147xxxx

“Oh, Saturday night? I can’t. Yeah, I’m going out to karaoke with my baristas”

Yesterday my coworker commented on the Aretha playing in our store saying that it was so his song.  One of our favorite customers (the one who reminds me of this mom video and my coworker, and we gave her a starbucks card when she was having her baby since we figured we weren’t going to see her for awhile… I can’t find these posts but whatever) started teasing him “oh god, you so would say that.”  I laughed asking him if that’s what he’s going to sing when we finally go to karaoke.  The customer is like “you’re going karaoking? when?”  We tell her that we have no idea, but we’ve been wanting to go for so long.  My coworker says to her “what? you wanna come?”  She says “well I’m not working this weekend - are you guys free Saturday?”  So my coworker is like this is too brilliant and goes into the back room to see what our schedules are like.  We’re both totally off work that night.  When we tell her that we don’t know where we’re going yet, she says that she’ll find the place and let us know.

My coworker and I are SO EXCITED.  We’re going to go out with our awesome 40 something customer and have a hell of a time.

Listen up, dude with nice hair and a good tan 365 days out of the year who obviously spends a lot of time at the gym

you are charming no one.

love

147xxxx

p.s. do you only wear muscle shirts

When we’re really busy, this guy will walk up to the counter - of course not waiting in line, take a free pastry sample, then yell for the person on bar to make him an ice water.  Then after he gets his water at the handoff counter, he’ll come back to the registers and take another sample.  He’s the kind of person who takes the sample and leaves the cup/container sitting on the counter.

He brings in the same cup and gets a refill.  The cup is slowly rotting away and is super raunch.  When he wants a flavor, he bitches about the additional cost.  Sorry, I’m not going to give it to you for free because you look like you could be a hair model.  I don’t think your ass is hot.  I just think you’re a cheap ass.

And he acts as if we should be running to him and putting aside whatever we’re doing to get his refill or god damn iced water.

Any part of him that might have once been attractive is diminished by his skeezy attitude that makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little.

This guy just totally gets under my skin.  I saw him in line (which was shocking - in line!) trying to pick up these two girls with his hair toss.  Eh, he looked like such a Chester Molester.  I feel like everyone knew of this guy in high school.  His neck was super thick, and he walked around like his arms were significantly bigger than they actually were.  And he was super rude to girls, but they were too dumb to say anything besides “OHMYGOD! YOU’RE SOOO MEAN!!”  And then when he said something stupid, and the legit kids called him out on it, he said something even more ridiculously stupid.  And then 3 years after you graduate, you randomly run into him at a bar and his drunk ass tries to hook up with your best friend from high school and he’s looking pathetic.  wait… okay sorry, I don’t know where I got off there…

ANYWAY, the other day I learned something about him that really terrified me.

HE’S BREEDING.

While I was at register, this like 11 year old kid walks up, rolls his eyes, and says “god, starbucks plays the whitest music.”  I took one look at this kid with his shiny brunette hair saying this douchey comment and knew that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. And uhm okay, lauryn hill.  Wtf is white music?  I don’t know what Dizzy Gillespie would think about you saying this about his version of tin tin deo.  I’m pretty sure when I was 11 I was still playing in dirt and not making comments like that.  I basically ignored him until he asked for a tall iced water.  His dad came in a second later and yelled over at his son to order him an iced venti ice water.

As soon as they left, I turned to my coworker and said how I had no idea that the asshole had a son, and honestly I’m wondering how long ago he found out that he had a son.  My coworker said that the dynamic douche duo came in a few days ago.  The son apparently said to my coworker “so… if I ordered coffee.. would you actually give it to me… like since I’m a kid?  because coffee’s bad for kids… so would you still let me drink it?”  Like trying to challenge my coworker with this “moral dilemma.”  She was basically like uhm, its not illegal and it should be up to your parent to decide if coffee is okay for you.

Jerk father and punk ass son - what a happy family

Dear Coworker,

I love that you are super friendly with customers.  Its really great that you know their names and go out of your way to make them feel special.

But when you’re double baring with me in the middle of a rush, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help me with the 14 drinks I have and the 9 drink order called out to me instead of drawing stars, hearts, and smiley faces on Vincent’s quad with a splash for two minutes.

Thaaaaanks,

147xxxx

Regardless of how much it stings, I will always ALWAYS laugh when someone says “I got chai in my eye!” esp when that someone is me  

So yesterday morning at 4:30AM, I’m walking my 2 minute walk to the subway station, and I see a truck from starbucks’s delivery company parked almost right outside of my building. I thought it was kind of odd since there wasn’t a starbucks close by. Well… okay, I suppose there is ALWAYS a starbucks close by, but the truck wasn’t parked right in front of one. As I started to pass the truck, I walked a bit closer to see if the delivery guys were in the truck. They were in there and completely passed out sleeping with their mouths wide open. I thought it was hilarious. I looked at the driver and noticed that it was my favorite delivery guy! Now usually I hate most things about that company, but he’s the only one that’s nice to us and always seems to be working harder than the other guys.
I usually see him near the end of my shift around 10 o’clock, and yesterday I saw him as I’m about to start another shift 6 hours later.
When I passed by him though, I couldn’t help but being so jealous of him. At 4.30 am everyone should be sleeping.

Dear 147xxxx,

My co worker and I both found your blog and we always wish our customers were more entertaining like yours.  We were both wondering if your coworkers know about your blog.  Are you ever worried that you’re manager or district manager is going to find it and then fire you?  Do customers know about your blog? Love your blog tons and please keep the funny stories coming!!!
-Leslie A.K.A.162XXXX

These are all things I’ve definitely given some thought to in the past.  And I’m not talking about the entertaining customers.

My customer’s don’t know about my blog.  Thank god.  Can you imagine?  ”I saw what you wrote about me - AND ITS NOT OKAY THAT YOU’RE OUT OF LEMONADE!!!!”  When I make my exit in 3 weeks, I’m planning on messaging him on facebook and letting him know.  I think he would really appreciate it.

I used to be scared my coworkers would find it and it would be like Harriet the spy and I’d be looking for Rosie O’Donnell for guidance.  But then I realized that I don’t really talk badly about my coworkers.  I’d be more worried that I’d look like a loser, than a traitor.  My coworkers aren’t going to find it - none of them are geeky enough to google anything like starbucks barista or to go on tumblr.

If my old manager found it, I think he’d think it was pretty funny.  If my new manager found it, she’d probably passive agressivly hint that I should quit the blog.

If my district manager found it, she would flip. the. fuck. out.  I imagine walking into my store for work and having her sitting at a table along side my manager, saying “*my name*… we have to speak to you,” and then finding a bs way to fire me.  I thought if this were to happen, I’d say fine.  If a company wants to fire me over making us baristas - the face of their company - seem more human, talking about new promotions, and being pretty damn proud of the brand, then fine.  I’m fired.  DEUCES.

I feel like I’d be able to talk myself out of this situation or at least be able to confidently highlight my positive posts over my how-dumb-can-these-customers-be posts.  What can i say - my dad’s a lawyer.

If I got fired, I also thought it might be a kick to milk all the publicity I could get out of it.  Hey if This is Why You’re Fat and Starbucks saved my Life got book deals, why not me? I kid. I kid.

I just realized that if I ever want to answer questions sent to me, I can’t procrast inate any longer!  You know the drill: send all comments/questions to sb147@nycmail.com

I’M AN IDIOT WHEN I WORK IN THE MORNINGS.

Everyone told me I’d get used to it, but I just can’t really function at 6 in the morning. I told my manager I hate opening. I sucked it up because we needed someone to open, but I am absolutely miserable and constantly counting down until my shift ends. I figured if other people hate opening and say that they aren’t available to do it, why can’t I? Well, I’m still scheduled to open, and this week I’m opening Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Shooooot me now. Today I was planted on bar 2, and I was just so stupid all morning. I couldn’t get into it like I can in the afternoons. I had to write down drinks when they were yelled down to me from the expediter and help make drinks. I guess it doesn’t sound that complicated, but you have to really be aware of everything going on in the back line from the bar side (i.e. look ahead and see what drinks need what milks and check to see if we have enough milk, cold bev, making sure bar 1 person is all stocked up) to the expediter who sometimes calls out a drink to me and sometimes writes it down. Its noisy! It takes a certain savviness, and when I’ve been up since 4:30 am… I just… I just get absolutely retarded. I’d like to think the lack of flow on the floor wasn’t totally my fault, but ha, idk. I probably messed up a million drinks today, so sorry to those customers - our bad. For those of you who open regularly, I don’t know how you do it.

Sometimes I wish I could take pictures of my regulars without looking like a creepster

I’d really love documentation of these awesome two ladies who come on a daily basis.  They’re these two older women, who’s relationship we’re still trying to figure out.  At first we thought they were romantic partners, but now we just think they’re partners in crime.  Definitely roommates.  Perhaps sisters.

They bring in their own mugs and always get decaf coffee.  At night we don’t regularly brew decaf, and I dislike telling people they have to wait 4 minutes for their coffee (not as much as I dislike pouring out an untouched batch of coffee).  When I tell them that we don’t have decaf ready, they’re always so nice about it and usually make a point to say that they don’t mind waiting because it will be nice and fresh just for them.

Sometimes they come in the morning and one of them gets a plain bagel toasted with butter (no knife!) along with the decafs, but I think they come mostly at night.

One of them has these awesome big blue framed glasses, and she wears her hair in a pony tale.  Well most of her hair.  She has a small braid on either side of her face that just hang down.  I have no idea when or if this hair style was ever popular but I just love it.  I’ve never seen her without that look.  The other one’s look is less ostentatious, with thin framed glasses and grey short wavy hair.

The other morning while I was doing a slide, the non-braided woman put on a bicycle helmet and said to her friend and myself “well… up, up, and away!” and her friend goes “oh yes!”

So cute.

Today was kind of stressful.  There was a point for maybe 20 minutes or so where we had a constant stream of customers with a new partner and a borrowed on tills and me (of course) on bar.   The new partner wasn’t that secure on calling and marking drinks, so I had to double check most of the orders that she called out.  The borrowed partner was stressin me out on top of this because she would blindly call out drinks to me without seeing if it was a good time.  Like I would be right in the middle of calling and handing out drinks to customers to customers and she’s all iced grande sugar free cinnamon dolce soy light iced latte.  When you’re calling a drink out, you have to make sure that the person is ready for you to call it or else you just have to repeat it again or say “you got it?” like a million times.  I think we can all agree that this is a time waster.

So I’m in the middle of everything - you know, iced grande unsweetened passion tea lemonade this, iced venti skinny vanilla that - and some of my favorite regulars (a group of guys who work at this music venue) come in.  A friendly face in the middle of some craziness can be really calming, so I’m pretty happy to see them.

So I’m making small talk with them while I finish their drinks, and I get my next drink called to me - iced venti vanilla red eye.  OH HAY, I know who’s drink that is!  Another favorite regular of mine - the fashion student who is a real life Ken doll!  so happy to see him too!  I had an afternoon full of non regulars and now I get two at the same time!  Awesome.

So I turn around to put the shot in the red eye and the borrowed partner calls out a drink to me, but before she can finish “double short with room americano” I hear this Boston accent saying “hay youuu.”  It was my favorite regular who’s been coming in for the 2 years I’ve been there, and works at the comedy club around the block.  ANOTHER FAVORITE REGULAR.

I say “this is crazy! All of my favorites are here right now!”  and “ken” says that it looks like the planets have all aligned for me.  It was an awesome 3 or 4 minutes, and I totally lost all concentration for the drinks that came after that (one of my favorite coworkers came to my rescue and marked the next few cups after regularmania).  Now that I think about it was kind of weird seeing these guys I know well separately together all standing around the handoff counter.

One of them mentioned me leaving (and if they’d be any staaahbucks in prague EDIT: there’s at least one) and so I had to break the news that I was leaving to the regular that didn’t know about it.  Besides my hilarious coworkers, I’m probably going to miss my regulars the most :(