I stole everything I could from Starbucks and It got me through University (and still hasn’t stopped 7 years later)

Additional edits: <br><br>1, Thank you for the gold, kind redditor! <br><br>2, Yes, this is my only post ever. Because of the response I now plan to make this my official throwRA. You may see more posts of me confessing my shitty behaviour in the future now I’ve come clean about this one. <br><br>3, I left the company 3 years ago and still have seen no evidence of them changing the system. <br><br>4, I have had hundreds of messages asking for more information and/or my old managers details so you can get your own free Starbucks goodies. I will not be replying to these and ask that you respect my decision. I will never deliberately try to negatively impact my old colleagues or the company itself as I do like them. I am just trying to get something off my chest. <br><br>5, Surprisingly, I still use Starbucks as my coffee stop of choice. <br><br>Ok so I worked in Starbucks for four years. I began when I was a teenager and was in the company for most of my university years. It couldn’t have been for a better amount of time, as I was able to get a good education, was able to travel America with my friends, and still had enough money to comfortably live at home (I had a student loan and a student job, I didn’t need the money but it was nice to have). <br><br>For the last three years of my employment I was a shift manager, meaning I had access to a personal kept set of keys for the store.<br> When I first began working there it took me three years to get to shift management level. But it only took me two months after my promotion to realise how I could exploit this system. <br><br>During my time as a barista, I noticed the managers would often give out free drinks to regulars or friends. Obviously not to the extent I was planning on, as managers don’t get paid much and the company is stingy when it comes to giving away free food/drink to staff. But once I was a manager, I was then able to give away free drinks without anyone else knowing, as an official manager name was assigned to the transaction (it wasn’t until 6 months after I first started this that my managers cottoned on and started to crack down on what we were allowed to discount). <br><br>What I began to do, was give away free drinks.<br> When closing a shift, I would often stay behind and make myself free drinks and snacks (I still never took anything that wasn’t necessary to make the drink, just for the sake of the system). But it wasn’t until my 3rd year of university that I introduced my then-boyfriend to Starbucks shift management. <br><br>He was my line manager for closing shifts, and during the closing shifts we would give away free food/drink to anyone. We were greedy and we exploited the system. We would tell customers we had missed their order, so we would give them a complimentary item. We would hold onto orders of drinks and tell customers we’d forgot, so we would give them a free “top up”. We would discount friends drinks, just for the sake of it. We would even give out free drinks to customers that didn’t order them, just so we didn’t waste the ingredients and we could pocket the difference. <br><br>The managers would often question our “Labour %“ and we would often have to put these discounts down as spillages etc. We even made up a fake customer and had her down as a regular barista “Labour %“ so we could discount food for her whenever we wanted. <br><br>The “Labour %“ system is complex, but summed up- it’s a percentage based system in which the managers calculates how much money they wasted/spilled etc. This percentage is not a real figure, it’s an estimate.<br> When we were questioned for our highLabour % we would blame the system and put it down to an estimate. We did this for 2 years without anyone noticing. <br><br>During my last 2 years as a “Labour %“ manager, I and my then-boyfriend (as well as many other managers/co-workers) stole food/drink to the equivalent of thousands per month.<br> We didn’t steal entire tubs of cream/ syrup etc and we never stole anything that wasn’t used to make a drink. But we did however exploit the system so much, we would often make drinks for fun just so we could get a free product. Honestly, looking back, it was INCREDIBLY greedy. But we didn’t care, and we didn’t get caught. When I left the company, they all knew me and my then-boyfriend were greedy with our discounts, but they had no idea how greedy we actually were. <br><br>This all began 7 years ago and has continued into my then-boyfriend now-husband’s career with Starbucks, where he is currently an assistant manager. When we broke up we both agreed we wanted to continue exploiting this system because it made us feel like we were beating the business. A business that had thousands of locations across the country, but was once a small independent coffee house. And since we knew we didn’t have to pay for anything and the system wouldn’t change anytime soon, we just kept stealing. And we’re still stealing to this day. <br><br>And that’s it. That’s my confession, and it’s finally off my chest.