The Art of Ending

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once wrote:

"Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending."

I think I kinda suck at both.  It takes me a little while to become comfortable in a new environment: to form the close types of bonds with people and places that make life meaningful.  But then once that happens, I become incredibly attached and can't imagine a life before or after.

I think that Longfellow is talking about transitions.  So far in my life I've had several major transitions and handfuls of lesser ones: my family moved during the summer between eighth grade and high school, I moved away to Michigan for college, after college I came out to DC for AmeriCorps.  Since the conclusion of my AmeriCorps term of service, I've kind of felt like I've been swirling around in the transition from hell.

I'm here.
But the reason I came here has ended.
I'm working at a coffee shop while I'm waiting for my life to pick up it's natural trajectory again.

But like I said: I get attached.
Just this past week, there were two independent occasions in which I had to say 'goodbye' to awesome regulars who were leaving the area due to work changes.

Last night I said goodbye to one of the construction guys you may remember from this post.  As we said our goodbyes and gave each other our best wishes for the future, he embarrassingly drew attention to the fact that I was getting a little choked up.  But I can't help it when it comes to goodbyes!

During the summer after college and before I moved to DC, I worked as a live-in tutor in Athens for the richest family I'd ever met (they owned a bunch of crazy-nice hotels and some sort of steel-shipping conglomerate).  It basically sucked.  The 3, 5, and 7 year old girls I essentially worked for were mean, prada-wearing, screaming, spitting, hitting, brats who made me cry like every night.  The family had a household staff (of course...) consisting of a groundskeeper, 3 cooks/housekeepers, and a nanny, who'd all come from China to work there about 5 years back.  They were the only reason I survived the summer.

Lately, I've been thinking that perhaps God places certain people in our lives for prescribed periods of time because we simply need each other.  There were particularly difficult times during that summer where I felt like Haiyan, the girls' nanny, was in fact my nanny.  Haiyan spoke Chinese and Greek + a couple English phrases here and there.  I speak English.  But things like loneliness, hurt, culture-shock, and exhaustion are universal.  So is kindness.  Haiyan might've noticed one too many brats spit at me for trying to get her to do her homework, and so she'd bring me an ice cream cone.  I've never eaten so much ice cream in my life.

I hated Greece.  But that was one of the hardest goodbyes I've ever had to say.

Likewise, I can't wait say goodbye to this transition period that I'm in right now.  But, I've also grown attached to my coffee shop peeps, and saying goodbye (whenever that finally happens) will suck.  I have some of the girls that work at the shop over to my house to share a meal and chit-chat + a little harmless bitching about our 'favorite' customers about once a month.  I get choked up when my actual favorite customers move away.

I guess I don't really have anything profound to say about 'the art of ending' because I'm really bad at it myself.  The idea that people who were so important to certain periods of your life simply cannot be involved in the same way when those periods are over, doesn't sit well with me and probably never will.

But that's how transitions work.  And that's why they suck

But good thing it's an art-form, since I'll probably have a lifetime of big and small transitions with which to master!
   

Soooooo....Apparently, I Serve Coffee to a Saudi Prince?

One of my co-workers is Syrian.

He's basically obsessed with his roots, and he loves nothing more than a good conversation in Arabic with whomever from our multitudinous Arabic-patronage happens to be buying coffee at the moment.

So, there's this big, middle-aged Saudi man who always comes into the shop with a varying assortment of college-aged Arabic guys.  Like every day.   Oh yeah, and they always pull up in a different Ferrari, Lamborghini, or otherwise ridiculously expensive car (*note: I know nothing of the value/awesomeness of cars  -  this I've simply ascertained from the freak-outs on the part of my male co-workers each time the crew rolls up).  The gang just chills there for a couple hours drinking white mochas (after they like totally load our tip jar).

Naturally, we've always been curious about what the story is with this unlikely crew - is the older guy a friend? cool uncle? some sort of mentor, perhaps?  Why in the world do they tip us double the cost of their drinks?  What's with all the sweet rides?

Finally, my co-worker who loves him some Arabic-convo, does some preliminary digging and asks the older guy what he does, only to find out that he's some kind of a hot-shot in the Saudi military, currently acting as a bodyguard.  His charge: one of the young guys who's always part of the group, who, oh - by the way - just happens to be one of the sons of the king of Saudi Arabia!?   He's going to college here in DC or something.

So, I guess we have royalty in our midst?

It kind of reminded me of all those different movies like Roman Holiday or (on a cheesier note) The Prince and Me where royal personages try to slip into 'average' life undetected.

It's weird that we all finally know the great mystery behind the generous-tipping, Ferrari-driving, multi-generational Saudi crew- like we're privy to some great big secret (the princes and princesses in the movies never want to be found out).

Well, when I got home of course I wikipedia-ed it because I just had to know more.  Apparently, our prince in question is one of the 'at least thirty-five children' fathered by King Abdullah.

I wonder where he falls in the birth order!

Coffee & Kindness

People who have never worked at a coffee shop can't possibly understand all that goes on behind the scenes to get you your caffeinated bevy.  One of our regulars just started working at another coffee shop as a part-time gig while he's in grad school, and he confirmed these sentiments when after his first day, he entered our shop full of newfound awe and appreciation.

I'm a quick learner.  Slow people annoy me.  And I'm rarely not good at new things.  (And I'm really humble). That's why it was sooooo freaking hard for me to accept the learning curve I had to operate under when I first started working at the coffee shop. 

I messed up a lot of drinks.  I was moving at turtle-tempo.  And the endless lines of cranky customers made me want to crawl under the espresso machine and cry. 

Those first few weeks were a swirling blur of cups and faces, but there were two customers that made a great enough impression that I think about them from time to time, even now, months later.  

The first was a woman who ordered a cafe vanilla frappuccino, an item that somehow slipped through my beverage-training regime.  For the most part, the drinks are relatively intuitive once you get the system down, so I took a stab at it, actually made it correctly, but then called it out wrong: 'cafe vanilla-BEAN frappuccino!' And OH MY WORD - THE WORLD WAS GONNA END!  I'd screwed things up way worse than that (it was my first week, for goodness sake) and had gotten a lesser reaction.  So, I think that it was shock more than anything - but that was the closest I'd come to crying.  So, congratulations to customer-#1-that-I-will-remember-from-my-first-week. 

The second customer that I will always remember from week-1 is this guy, who in the midst of the longest line ever and a drink that I spilled all over him, made me stop. look him in the eyes. and hear that my worth as a human-being doesn't correlate with my ability to make coffee.  Have you ever felt like complete crap? Maybe when you were a little kid and you did something really bad and your parents were super-mad at you?  There were tears everywhere, but then the 'rents hugged you and said that they love you now and always.  That kind of grace is almost so good it hurts.  My day - my whole first week up through that point: just crappy.  And then that happened.  And I wanted to cry once again.  But in a good way!

I really love that quote by Plato: 'Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.'  Maybe both of those customers could tell that it was my first week (let's be honest...I was a mess).  Maybe both of those customers were going through their own crises, things that couldn't even compare to my relatively pathetic little foray into the world of beverage-preparation. 

How do I know?

But I did take something away from those two very different customer-interactions that I've applied to life both inside and outside of the coffee shop.  That 'be kind' mentality.  I'll admit that I'm not always that great at it.  I've got a pretty expressive face and I'm usually really upbeat, so I've been told that I don't always hide my emotions that well when someone hurts me.  But when new people start working at our shop, I always try to remember back to my first weeks as a barista and extend a little extra grace to them whenever possible.  

And more importantly, when customers come in that are real biz-nitches, I try (with incrementally-increasing success) to give them the benefit of the doubt and excuse their poor behavior as manifestations of battle-wounds from whatever 'hard battle' it is that they're fighting. 

Best,

Lise

Customer-Interactions: The Funny And The Creepy

When you work at a coffee shop (so I'm learning) you cross paths with some really interesting characters.

One of my co-workers has been moving his way up the ladder from barista to supervisor over the course of the past 3 years.  He usually supervises the closing shift, so we work together a lot.  Our regulars, the cool ones and those interesting ones too, get used to having us there at night.  And so an on-going rapport develops:

The guy that supervises the closing shift is one of those 'can't-really-tell-if-you're-being-a-sassy-jackass-but-it's-somehow-endearing-so-I'll-just-let-it-slide' types.  Every night before close, we have these two macho construction workers come into the shop to caffeinate before heading out to start their over-night shifts tearing up some part or another of 495.  For as long as I've worked there, and for who knows how long before that, their 'thing' has been giving my co-worker crap. Because he's an ass and it's funny.

A couple weeks ago, one of the macho construction workers was being unusually nice to my co-worker and he even invited him to his farm to shoot skeet or something...is that even a thing, or did I just make that up?  My co-worker gave the guy his number, but then after they left he turned to me with second thoughts, wondering if that was weird.  Meh. Whatevs.

The next night, my co-worker was all: 'I need to talk to you. Something happened last night after I locked up.  Remember those construction guys who always come in?  Well, the one who invited me to his farm was waiting for me by my motorcycle after I locked up.  He was being all nice and creepy and showing me pictures of his farm on his phone.  Do you think he invited me to his farm to kill me?'  I could tell that he was joking, but still freaked out.  Apparently there was an 'elbow-grab' during some part of their conversation the previous night.  He was all - 'maybe you could walk me to my motorcycle after close tonight..haha?' But kind of serious.

When the construction guys came in later for their nightly coffees, my co-worker high-tailed it to the back-room, having previously given me instructions to feel the situation out.  The guys and I were chatting while I was making their drinks, and the one asked me where my partner in crime was?  'Oh, just doing some dishes in the back,' I replied.  He turns to his friend and goes, 'I was totally effing with him last night!  It was hilarious.  I waited for him by his bike after he locked up and he was completely freaked out.  He's probably hiding from me.  Punk.'

Okay.  Funny-ish.  Boy-humor, maybe?  I don't get it?  But still, maybe not a bad idea to institute some sort of 'make sure everyone makes it safely into their cars after we get out of there at midnight' rule. Just in case.

Especially since this happened last week:

It was a slow night, and I was minding my own business working at the bar, while this other girl was on register.  All of a sudden, I was disrupted from my drink-making-zen-rhythm by:

'You're a vegetarian, aren't you?'

....confused...open-mouthed...blank stare...oh SHOOOOT, those espresso shots are expiring while I'm trying to figure out how this weirdo I've never seen before knows that I prefer meals of the non-animal-variety.

'I can tell because of your body-type.'

....Anddd there's my answer.  My body-type.  Of course.  It's only covered by my baggy collared shirt and this super-cool apron.  But, why not?

I quickly prepare dude-who-thinks-it's-appropriate-to-comment-on-his-barista's-body-type's beverage and hand it off, hoping to sneak away to the back ASAP.  Except for he decides to spark up a twenty-minute conversation (...slow night) that leads us on a scintillating journey from the three most recent items he's crossed off his bucket-list all the way over to Roth IRA's...?

It was realllllly weird.  And officially, my creepiest customer-intereation to date.

Anyways dudes, in case there was ever any shadow of a doubt, waiting for a male barista that you've known for years by his bike after close to 'mess with him': funny(ish).  Citing your female barista's body as a conversation-opener: creepy.

Till next time,

Lise

The Nighttime Regulars

So, I typically work the closing shift which has its pros and its cons:

Pro: I don't have to work with the psycho shift-supervisor who almost invariably works opening shifts.  This is reason enough for me to favor closing shifts, yo!
Con: My store stays open till 11:00 pm on weekdays and 11:30 (!!!) on Saturdays (...10:30 on Sundays), so I can't ever watch Vampire Diaries at its normal time. Eff.
Pro: I start work at 3:00.
Con: I can't sleep-in past 8:00 am. Ever. Nuts.
Pro: Most of the nighttime customers are stinkin' awesome!

I like my nighttime regulars a lot.  There's the guy who orders an average of 5 venti nonfat upside-down caramel macchiatos a night. Caffeine much?  There's the guy who orders a grande whole milk earl grey latte and talks to me for a few minutes as he adds the perfect combination of sweeteners and powders - a veritable chemistry lab.  There's the most adorable couple in the world who have found the secret to making their marriage work: nightly trips to their neighborhood coffee shop for a decaf solo macchiato, a tall latte, conversation, and adorableness.  There are the two 'platonic' besties who come in every night for coffee and work on their laptops, even though you can totally tell that this time spent next to each other 'working' and chatting it up is the highlight of their days.  There's that strange old couple who comes in with the most specific order of beverages and food items every.day. And as much as they're a tad frustrating, I love the predictable rhythm they bring to my night.  All of these people with their same orders night-in and night-out bring a steadiness that I find myself craving for my life on a grander scale these days.

I mentioned that I'm barista-ing while searching for other employment: my vocation, my 'calling' if you will.  Last year, I served as an AmeriCorps volunteer with an amazing non-profit organization.  I was given a ton of responsibility, I loved what I did, and it made me feel good and useful.  Since my term of service ended, I've rejoined the leagues of recent-college-grads in job hunt world.  Anyone who's searching for a job right now should be able to empathize with the feeling of a complete lack of control in this arena, just as I've experienced for the past several months now.  Every resume that I send out and get no response back from is another organization who, for some reason or another, I am not right (good enough) for.

I know that in this economy, it's incredibly difficult to find a job, and I am so thankful that I have the coffee shop because it pays the rent in the meantime, while giving me the flexibility to look for something that I truly want to do.  So many people don't have this luxury.

I'm also thankful for my lovely nighttime regulars who, through their steadiness and predictability, have leant me some of that stability that's currently missing from other areas of my life.

Anywho, till next time,

Lise