Barista Chronicles
By: Kamilah Duggins
I
did what I thought were the responsible things when I was growing up.
I went to college at 17 and then graduate school at 24. I went to brand
name journalism schools. Got the brand name internships. Met the brand
name people. And, yet, somehow, halfway into my 25th year, I find myself
somewhere below the bottom rung of the editorial ladder, screaming, “I’m
a good person, why did this happen to me!” And in order to supplement
my modest income as a writing fellow, I had to succumb to working at Starbucks.
Now don’t get it twisted; I’m no snob. Money is money however
you get it; it’s all used to buy the same shit--usually a few nice
things, food/clothing/shelter and whatever else makes you feel secure
here in the world. In my case, it got me through the rough periods when
my rent was due, a $6.99 Gap shirt here and there and supported my daily
runs to Whole Foods, a sick, expensive habit that I really should work
on breaking. Below are some highlights of my time at Starbucks; They are
meant to both amuse and educate you. Please take scrupulous notes, for
should you find yourself in the same predicament (given the way of the
economy, perhaps you already have), these stories could save your life.
To provide some clarity here at the forefront, I must warn you that my Starbucks isn’t like the others. At least I hope not. It’s more of a coffee boutique than a coffee shop. It lay on the cusp of the upper echelon of downtown—the Gold Coast and the wanna-be-upper-echelon of Chicago—Lincoln Park. It’s a small shop—three people behind the counter is a squeeze with a demanding crowd of sometimes nice, but mostly whining aristocrats and their children, who only confirm my belief that people with too much money simply shouldn’t interact with the general public; reproducing is risky. Apparently, once they’ve stepped out of the “inner realm” (you know, golf at the club, charity banquets, Barney’s shopping sprees) in which they live, they forget that nobody cares how much money they have. That people in the real world demand respect—from everyone. Unfortunately for them, it’s our job to remind them that the world doesn’t revolve around them; that kingdoms don’t rise and fall at their command. Nor do we at Starbucks. Consider this conversation:
Man: Uh, give me a tall, skim, sugar-free vanilla misto.
Me: That will be $3.02, sir.
He digs in his pocket; his hand emerges with a fist full of dollar bills. Four to be exact. He counts them out to me and then:
Man: Well, I’m not going to break another dollar just for 2 cents. Just take it out of here, he instructs me, pointing to our hollow tip jar.
Now, usually, if your drink comes to $4.01 and you don’t have a penny, I’m not going to give you 99cents back. I’ll volunteer to dip in the tip jar and gladly donate a penny to your cause--even if I did just see you, a la Karen Walker, sift through a wad of 20s, trying desperately to find some singles. But not Mr. Misto. He was ordering me, not asking me to give him my hard-earned money. Maybe that works in the “inner realm,” but not here.
Me: I don’t mind giving you the pennies, but just so you know, this is not a give-a-penny, take-a-penny jar. This is a tip jar,” I said with calm resolve.
Man: WELL YOU DON’T HAVE TO GET ALL PISSY ABOUT IT—I PUT MONEY IN THAT THING EVERYDAY!
Me: Well, sir, I’m not here everyday, so I’m not certain of your tipping habits; however, I am certain that this is a tip jar, not a give-a-penny, take-a-penny jar. Just so you know.
Whatever he said after that is unimportant because at that point I was plotting my counterattack. He tried to step on me; I had to teach him a lesson. He was so busy being a Billy Badass that he forgot that as the girl wearing the apron and hat, I had the power in this situation. I could give him a ‘spit latte’ if I wanted or a sludge misto. I could ‘accidentally’ dip our sanitized rag in his coffee, you know, to stir in the vanilla syrup. I could do whatever I wanted. Settling on a mild punishment, I silently prayed he wasn’t diabetic and gave him regular vanilla syrup, but at the same time, hoped he suffered sugar shock on his way to work. He deserved worse.
But not all of our customers are just out and out rude. Some of them mask it. They’re real polite at first, but put one too many ice cubes in their double-tall-upside-down-caramel macchiatto, and the bitch will emerge. In an effort to ensure a perfect drink, some of our customers have grown accustomed to leaning over the side of the bar to watch us so that they may dictate as we go along. “Oh, I’ll take that extra shot, if you’re not using it,” or “Oh, oh, that’s enough caramel.” And “Oh, I meant to say no whipped cream. I’m sooooo sorry.” That position has its advantages, but it also has its drawbacks. Consider this woman’s unfortunate event.
Silicone lady: Hi
Me (busily preparing her beverage in three minutes or less. Today, she’s having two venti chai lattes): Hi. How are you? I reply.
And as I pump the last shot of chai syrup into her cup, it splashed—mostly on me, but a little on her.
Silicone lady: Oh shit, it’s all over me and I have on white!
Me: Oh, it really didn’t get on you, just a speck on top, but I’ll get you a paper towel. I turn and mutter to myself—‘if you don’t want to get splashed, don’t stand so close to the f@ckin’ bar!
Me: Here you go, I said with a smile, handing her the paper towels.
Silicone Lady: That’s not gonna do SH!T. This is a white shirt!
Now hold up. We were cool until she started cursing at me. It really wasn’t my fault. She didn’t need to be all up in my workspace like that. So, you know I had to bring the lesson.
Me: Ma’am, I’m sorry you got splashed, but maybe you shouldn’t stand so close to the bar next time. You decide. Regardless, it would behoove you not to curse at me in the future, especially since you come here often, and I make your drinks often. Here’s your drink. Have a nice day.
Now, in hindsight, there were a dozen far more clever comebacks than that. And to be honest she deserved a old-fashioned cursing-out of the black mamma variety. But as part of the working class, I understand that the world doesn’t revolve around me, so she’ll get more lessons, I’m certain. Just not from me.
But in a place like Starbucks, a coffee shop corporation that has more than 6,000 clones of itself around the world, the issue of quality control becomes an issue so huge that overseers are hired to oversee the overseer of the overseers. And even with a chain of command long enough to link arms around the globe, we somehow ended up with Donna, our sometimes sweet but grossly incapable and unaccountable store manager. She shared with her employees an abusive husband/abused wife type relationship. In other words, she would make big mistakes that really fucked up our lives and would buy us stuff (food) to make it up to us. For example, she always scolded certain partners for being late, but thought nothing of it when she was 30 minutes late herself. Or what about the time she just didn’t schedule anyone to open the store, and then when customers asked about it, blamed it on someone else. She would consistently schedule me for days that I had clearly stated I was unavailable for. She violated the dress code and our innocence with some of the clothing she wore to work. But snapped on us if the sole of our shoe was white. She cried uncontrollably in the back of the store after her big break up and annoyingly wiped every surface off with a sopping wet rag. Did she just slip and slide across her home when she was younger? She constantly reached over, above and below you and thought that the phrase “excuse my reach” was a suitable substitute for saying excuse me before she gets in your way. She talked about herself too much and way too loudly, and was always sharing details about her intimate health issues. But perhaps to everyone’s detriment, including the customers, one of the worst things she did was freak out if we had a line longer than three people. I mean she really started scrambling to do everything at once and completely wrecked our flow. On my first day of work, I showed up at 6 a.m. for training, but she strolled in at 8:45 and left me in the hands of a shift manager who didn’t know what to do with me. She kept doing that. And one of the more inhuman things she did was call the police on homeless people outside begging for change. She actually one day said; “Call the police, we need to get that woman from in front of the store, she might bite someone.” It’s Chicago. This is the Gold Coast. Smart bums know where the money’s at. What did she expect?
We all thought that the day Donna forgot to schedule someone to open the store was the day we’d all bid her our adieus. We wouldn’t be so lucky. BUT. Just a few weeks later, while she was on vacation, we all got a sign that her time was up. One Sunday a storm in the form of our district manager blew into our store. He took Polaroids of the entire store and said in disgust, “The health department would have a field day with me.” After completing his inspection, he looked at everyone and said, “Don’t worry, by Monday, everything will be a lot better.” Turns out, she was stupider than we all thought. Instead of just asking new hires for two forms of ID to complete the FEDERAL I-9 forms, the forms that prove we are who we say we are, Donna decided it would be more convenient FOR HER to just sign them herself. Can we spell felony, boys and girls? She came back from vacation and whisked in and out of the store, trying her best not to burst in tears. Indeed, she had been terminated. Some were worried that after her failed 5-year relationship and now this, she would attempt to end her life. The entire episode was better than reality TV. This stuff, you just have no desire to fabricate. She is now a manager at J. Crew; that’s the funny part. The sad part is that she turned in all of the keys except the one we needed to unlock the front door. For the second time in only a few months, the Gold Coast neighborhood Starbucks didn’t open until after noon on a Sunday. This time, when our customers asked what happened, we told them the truth.
To be fair, I have to tell you that we now have a competent manager, who came in there in Fab Five fashion and cleaned the place to perfection—he even dusted the ceiling. And I must also admit that many of our regulars are nice, decent people. Even if they do buy Walker’s shortbread cookies for their dog or decaf Americano’s for their children, they’re still really nice people who treat us with respect. Those are the ones who sometimes get a free drink or a venti latte for the size of a tall. And we like our Chicago Latin School kids, who have a Starbucks budget, no job, Prada bags, Dolce and Gabbana clothes and Lexus trucks—we’re just jealous of them. But look at it this way, if you’re in a career rut, which you likely are if you’ve agreed to work for a $7/hr wage despite the two framed degrees you have on the wall, remember that Starbucks is a great equalizer. Everyone buys coffee there--students, corporate executives, news producers, DEA agents and magazine editors. If you’re nice to the right people and treat Starbucks like a ‘real job,’ the one you’ve been looking for could fall right into your lap. OR you could just get sick of Starbucks like I did, forget the fairytale ending, make your peace with being broke with one job instead of two, and quit.
To provide some clarity here at the forefront, I must warn you that my Starbucks isn’t like the others. At least I hope not. It’s more of a coffee boutique than a coffee shop. It lay on the cusp of the upper echelon of downtown—the Gold Coast and the wanna-be-upper-echelon of Chicago—Lincoln Park. It’s a small shop—three people behind the counter is a squeeze with a demanding crowd of sometimes nice, but mostly whining aristocrats and their children, who only confirm my belief that people with too much money simply shouldn’t interact with the general public; reproducing is risky. Apparently, once they’ve stepped out of the “inner realm” (you know, golf at the club, charity banquets, Barney’s shopping sprees) in which they live, they forget that nobody cares how much money they have. That people in the real world demand respect—from everyone. Unfortunately for them, it’s our job to remind them that the world doesn’t revolve around them; that kingdoms don’t rise and fall at their command. Nor do we at Starbucks. Consider this conversation:
Man: Uh, give me a tall, skim, sugar-free vanilla misto.
Me: That will be $3.02, sir.
He digs in his pocket; his hand emerges with a fist full of dollar bills. Four to be exact. He counts them out to me and then:
Man: Well, I’m not going to break another dollar just for 2 cents. Just take it out of here, he instructs me, pointing to our hollow tip jar.
Now, usually, if your drink comes to $4.01 and you don’t have a penny, I’m not going to give you 99cents back. I’ll volunteer to dip in the tip jar and gladly donate a penny to your cause--even if I did just see you, a la Karen Walker, sift through a wad of 20s, trying desperately to find some singles. But not Mr. Misto. He was ordering me, not asking me to give him my hard-earned money. Maybe that works in the “inner realm,” but not here.
Me: I don’t mind giving you the pennies, but just so you know, this is not a give-a-penny, take-a-penny jar. This is a tip jar,” I said with calm resolve.
Man: WELL YOU DON’T HAVE TO GET ALL PISSY ABOUT IT—I PUT MONEY IN THAT THING EVERYDAY!
Me: Well, sir, I’m not here everyday, so I’m not certain of your tipping habits; however, I am certain that this is a tip jar, not a give-a-penny, take-a-penny jar. Just so you know.
Whatever he said after that is unimportant because at that point I was plotting my counterattack. He tried to step on me; I had to teach him a lesson. He was so busy being a Billy Badass that he forgot that as the girl wearing the apron and hat, I had the power in this situation. I could give him a ‘spit latte’ if I wanted or a sludge misto. I could ‘accidentally’ dip our sanitized rag in his coffee, you know, to stir in the vanilla syrup. I could do whatever I wanted. Settling on a mild punishment, I silently prayed he wasn’t diabetic and gave him regular vanilla syrup, but at the same time, hoped he suffered sugar shock on his way to work. He deserved worse.
But not all of our customers are just out and out rude. Some of them mask it. They’re real polite at first, but put one too many ice cubes in their double-tall-upside-down-caramel macchiatto, and the bitch will emerge. In an effort to ensure a perfect drink, some of our customers have grown accustomed to leaning over the side of the bar to watch us so that they may dictate as we go along. “Oh, I’ll take that extra shot, if you’re not using it,” or “Oh, oh, that’s enough caramel.” And “Oh, I meant to say no whipped cream. I’m sooooo sorry.” That position has its advantages, but it also has its drawbacks. Consider this woman’s unfortunate event.
Silicone lady: Hi
Me (busily preparing her beverage in three minutes or less. Today, she’s having two venti chai lattes): Hi. How are you? I reply.
And as I pump the last shot of chai syrup into her cup, it splashed—mostly on me, but a little on her.
Silicone lady: Oh shit, it’s all over me and I have on white!
Me: Oh, it really didn’t get on you, just a speck on top, but I’ll get you a paper towel. I turn and mutter to myself—‘if you don’t want to get splashed, don’t stand so close to the f@ckin’ bar!
Me: Here you go, I said with a smile, handing her the paper towels.
Silicone Lady: That’s not gonna do SH!T. This is a white shirt!
Now hold up. We were cool until she started cursing at me. It really wasn’t my fault. She didn’t need to be all up in my workspace like that. So, you know I had to bring the lesson.
Me: Ma’am, I’m sorry you got splashed, but maybe you shouldn’t stand so close to the bar next time. You decide. Regardless, it would behoove you not to curse at me in the future, especially since you come here often, and I make your drinks often. Here’s your drink. Have a nice day.
Now, in hindsight, there were a dozen far more clever comebacks than that. And to be honest she deserved a old-fashioned cursing-out of the black mamma variety. But as part of the working class, I understand that the world doesn’t revolve around me, so she’ll get more lessons, I’m certain. Just not from me.
But in a place like Starbucks, a coffee shop corporation that has more than 6,000 clones of itself around the world, the issue of quality control becomes an issue so huge that overseers are hired to oversee the overseer of the overseers. And even with a chain of command long enough to link arms around the globe, we somehow ended up with Donna, our sometimes sweet but grossly incapable and unaccountable store manager. She shared with her employees an abusive husband/abused wife type relationship. In other words, she would make big mistakes that really fucked up our lives and would buy us stuff (food) to make it up to us. For example, she always scolded certain partners for being late, but thought nothing of it when she was 30 minutes late herself. Or what about the time she just didn’t schedule anyone to open the store, and then when customers asked about it, blamed it on someone else. She would consistently schedule me for days that I had clearly stated I was unavailable for. She violated the dress code and our innocence with some of the clothing she wore to work. But snapped on us if the sole of our shoe was white. She cried uncontrollably in the back of the store after her big break up and annoyingly wiped every surface off with a sopping wet rag. Did she just slip and slide across her home when she was younger? She constantly reached over, above and below you and thought that the phrase “excuse my reach” was a suitable substitute for saying excuse me before she gets in your way. She talked about herself too much and way too loudly, and was always sharing details about her intimate health issues. But perhaps to everyone’s detriment, including the customers, one of the worst things she did was freak out if we had a line longer than three people. I mean she really started scrambling to do everything at once and completely wrecked our flow. On my first day of work, I showed up at 6 a.m. for training, but she strolled in at 8:45 and left me in the hands of a shift manager who didn’t know what to do with me. She kept doing that. And one of the more inhuman things she did was call the police on homeless people outside begging for change. She actually one day said; “Call the police, we need to get that woman from in front of the store, she might bite someone.” It’s Chicago. This is the Gold Coast. Smart bums know where the money’s at. What did she expect?
We all thought that the day Donna forgot to schedule someone to open the store was the day we’d all bid her our adieus. We wouldn’t be so lucky. BUT. Just a few weeks later, while she was on vacation, we all got a sign that her time was up. One Sunday a storm in the form of our district manager blew into our store. He took Polaroids of the entire store and said in disgust, “The health department would have a field day with me.” After completing his inspection, he looked at everyone and said, “Don’t worry, by Monday, everything will be a lot better.” Turns out, she was stupider than we all thought. Instead of just asking new hires for two forms of ID to complete the FEDERAL I-9 forms, the forms that prove we are who we say we are, Donna decided it would be more convenient FOR HER to just sign them herself. Can we spell felony, boys and girls? She came back from vacation and whisked in and out of the store, trying her best not to burst in tears. Indeed, she had been terminated. Some were worried that after her failed 5-year relationship and now this, she would attempt to end her life. The entire episode was better than reality TV. This stuff, you just have no desire to fabricate. She is now a manager at J. Crew; that’s the funny part. The sad part is that she turned in all of the keys except the one we needed to unlock the front door. For the second time in only a few months, the Gold Coast neighborhood Starbucks didn’t open until after noon on a Sunday. This time, when our customers asked what happened, we told them the truth.
To be fair, I have to tell you that we now have a competent manager, who came in there in Fab Five fashion and cleaned the place to perfection—he even dusted the ceiling. And I must also admit that many of our regulars are nice, decent people. Even if they do buy Walker’s shortbread cookies for their dog or decaf Americano’s for their children, they’re still really nice people who treat us with respect. Those are the ones who sometimes get a free drink or a venti latte for the size of a tall. And we like our Chicago Latin School kids, who have a Starbucks budget, no job, Prada bags, Dolce and Gabbana clothes and Lexus trucks—we’re just jealous of them. But look at it this way, if you’re in a career rut, which you likely are if you’ve agreed to work for a $7/hr wage despite the two framed degrees you have on the wall, remember that Starbucks is a great equalizer. Everyone buys coffee there--students, corporate executives, news producers, DEA agents and magazine editors. If you’re nice to the right people and treat Starbucks like a ‘real job,’ the one you’ve been looking for could fall right into your lap. OR you could just get sick of Starbucks like I did, forget the fairytale ending, make your peace with being broke with one job instead of two, and quit.
