Starbucks Terms of Art

Christian Newton has been lurking over at the Starbucks Gossip blog and has come up with a list of “insider” terms used by Starbucks employees when describing various parts of their job.

When I first saw the list, I assumed I’d know all of the terms; you’d be surprised to find out just how much time I’ve spent in a Starbucks (not as an employee, but as a customer) over the past few years. It’s almost unhealthy. Remarkably, there are still a few terms that were foreign to me:

• Three Person Close
• Shifting
• Connecting
• Fifteens

I’m going to do some searching over on the blog to discover their meaning. I’m still pretty proud (or horrified) to have easily recognized the meaning of the other terms:

• Handoff Plane
• Impulse Stand
• Cup Writing
• On Till
• On Bar
• DTO
• Syrup Side
• Hand-Off Side
• Recovery Coupon
• Green Bean

All this has me wondering: does your workplace have a lingo (not necessarily internal acronyms, but an actual new vocabulary) that is shared only between employees and is generally confusing to patrons?