Let's talk Starbucks.
The clientele of my store consists mostly of tweenie girls from the two local Catholic/ Christian school, bored housewives who live in Country Club of the South, and their workaholic husbands who always have a cellphone to their ear and a latte in their hands-- probably while they sleep, too. Among these are a handful of regular customers who seemingly have nothing more to do than visit Starbucks three times a day. I used to want to be a regular customer someplace-- a deli, maybe-- where I could go every morning and order my usual. This is how I always imagined it would go:
Delicatessan: Morning Drew!
Me: Hello Frank/Bernard/Vinny.
Delicatessan: The usual?
Me: The usual.
This sentimental, male-camaraderic exchange looks nothing like the exchanges I encounter in my Starbucks when I am playing the Frank/Bernard/Vinny role. Most of our regular customers hate me.
Maybe "hate" is too powerful of a word for describing the slightly disgruntled barista with the red eyeglasses at your neighborhood coffeeshop. I should say, "they do not care for me," because I am new. Because I am new, I do not know their name, nor do I know what the usual is, and thus I'm unqualified to dote on them as they expect. Usually they're indifferent to my attempts to be friendly, and once I've given them their change, they proceed to locate the veteran employee who is qualified to dote. Then they complain about "how much better this store was when there weren't all these new people." I never considered what would happen if I visited my local delicatessan and Frank/Bernard/Vinny was in the back, while some new kid took my order in front... but I hope that I'd be courteous to him, and invite him into my regularhood, my usualocity.
There are a good number of customers who are like this. These people are on my good list; let's meet them.
There's Tall Soy Extra-Hot Double-Cupped Latte, a petite Oakley-wearing Indian girl who works at the Domino's Pizza down the street.
Triple Venti Soy 3-Splenda Latte, and her Russian husband, Double-Cupped Grande Latte, who always reminds me of Rita's dad, who I have never met, but who I assume truly looks like a Russian nesting doll.
Two Doppios, who is from Mexico and looks to do some sort of hard labor for work.
Triple Grande Cappuccino with a splash of cold milk in the top, who is short and sparky.
Grande Coffee Frappaccino Light, who is just as cute as a button.
Grande-in-a-Venti Nonfat 1-Sweet n' Low Extra-Whip Mocha, who was the first regular to ever start a conversation with me. He used to be a salesman for Pacific Railroad, and now he does insurance and sits in Starbucks drinking Mochas all day. He always asks me what book I'm reading now.
Iced-Venti Five-Shot Vanilla Latte, who at least laughs at my jokes and has a name that looks like it should be a girl's.
Grande Hot Chocolate, who only gives us the name "T" to write on the cup because it's short for something that's too hard to pronounce, but means "beautiful" in Gaelic.
Short Mild Coffee, who just so happens to be a short mild old man.
Six-shot Iced-Venti Americano with heavy whipping cream who orders the strongest drink I've ever heard of. He's huge, with a great white beard capped with a hat that says Marines. I had a mostly normal chat with him once about liberal teachers trying to teach communism in elementary schools ("send 'em to school with a box of crayons, and by the end of the day they're sharin'em with the whole damn class!") He also tips $2.
Unfortunately, there are some seriously pampered regulars who get irate when you're ringing them up, because they're used to getting discounts and free refills. Some of the drink orders I get are so elaborate that I know these people can't possible tell the difference in what they're ordering. What they are, they're vanity orders, concocted to make themselves eccentric and stand out. These are people like
Two-and-a-half shot Nonfat Extra-Creamy-Foamy and Hot Latte, or
Decaf-Venti Two-Percent No-Whip Extra-Foam Extra Hot Mocha, or her husband,
Grande Sugar-Free Vanilla Breve Latte, who always thinks I'm overcharging him. Then there's Venti Coffee Frappaccino Light with a Decaf Shot, who has a look that could scorch cold milk.
These are the customers who are passing on their bitterness to me. Soon, I begin resenting every Starbucks customer in Alpharetta and construing their curtness as a sickening representation of socio-economic class privilege, and I damn Country Club of the South, because they're all the same behind those gates.
But really, I should be one to wage class warfare. The awkward position I project on myself at work is, I'm the only one there that really doesn't need to work for the money. I mean, I need money, because I need $120 textbooks and I live in a city that will hook up their mass transit ticket to your credit card if you desire (and I've done it). But not like Employee A, who is the single mom of a three year-old. Or Employee B, who saves up enough money to attend one semester of classes ever 1.5 years. Or Employee C, who works a second job as a nanny, whose husband is a truck driver. I feel guilty going to such a nice school and having not the faintest of what I'm going to do with a hundred-thousand dollar degree, yet treating the job as if it were a casual fling. Actually, this is wrong: I've treated this job like it was a career. I held a coffee tasting today for a new girl (she's getting married next month to a guy who used to be a Prince impersonator in Vegas) and explained the differences in taste and acidity between the three coffee-growing regions of the world. I work nearly 40 hours a week. I don't act like it, but inside I know absolutely that this job is just casual and that I don't need it, and maybe I work so hard so I can salve my guilt. I mean, I made enough for books and spending money alone by mid-July. I'll end up making twice as much as I would've if I'd gotten that arts grant I applied for and failed.
So why am I working so much? I guess becomes I'm stupid. Also because the store is desperately understaffed after 90% of the employees jumped ship with the old manager when he retired in May, and you just start agreeing to do more and more favors and work more hours, and soon you start to feel sympathy or loyalty or some temporary-summer-job-approximation thereof for Employees A, B, and C who also have to work more hours becase the store is essentially stringing it along from week-to-week with a staff of under 10. I've become so consumed by this job that college seems like a very vague, distant thing, especially because I can't explain to anybody what I'm there for. I'm suddenly surrounded by very career-oriented people at Starbucks, which is a major contrast to the academically-oriented community I spent the last year and, if you want to get down to it, 4 years in. Call it the real world, if you will. The point of this is that I've had a paradigm shift that makes going to college seem more like a choice I consciously made, where before I never thought of it as the result of a decision. College was always the assumed destination, not in any way like the classic "I'm expected to go to Harvard just like my old man," but as the inevitable that was always the preferable. I never really wanted to go to college for any other reason than the fact that it was college. But now I'm at college and it's, well, college, with all the good and bad college brings with it; and I guess this just gets me thinking of after college, which is still some cloudy haze of a notion that probably has its roots planted mostly in the misconceptions of seventh-grade Drew.
What unsettles me is that Starbucks feels a lot more real than those hazy career plans. No, I'm not afraid that I'm going to get stuck working at Starbucks for the rest of my life. Not that there's anything wrong with working at Starbucks for ten years, except for the fact that there is. I am afraid that I'll get stuck in something else that, while I'll be paid more than $7.00/hr for it, will still feel like a temporary summer job until I realize, ten years later, that it isn't anymore. Inertia is a powerful thing, especially the inertia of waking up and getting to work on time; and sometimes I hesitate when I think that I'm stronger than it. Because that's what'll get you in the end, I suppose: that's the usual that I don't want.
The clientele of my store consists mostly of tweenie girls from the two local Catholic/ Christian school, bored housewives who live in Country Club of the South, and their workaholic husbands who always have a cellphone to their ear and a latte in their hands-- probably while they sleep, too. Among these are a handful of regular customers who seemingly have nothing more to do than visit Starbucks three times a day. I used to want to be a regular customer someplace-- a deli, maybe-- where I could go every morning and order my usual. This is how I always imagined it would go:
Delicatessan: Morning Drew!
Me: Hello Frank/Bernard/Vinny.
Delicatessan: The usual?
Me: The usual.
This sentimental, male-camaraderic exchange looks nothing like the exchanges I encounter in my Starbucks when I am playing the Frank/Bernard/Vinny role. Most of our regular customers hate me.
Maybe "hate" is too powerful of a word for describing the slightly disgruntled barista with the red eyeglasses at your neighborhood coffeeshop. I should say, "they do not care for me," because I am new. Because I am new, I do not know their name, nor do I know what the usual is, and thus I'm unqualified to dote on them as they expect. Usually they're indifferent to my attempts to be friendly, and once I've given them their change, they proceed to locate the veteran employee who is qualified to dote. Then they complain about "how much better this store was when there weren't all these new people." I never considered what would happen if I visited my local delicatessan and Frank/Bernard/Vinny was in the back, while some new kid took my order in front... but I hope that I'd be courteous to him, and invite him into my regularhood, my usualocity.
There are a good number of customers who are like this. These people are on my good list; let's meet them.
There's Tall Soy Extra-Hot Double-Cupped Latte, a petite Oakley-wearing Indian girl who works at the Domino's Pizza down the street.
Triple Venti Soy 3-Splenda Latte, and her Russian husband, Double-Cupped Grande Latte, who always reminds me of Rita's dad, who I have never met, but who I assume truly looks like a Russian nesting doll.
Two Doppios, who is from Mexico and looks to do some sort of hard labor for work.
Triple Grande Cappuccino with a splash of cold milk in the top, who is short and sparky.
Grande Coffee Frappaccino Light, who is just as cute as a button.
Grande-in-a-Venti Nonfat 1-Sweet n' Low Extra-Whip Mocha, who was the first regular to ever start a conversation with me. He used to be a salesman for Pacific Railroad, and now he does insurance and sits in Starbucks drinking Mochas all day. He always asks me what book I'm reading now.
Iced-Venti Five-Shot Vanilla Latte, who at least laughs at my jokes and has a name that looks like it should be a girl's.
Grande Hot Chocolate, who only gives us the name "T" to write on the cup because it's short for something that's too hard to pronounce, but means "beautiful" in Gaelic.
Short Mild Coffee, who just so happens to be a short mild old man.
Six-shot Iced-Venti Americano with heavy whipping cream who orders the strongest drink I've ever heard of. He's huge, with a great white beard capped with a hat that says Marines. I had a mostly normal chat with him once about liberal teachers trying to teach communism in elementary schools ("send 'em to school with a box of crayons, and by the end of the day they're sharin'em with the whole damn class!") He also tips $2.
Unfortunately, there are some seriously pampered regulars who get irate when you're ringing them up, because they're used to getting discounts and free refills. Some of the drink orders I get are so elaborate that I know these people can't possible tell the difference in what they're ordering. What they are, they're vanity orders, concocted to make themselves eccentric and stand out. These are people like
Two-and-a-half shot Nonfat Extra-Creamy-Foamy and Hot Latte, or
Decaf-Venti Two-Percent No-Whip Extra-Foam Extra Hot Mocha, or her husband,
Grande Sugar-Free Vanilla Breve Latte, who always thinks I'm overcharging him. Then there's Venti Coffee Frappaccino Light with a Decaf Shot, who has a look that could scorch cold milk.
These are the customers who are passing on their bitterness to me. Soon, I begin resenting every Starbucks customer in Alpharetta and construing their curtness as a sickening representation of socio-economic class privilege, and I damn Country Club of the South, because they're all the same behind those gates.
But really, I should be one to wage class warfare. The awkward position I project on myself at work is, I'm the only one there that really doesn't need to work for the money. I mean, I need money, because I need $120 textbooks and I live in a city that will hook up their mass transit ticket to your credit card if you desire (and I've done it). But not like Employee A, who is the single mom of a three year-old. Or Employee B, who saves up enough money to attend one semester of classes ever 1.5 years. Or Employee C, who works a second job as a nanny, whose husband is a truck driver. I feel guilty going to such a nice school and having not the faintest of what I'm going to do with a hundred-thousand dollar degree, yet treating the job as if it were a casual fling. Actually, this is wrong: I've treated this job like it was a career. I held a coffee tasting today for a new girl (she's getting married next month to a guy who used to be a Prince impersonator in Vegas) and explained the differences in taste and acidity between the three coffee-growing regions of the world. I work nearly 40 hours a week. I don't act like it, but inside I know absolutely that this job is just casual and that I don't need it, and maybe I work so hard so I can salve my guilt. I mean, I made enough for books and spending money alone by mid-July. I'll end up making twice as much as I would've if I'd gotten that arts grant I applied for and failed.
So why am I working so much? I guess becomes I'm stupid. Also because the store is desperately understaffed after 90% of the employees jumped ship with the old manager when he retired in May, and you just start agreeing to do more and more favors and work more hours, and soon you start to feel sympathy or loyalty or some temporary-summer-job-approximation thereof for Employees A, B, and C who also have to work more hours becase the store is essentially stringing it along from week-to-week with a staff of under 10. I've become so consumed by this job that college seems like a very vague, distant thing, especially because I can't explain to anybody what I'm there for. I'm suddenly surrounded by very career-oriented people at Starbucks, which is a major contrast to the academically-oriented community I spent the last year and, if you want to get down to it, 4 years in. Call it the real world, if you will. The point of this is that I've had a paradigm shift that makes going to college seem more like a choice I consciously made, where before I never thought of it as the result of a decision. College was always the assumed destination, not in any way like the classic "I'm expected to go to Harvard just like my old man," but as the inevitable that was always the preferable. I never really wanted to go to college for any other reason than the fact that it was college. But now I'm at college and it's, well, college, with all the good and bad college brings with it; and I guess this just gets me thinking of after college, which is still some cloudy haze of a notion that probably has its roots planted mostly in the misconceptions of seventh-grade Drew.
What unsettles me is that Starbucks feels a lot more real than those hazy career plans. No, I'm not afraid that I'm going to get stuck working at Starbucks for the rest of my life. Not that there's anything wrong with working at Starbucks for ten years, except for the fact that there is. I am afraid that I'll get stuck in something else that, while I'll be paid more than $7.00/hr for it, will still feel like a temporary summer job until I realize, ten years later, that it isn't anymore. Inertia is a powerful thing, especially the inertia of waking up and getting to work on time; and sometimes I hesitate when I think that I'm stronger than it. Because that's what'll get you in the end, I suppose: that's the usual that I don't want.
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