Oh No, Frappuccino.

Fifteen years ago, Starbucks hit the coffee shop lottery and changed the way people drink coffee all in one fell swoop. In 1995, a California Starbucks began blending coffee, ice and milk together for their customers, and to everyone's surprise, they liked it. The Frappuccino was born, and that year Starbucks began selling Mocha and Coffee flavored blended beverages to the public.
A mere decade and a half later, and these became a phenomenon that would sell in the millions daily, and would make almost every barista sob quietly into their blenders at the mere mention of the word.

I'm not going to tell you here to stop drinking frappuccinos. If you like them, by all means continue to drink them. In fact, that goes for everything I whine about here--caramel macchiatos, cappuccinos, using sleeves, etc. If it's something that you like to do, and it's something that not doing anymore would make every Starbucks visit a lot less fun, then please, don't let my whining scare you from continuing. The only thing that we ask is that you be nice while you do it. Nice, friendly, and maybe even thoughtful.

My biggest peeve, or at least one of my biggest peeves, with frappuccinos is the fact that there are almost no ways to cut down on the time it takes to make one. On the hot bar, we can have milk ready, we can have shots ready, and almost every ingredient is independent of the others. If I find out after I've started making the latte that a syrup has been added, the world is not going to end. I can add it on top of the shots, on top of some of the milk, or I can start it again in a new cup without wasting a lot of time. Same goes for shots and, to some degree, milk, and the whole time I'm working on one drink, I'm also working on two or three others at the same time.

Frappuccinos don't allow this. If someone changes their mind on the syrup or the base halfway through, the entire drink needs to be dumped and restarted. We only have three pitchers in our store and two blenders, so if I have a line of four different blended drinks, I can't even get started on the fourth until I finish at least one. At the hot bar, I can put the syrup in and get the milk I need ready and eventually steamed even if it's the eighth or ninth in line. When you're in a hot bar stride and you get a line of frappuccino cups, well, if you're lucky someone will help you out, and if it's too busy for that, then that's about the time your entire day is ruined.

It wouldn't be such a bummer if you didn't know the types of people that were ordering, too. Like take, for instance, vanilla bean, double chocolatety chip, and strawberries and cream. You know when you hear that that you're making it for either a small child, a make-up obsessed teenage girl, or a bro. If it's a caramel frappuccino, it's for a female student or a middle aged woman. In fact, of all our customers, those that get frappuccinos are USUALLY the most annoying.

Take, for instance, the people that persist in calling them "Fraps." As was beaten into me when I was first trained, Starbucks has a trademark on the name "frappuccino" and is almost terrifyingly proud of the word that has whored itself away so much for them. Our first week of training they brainwashed away the urge to say anything else but Frappuccino, and whenever I hear a fellow barista say "frap," my first instinct is it grab them by the nape of the neck and pound their face into the counter over and over again until they utter the last three syllables of the word.
But beyond that, the word "frap" just sounds annoying. It's like the word "ranch." No matter what a pleasant voice the orderer has, as soon as they say "frap" it sounds like they're a middle aged lady who lives in a trailer chain smoking cigarettes with her cats. You can't sound intelligent and use the word "frap," it's scientifically impossible. Try it. It's not working, is it?