Can I get a tall half-decaf nonfat double caramel macchiato?
I wanted the title to be “Can I get a tall half-decaf half-sweet non-fat double caramel macchiato with no foam?” but my titles have a limited length! Even then, that’s how I’d call the order, it probably would have come from the customer as, “Uhhh, maybe a caramel macchiato, the smaller size, and, like, half-decaf and half-sweet, with, umm, skim milk? Oh, yeah, and no foam? … And an extra shot of espresso.”
So last Sunday I started training as a barista (and, no, not a baristo; I don’t know why) at the Starbucks in Midtown Plaza downtown. I don’t know about you guys, but when I have to learn a whole bunch of things and start applying them almost immediately, I get tired.
Sunday, I got to walk around the store, read stuff and generally loaf around for three hours. Monday, I got to read for a while about espresso bar A then start making some beverages. Do you think that anyone ordered anything from espresso bar A? Good guess, you’re right, no. Nobody ordered anything I knew how to make. So I went home stressed and tired after Monday’s shift. Sleeping that night was 7.5 hours of tossing, turning and waking up, with visions of coffees running through my head.
Tuesday, I thought I could read through espresso bar B, espresso bar C and cold beverages. Nope. “We’re short staffed, so there’s no Learning Coach. Do the point-of-sale training on the computer, it should take a couple of hours.” Okey dokey. I went through the POS training with flying colours, although I had to repeat the final four transactions. (The manager had had to repeat them three times when she trained!) “Alrighty, you can work till for the rest of the day.” Uhh, exsqueeze me? Uhh, baking powder? So, yay, 2 hours on till, and sleeping that night was 7.5 hours of tossing, turning and waking up, with visions of cash transactions running through my head.
Wednesday was cash all day. I thought I’d gotten over it, but again sleeping that night was 7.5 hours of tossing, turning and waking up, with visions of cash transactions running through my head.
Yay, I didn’t have to work Thursday! But today, cash for a bit, then bar for a bit, then cash again for a bit. We’ll see how the sleep goes tonight, but it’ll probably be roughly the same thing again. Damn!
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