My Second Families from Starbucks!

Since Starbucks first landed Taiwan when I was still in high school, I had been dreaming about working there! At that time, there was no any cooler job than working part-time at Starbucks as a student. Once I went to my university and reached the legal age to work, I tried my best to apply for every store of Starbucks that I knew. At that time, there were not so many Starbucks stores in Taipei, where I lived, but a lot of young people like me would like to work for them. Finally, I had to start from another bigger chain coffee shop...no, not at Starbucks! A year later, through my friend's introduction, finally I got a chance to talk to a store manager to show my passion of working for Starbucks. Fortunately, I got accepted. That was a store located at the heart of business district and surrounded by a bunch of department stores. (It's one block away from Taipei101, which is still the highest building in the whole world, for now, but won't last long!) Later, I realized that the store that I got accepted was the busiest store in Taiwan, which had the highest number of transaction, sales, and profitability. That was not only a Starbucks store; other than that, it was the role model of Starbucks in Taiwan! Because of the endless rush hours and huge amount of work load, there was a formation of being together, fighting together, and love each other because they are what you only have on the field. We were like a band of brothers. This emotion was well developed and every partner was like a member of this big family! What we were proud of ourselves was not how skillful we were or how fast we could finish one Latte, it was the aligning established among each member of this store. Besides daily operation, we also actively participated in every event that held by our headquarter to reinforce our relationship throughout the process. Every single time was another sweet memory of ours, and holding each other even closer. All the way through the expansion of Taiwan Starbucks, our partners got transferred out to a lot of different locations. However, people were still coming back to the original place, our store, to be together with us. That's why I devoted all my time working there since sophomore year until three days before I joined the military. In those three years at Starbucks, I'd learned not only how to be a good leader, but also how to love people. They are my second family, always!