Flashback at the coffee shop

While standing in line at Starbucks this morning, I happened to get behind one of those super high maintenance sorts that has to have a Very.Specific.Drink. You know the type, they want non-fat, with whip, half caf, triple shots, spin it around three times and make a wish on the lid sort of orders. This led a flashback to a dark period in my life, a time when all hope was gone and despair threatened to invade my soul ... yes, my friends I was a Starbucks barista for five months in a land far away and a time long ago.

When I moved to Denver in January 2000, I thought I'd pick up a temporary job while searching for something permanent in the environmental health field. My third day there, I went to my local Starbucks for a coffee and saw a help wanted sign. I thought to myself, "hey a coffee shop! That'd be a fun job!" I filled out an application and the spunky manager who was my age hired me on the spot. The pay wasn't great but they did offer health care benefits to all of their staff which was a nice incentive, plus you got free drinks while working, a pound of coffee a week, and discounts when traveling to other Starbucks.

Now I've worked with the public before - I spent seven years working retail in school, so I'm not unfamiliar with the challenges of appeasing the consumer. However, I was in no way prepared for the complete insanity that people brought into that little shop on Colorado Blvd. I'd have to say that the women were the worst, they'd get out of their Mercedes SUVs in their high heeled boots and bark orders at me in the most demeaning way and demand remakes if it wasn't up to their standards. The unbelievable rudeness that I experienced day in and day out was truly astonishing. My favorite was the person who wanted me to gift wrap (!) a coffee mug she was purchasing during a busy weekend morning when we had a line on both sides of the counter extending out the door. I explained that we didn't gift wrap but I did have a starbucks bag with tissue paper which was in no way good enough for her. She berated me, demanded my full name so she could lodge a complaint and then eventually stormed off. I wanted to yell, "You want gift wrap then go to Nordstroms b@%*h!!!"

I eventually came to the conclusion that people have so much chaos in their lives and so few things they can control, that the one place they decided to exert their full ability to demand excellence was at the coffee shop counter over their $4 latte. This epiphany in no way made my life easier, but eventually I found a better "temporary" position using my experience as a pharmacy tech which also paid $5 more an hour. For some interesting tales from the dark side of retail visit this link

So for whatever reason, this morning I had a moment where I was transported back to that miserable period in my life. On my way to the car all I could think was that I'm sooo glad I'm a nurse because I'll never have to worry about finding work again.