Faye* watched the smoke billowing up around the backfiring roaster. The chimney was rated for a wood stove and it required maintenance every six months, especially since the open vent didnโt have effective fans. On this particular day, it had just rained, thus pushing the chaff back down the chimney. As experienced roasters know, chaff floating around is a fire hazard and production should immediately stop.
She showed her boss and company owner what was happening and said, โListen, Iโm not going to roast any more coffee. Weโre going to start a fire.โ He looked at her and said, โI donโt care. If the place burns down, Iโll get the insurance money.โ
Faye was stunned. She said, โYou realize Iโll be standing next to the roaster when that happens.โ
He laughed.
And thatโs when the proverbial straw broke the camelโs back. It wasnโt the first time a boundary had been crossed, but it would be the last.
***
โBoundariesโ is a hot-topic word. When claimed, it can be twisted into being selfish or building an impenetrable wall. In reality, theyโre the limits that we set with ourselves and others to create a healthy and safe environment for us to operate in. When your boundaries are continually crossed, it can lead to mental health issues and burnout.
While physical boundaries are the first to be thought of (i.e. standing too close to someone without their consent), there are five other workplace boundaries that Dr. Dana Gionta identifies as standout ones. Gionta is a life and business coach, psychologist, motivational speaker, and co-author of the self-help book From Stressed to Centered: A Practical Guide to a Healthier and Happier You, in which sheโs dedicated a full chapter to boundaries.
Common in the service industry, Gionta names โrole overloadโ as the first boundary type thatโs crossed. Itโs where one employee is asked to do the work of two or three employees. Itโs also one of the ways that employers cut costs and exploit labor.
In the case of Faye, she described to me how she was working 90-hour weeks, paid at $14 an hour, and not receiving overtime.ย โI really had five jobs,โ she recalls. She was the building janitor of the shared space, barista, coffee trainer, hiring person, roaster, and green buyer. Instead of giving her a raise, Faye says that the owner paraded around men (โHe didnโt have a lot of respect for womenโ) who would become the building general manager and take over some of her responsibilities. Unfortunately, โthey couldnโt do any of the things I could do,โ and she was back to overworking.
Another common workplace boundary is the โwork-lifeโ balance, โwhere youโre asking employees to work frequent overtime, into the evenings, or on the weekends, or even while theyโre on vacation,โ says Gionta. โThere isnโt a clear line between work and home life or family time.โ
In Sidneyโs* case, she was a marketing coordinator and solely responsible for the coffee organizationโs social media accounts. She says that โthere was an expectation to make sure that everyone was replied to within a timely manner.โ In this instance, a โtimely mannerโ meant within 24 hours, including the times when she was supposed to be off, such as evenings and weekends. And if a response wasnโt sent? It was brought up to Sidneyโs attention on Monday that the message was missed.
Related to work-life boundaries is the โlack of control over schedule,โ says Gionta. Unpredictable or changing schedules affect the employeeโs โability to have an organized lifeโ and โmake commitments and develop other areas of their life.โ
โI had a manager once at a large craft chain that would sometimes change the Google calendar schedule within 24 or even 12 hours to fix mistakes, with no notification to the staff,โ recalls Sarah*, who worked in the coffee industry for five years before leaving. โItโs hard to catch a shift changing from afternoon to 6:00am without being told of changes. I missed the start of a shift and wasnโt sure if I had read it wrong.โ Eventually, she began taking screenshots to document the issues but when brought up to the managersโ attention, she was told theyโd โlook into itโ but never received a follow-up.
After being hired as a roaster and the only full-time woman employee among a workplace of all men, Arden* dealt with โmisogynistic and disgusting languageโ for five months before she had enough. โI couldnโt believe how unprofessional the chat was and felt intimidated being the only woman,โ she says.
She remembers her coworkers using the phrase โballs deepโ as a catchphrase to describe everything, including coffee, and hearing stories that were โexplicitly bragging about previous sexual partners.โ While bringing it up to the owners did reduce the amount of inappropriate discussion, it did not completely resolve the issue, leading her to โfeel like the one โtaking away from their daily fun.โโ
For Morgan*, a production worker with 13 years of experience in the coffee industry, their employer did provide a boundary but it was โconstantly violated.โ Because roasting takes attention and interruptions could be costly, they were given the โright to put up my finger and say โone momentโโ or something similar. So when a person came up to them, knowing the set boundaries, they rightfully thought that it was an emergency or something very important when it actually wasnโt the case.
Having friends in the industry who also hung out after work meant that coffee drama would bleed into work time. Morgan recalls one instance where a big piece of breaking traumatic coffee news was announced without any context. They described it as the person โcame in and without even saying โgood morning,โ just blurted all that out โฆ and then walked away.โ There was no moment to put the hand up and the news ended up disrupting their entire workday. Afterward, they were โsuper discombobulatedโ and trying to โrationalizeโ the actions for trauma dumping this piece of news that was โemotionally damaging.โ This incident led to a conversation about oversharing and communicating boundaries.
The last key workplace boundary thatโs often crossed is the one of โunclear expectations and responsibilities.โ Not having role clarity is stressful and this leaves the employee feeling uncertain and often more โvulnerable to being potentially taken advantage of or asked to do things that really are not part of their job description,โ says Gionta.
A coffee professional with 14 years of industry experience under her belt, Bettina* is all too familiar with multiple boundaries being crossed. She recalls getting โin trouble for not fulfilling duties that I didnโt know were mine to do.โ Within the first few days of starting a new job with no job description, her manager told her, โYouโre on salary so that kind of means youโre working all the time.โ He continued on, โI want to know if you go to any coffee events or if you hang out with anybody who’s in the coffee industry outside of work because you’re on salary and it’s kind of a work event.โ
At a coworkersโ โvery Catholic wedding,โ the moment the dance floor opened up, her manager began giving her a non-consensual lap dance. โI donโt even know how many times he said to me, โBettina, I donโt date my staff anymore,โโ says Bettina, describing the delivery as accompanied with the toned nuance of โbut maybe you could talk me out of it.โ
Unsurprisingly, having blurred or nonexistent boundaries in the workplace can lead to mental health issues and/or burnout. Plenty of research supports this prevalence in the service and hospitality industriesโthe pandemic has only exacerbated the issues. โThereโs a cost associated with continually swallowing your pride and apologizing to unreasonable jerks,โ writes Emily Guendelsberger in Vox about her experience as a fast-food worker.
The Work and Well-being Survey, commissioned by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2021, found that adults who work in customer service, sales, or entertainment are more likely than those in admin or desk jobs to experience physical fatigue (53% vs 38%), cognitive weariness (44% vs 29%), and emotional exhaustion (40% vs 20%).
Employee well-being company Limeade conducted its own survey of full-time employees and found that 52% of food and hospitality workers named burnout as the number one reason for leaving their job, a much higher amount than the average survey result of 40%.
All six people whose stories were shared here have left the jobs with crossed workplace boundaries and/or the coffee industry entirely. Mental health issues were created or exacerbated by the conditions. Bettina was having panic attacks when she hadnโt had them in years, Morgan had stress and anxiety in addition to feeling emotionally unsafe at work, and Arden had a breakdown in her mental health due to a manipulative manager.
One behavior I observed while soliciting interviews is the confusion surrounding what boundaries actually are, which is why this piece began with a definition. Even if you havenโt set and defined your own boundaries (people have different comfort levels), there are still several feelings you can use to identify when theyโre being crossed: discomfort, resentment, and guilt. For example, if youโre being blamed for errors that you didnโt know you were responsible for, you might hear the phrase โyouโre not committed enoughโ or begin to feel guilty for not doing those things.
Gionta writes in her book and in her article about the โboundaries signal scale.โ Itโs used to describe the level of a negative feeling that arises in response to an incident. Repeated feelings at a score of 4 or higher may indicate a need to set boundaries.
Being able to recognize and set your own boundaries is great but employers can also step up. Mal Preheim, Director of Human Resources at Dune Coffee Roasters, found that establishing her own boundaries helped her create a lasting career in service and hospitality. In the coffee industry, sheโs found that thereโs a โweird mix of people just entering into the workforce and people that have been around for a really long time,โ resulting in an environment of blurred boundaries.
She created and incorporated boundaries training into the onboarding process for new employees and for new managers. The training begins with a boundaries definition and then delves into examples of personal, customer, and coworker boundaries. โWe’re all in control of what we allow in the space that we occupy,โ says Preheim. She advises being honest and transparent about your boundaries but also making sure to be in control of your own feelings. Elaborating, she says that having healthy communication about boundaries will โhelp everyone take responsibility for their own actions and emotions.โ
Instead of creating a strict set of rules, the training is meant to be used as a baseline for employees to build their own set of guidelines. In the consent section, she describes mental/emotional consent as being mindful of your own attitude on shift. Donโt create an environment where others feel pressured to perform the emotional labor of wondering if youโre okay; this can be prevented by clearly communicating that youโre feeling a little off that day.
When asked about how employees have reacted to the training, she says, โI feel like a lot of burnout has been prevented. Just putting the expectations out there made for a lot less of those gray area, fuzzy situations that inevitably come up when you’re working with people.โ
For Aaron Jordan, partner at Roast House Coffee, communication was the first boundary he created. Barring emergency situations, he says, โWe instituted a clear understanding among the team that communication was going to happen through designated channels (email and comm logs).โ It took a bit for everyone to get used to but it led to two benefits. The first was that โit produced more beneficial communication than the typical small business text threads where the owner sends out a wild thought at 9:00pm on a Friday.โ And the second is that the team is more respectful of their coworkersโ weekend and time-off requests.
For employers, Gionta recommends first educating yourself on what healthy workplace boundaries are, which can be aided by a business consultant. Regular performance reviews, asking for input from staff, modeling the behavior, and creating a psychologically safe environment are all ways an employer can use to establish and check in on boundaries.
It can be scary to set a boundary, especially if thereโs a power imbalance or if you hold marginalized identities. In cases like these, she advises seeking the help of a therapist for developing assertive communication skills or using self-help books or workbooks to guide yourself.
โWhen you set a boundary, expect some pushback and maybe some anger,โ writes therapist Jennie Steinberg in a blog post. โWhile a person is less likely to react to a boundary with anger when you approach them in an assertive and compassionate way, it doesnโt eliminate the possibility. This is a normal part of the boundary setting process, and itโs something thatโs good to be prepared for.โ
Itโs past time that we begin these conversations about workplace boundaries if we want to lessen burnout, industry exits, and mental health issues in the coffee industry.
*names have been changed to protect anonymity
Jenn Chen (@thejennchen) is an Editor At Large at Sprudge Media Network. Read moreย Jenn Chen on Sprudge.