- Unresponsive upper management—arbitrary decisions come from the top and each store suffers differently as a result. What works for a low volume store will not work for Times Square or Bryant Park. Upper management seems surprised each time they implement a new policy without input from the individual store and it fails miserably.
- Store managers are spread thin—the company is growing too fast and not enough attention is being paid to each individual store. When managers have to keep track of multiple different stores, things slip through the cracks: milk orders are short (I weathered an entire weekend without half and half and closed on a Sunday with a single gallon of whole milk), things break and never get fixed, smash stations run out of simple staples, stores become short-staffed, and the quality of the experience for the local suffers. This drags the reputation of the entire company down.
- Workers are not compensated for the work they put in. Jobs that are clearly supervisory duties at other coffee shops become requirements even for employees earning the starting wage.
- Because of the aforementioned issues, turnover is high. By the time I quit the company, I was no longer working with any of the coworkers who carefully watched me, trained me, and led by example. Many amazing baristas became exhausted and disillusioned and ultimately quit. They’re now thriving at other coffee shops, showing off the skills they learned at Bluestone for a higher rate of pay.
- The entire brand is dedicated to reinforcing an Australian identity. That is its selling point. This creates a culture of Australian exceptionalism with a very explicit bias toward Australian employees. Mediocre upper management was praised simply for being Aussie and showing up to work, and locals came to expect hearing an Aussie accent on the sales floor.
