I started working in a coffee shop back in August. Since then, I've observed a lot of things I would have otherwise not been able to. The main problem with working at a coffee shop is simple: no one has had their coffee yet. These poor addicts come to us like dying dogs to get their fix of caffeine. These dying dogs are often crabby, tired and angry at themselves for spending $5.00 buying something they know will only sustain them for a few hours. in this state their general intelligence and likability is dramatically inhibited. Many interactions go terribly wrong.
"Will you leave some room for cream at the top, there?"
Sometimes I really want to turn around and angrily say,
"No, sir. I can't. We leave room at the bottom here."
Where else am I going to leave room?
"How are you today, I'd like a large white chocolate mocha."
And as I have once explained, I did not add this comma to indicate a pause in the sentence.
Why ask the question if you don't even pretend to want to know the answer?
One observation that came to a pinnacle just this morning at work is a customer's tendency to order a beverage in a perfectly incorrect way. Today I have a customer angrily order a drink:
"Can I have a large, skim, iced, sugar free caramel, light on the ice, latte."
This wouldn't have been so terrible if she had said it a little faster. But that was simply not the case. She left a good three seconds between every additional qualification for her freaking latte.And worse than that, she was noticeably upset that I wasn't punching buttons as she was talking. Well, miss, maybe next time you should start your long list with the first button I have to press. I understand that customers don't know the exact order we have to press our buttons, but the possibility of the size being the first thing to ring up is just incredibly low.
Another humorous daily encounter I have with people is their apparent inability to distinguish perfectly obviously different things from one another. I can't tell you how many times people ask me which scone is cranberry. "The one with cranberries on it" I always respond. Today somebody asked me what the bread on the bottom was. I really wanted to tell her to read the sign right in front of it that said "BANANA BREAD" but I refrained.
One of my personal favorite things that often goes wrong is when people come in fifteen minutes before they are supposed to be at some crazy large gathering and ask us for 2.5 gallons of coffee immediately. They are often angry when we tell them it will be a 20 minute wait since it would be absolutely ridiculous of us to have 2.5 gallons of coffee at any given moment brewed.
Sometimes people ask me why they have to wait for two minutes while I brew more coffee because ours either ran out or expired. I would love to remind them that if they were at a coffee shop that actually treated coffee with the degree of attention and precision it deserves, they would have to wait at least four minutes for every cup of coffee to be individually brewed.
Unlike Starbucks, we use small, medium and large to describe the smallness, mediumness and largeness of our cups (rather than the tallness, grandeness and ventiness). This confuses the crap out of people, which really baffles me. This is America. When has it every been more confusing when things are in plain English? One day a lady ordered three "tall" mochas. In an effort to be polite I didn't correct her, and instead converted Starbucks sizes into our sizes to come out with three small mochas.She quickly reported to me that the total was too inexpensive, and I read aloud from the screen "three large mochas." She angrily told me she wanted three tall mochas. "Three medium mochas?" "No!" "Three large mochas?" "Yeah."
Okay well, if you're going to order a size that doesn't even exist at a particular coffee shop, at least ensure your have the conversion right. No tip on that order, that's for sure.
This is probably only funny to people that actually work at coffee shops, but there are a lot of us.
Speaking of things that are only funny to people that work at coffee shops, listen to this.
"Will you leave some room for cream at the top, there?"
Sometimes I really want to turn around and angrily say,
"No, sir. I can't. We leave room at the bottom here."
Where else am I going to leave room?
"How are you today, I'd like a large white chocolate mocha."
And as I have once explained, I did not add this comma to indicate a pause in the sentence.
Why ask the question if you don't even pretend to want to know the answer?
One observation that came to a pinnacle just this morning at work is a customer's tendency to order a beverage in a perfectly incorrect way. Today I have a customer angrily order a drink:
"Can I have a large, skim, iced, sugar free caramel, light on the ice, latte."
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| Yeah, our main screen probably looks like this. |
Another humorous daily encounter I have with people is their apparent inability to distinguish perfectly obviously different things from one another. I can't tell you how many times people ask me which scone is cranberry. "The one with cranberries on it" I always respond. Today somebody asked me what the bread on the bottom was. I really wanted to tell her to read the sign right in front of it that said "BANANA BREAD" but I refrained.
One of my personal favorite things that often goes wrong is when people come in fifteen minutes before they are supposed to be at some crazy large gathering and ask us for 2.5 gallons of coffee immediately. They are often angry when we tell them it will be a 20 minute wait since it would be absolutely ridiculous of us to have 2.5 gallons of coffee at any given moment brewed.
Sometimes people ask me why they have to wait for two minutes while I brew more coffee because ours either ran out or expired. I would love to remind them that if they were at a coffee shop that actually treated coffee with the degree of attention and precision it deserves, they would have to wait at least four minutes for every cup of coffee to be individually brewed.
Unlike Starbucks, we use small, medium and large to describe the smallness, mediumness and largeness of our cups (rather than the tallness, grandeness and ventiness). This confuses the crap out of people, which really baffles me. This is America. When has it every been more confusing when things are in plain English? One day a lady ordered three "tall" mochas. In an effort to be polite I didn't correct her, and instead converted Starbucks sizes into our sizes to come out with three small mochas.She quickly reported to me that the total was too inexpensive, and I read aloud from the screen "three large mochas." She angrily told me she wanted three tall mochas. "Three medium mochas?" "No!" "Three large mochas?" "Yeah."
Okay well, if you're going to order a size that doesn't even exist at a particular coffee shop, at least ensure your have the conversion right. No tip on that order, that's for sure.
This is probably only funny to people that actually work at coffee shops, but there are a lot of us.
Speaking of things that are only funny to people that work at coffee shops, listen to this.
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