court on the grounds of "untruthful remarks" and violation of the "confidentiality agreement", threatening to "see you in court".
So you see, every Manner employee who can get a high salary is a chosen one, after all, they can be like a fish in water in this [Manner Passion].
The employees of the chain coffee chain have a scripture that is difficult to read.
A few days ago, Luckin's barista turned cleaner was on the hot search, if an employee only works 8 hours a day, then he "washes his hands at least 8 times per shift, washes the rag 22 times, and touches the disinfectant 22 times". Although Luckin's baristas only need to press a button, they still don't have a good pair of hands at the end of the day.
Photo source: Xiaohongshu @ small c
Now Manner's employees are forced to become professional latte artists, which probably has something to do with the preferences of founder Han Yulong, after all, this is "the most interesting thing to sell coffee" in his eyes. He likes to tell a story: one night an uncle bought a latte and found that the coffee actually had latte art, "I was touched." ”
As a result, in the process of Manner's rapid expansion, latte art became an iron law, but now even machines can latte art.
SOURCE: XIAOHONGSHU @ ROBOT ROBOT
Now Manner is eager to treat employees as perpetual motion machines, and every big factory owner should learn from it. So why can't Manner hire more people? Is it really "breaking the law" when there are too many people?
The main reason is that the stores are really small, "80% of Manner's stores are now small stores of about 10 square meters. ”
Back then, Han Yulong relied on the smallest coffee shop in Shanghai to win the world, and the 2-square-meter store attracted countless young people. Based on his own experience, he found the trick to making money - crazy compression of the store, and then reduce the operating costs, "The only criterion for site selection is to reduce costs, small enough, cheap enough, so that I can do it at a price of 15 yuan." ”
Source: Little Red Book @ Sparta
Therefore, the white moonlight of this cup of specialty coffee can be as low as 10 yuan for a cup, and it will directly fight with Luckin. Juju, a senior brand consultant interviewed by All-weather Technology, commented on this model: "The minimalist store model can control costs well and is highly reproducible. ”
Today, this specialty coffee, which has broken through 1,000 stores and is developing faster, higher and stronger, continues to "realize the dream" of the founder by every barista in front of the counter -
Standing in a small shop, one person does all the work, although they can't be the founder, but they already have the same experience as the founder.
Manner pays out of his own pocket for each employee who goes to Shanghai for training, including travel, accommodation and training. However, according to "LatePost", an investor who attempted to invest in Manner said that as of the end of January 2021, Manner was able to maintain a net profit of more than 10% and a gross profit margin of 50%, which even exceeded Starbucks.
In this process, the migrant workers who seem to be paid high salaries in the industry are "more because one person does the work of three people", Xiao Wang believes.
Deep Burn once pointed out that in the chain coffee industry, which is extremely pursuing a high degree of standardization and standardization, "people are the least important".
Store location first affects the customer flow of a single store;
The second is new products, now the speed of coffee is about to catch up with milk tea, Luckin has a new product almost every week, and Manner will also launch a new SOE every week, so brands have to go crazy to co-brand and find new coffee beans. Whether it's really new or not, but a simple marketing can bring more momentum, so the more the coffee people are connected, the more crazy they are, as if there is no reproductive isolation;
And then there's the people. Do you feel like you're stuck in surveillance? Like an emotionless coffee machine on an assembly line? That's right. Allowing employees to make coffee like machines is the "ultimate dream" of every coffee brand that pursues the ultimate cost performance.
Therefore, Luckin only needs to wash his hands and memorize the formula of the keymaster like crazy.
But Manner is different, after all, it is the white moonshine of specialty coffee. However, just as being a person cannot be both, Han Yulong regards latte art as the most interesting thing to sell coffee, but in a one-person store, it is difficult for you to ask the clerk to spend a lot of time painting on coffee while placing orders quickly;
Just as he once refused to do takeout because of the taste of milk foam affected by takeout, now he has also started to do takeout.
And the migrant workers who survive in the cracks of a one-person store eventually become the ones who pay the bill together with consumers: "Basically, a cup is produced in 1 or 2 minutes during peak hours, so how can there be time to pull all kinds of flowers?" ”
It's no wonder that Manner has opened several stores under the "Jing'an Women's Prison" (a synonym for FMCG companies such as L'Oreal), and as a prison gatekeeper, everyone is also a "fellow inmate".
Just as every FMCG person is anxious to "go to prison" even if he knows that L'Oréal's work is intensive, in the winter of employment that is always the most difficult, the salary is not bad, and Manner, who can really teach some coffee knowledge, has also become a shelter for big factories and international students.
Therefore, even if the "real Manner's work situation" in Shanghai is revealed on social media, there will always be more content such as "big factories resigned to join Manner as a barista", and it is not known whether it is a siege into another siege. But we all know that "it's nice to have a job right now".
It's been a hearty job hunting season.
Edit | Tachibana Chief Author | Mouth design | Fat Bunny