September 27, 2025 at 5:35 am

Starbucks Customer Thought She Was Getting Exactly What She Wanted, But She Was Wrong

by Jayne Elliott

smiling female barista holding two coffee cups

Shutterstock/Reddit

Imagine working as a barista at Starbucks. What would you do if you had several particularly grumpy and difficult customers? Would you be nice to them and make their order as instructed, or would you get revenge?

In today’s story, one former Starbucks barista got revenge on annoying customers via decaf coffee.

Let’s read all the details.

When I was a barista at Starbucks, I switched my worst customers drinks to decaf

I worked at Starbucks for a few years back around 2010 and it was a great job to get me thru high school and college.

I loved my team and I loved my customers.

But some customers were a giant PITA to deal with and I didn’t appreciate their attitude.

Rude customers are part of the job but some customers would take it way too far.

Here’s an example of one of those customers.

I had one customer I still remember.. Marie.

Marie enjoyed being a particularly bratty customer and she needed her whole milk cappuccino made a specific way.

She took pride in her reputation as if it were some badge of honor.

I eventually learned how to make her drink but she would always let me know that she’d tell me to remake it if it weren’t exactly how she wanted it.

It wasn’t exactly the way Marie wanted it, but she had no idea.

So to spite her, I would make her drink with decaf espresso.

The machine makes the same noise and it would taste the same, she just wouldn’t get the caffeine she wanted.

And it made me happy knowing that she thought she was getting exactly what she wanted despite getting the opposite.

That wasn’t the only customer who got decaf.

I did this to many customers whenever they slighted me.

And looking back, my perspective changed.

Maybe they were having a bad day or maybe something terrible happened to them.

But again, I was young and I didn’t see things that way. Oh well, such is life!

There are worse ways to get revenge on someone than decaf coffee, but if they were grumpy because they were tired, the decaf probably only made the situation worse.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Decaf really isn’t that bad.

Screenshot 2025 08 28 at 11.38.57 PM Starbucks Customer Thought She Was Getting Exactly What She Wanted, But She Was Wrong

It could’ve been much worse.

Screenshot 2025 08 28 at 11.39.31 PM Starbucks Customer Thought She Was Getting Exactly What She Wanted, But She Was Wrong

Another former barista did the same thing.

Screenshot 2025 08 28 at 11.40.00 PM Starbucks Customer Thought She Was Getting Exactly What She Wanted, But She Was Wrong

This person doesn’t want anyone messing up their order on purpose.

Screenshot 2025 08 28 at 11.40.37 PM Starbucks Customer Thought She Was Getting Exactly What She Wanted, But She Was Wrong

This person suggests offering grace.

Screenshot 2025 08 28 at 11.41.06 PM Starbucks Customer Thought She Was Getting Exactly What She Wanted, But She Was Wrong

Sometimes you don’t get what you order, you get what you deserve.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.