Growing up at the Jersey Shore meant the beach was just a short bike ride away. It also meant my oldest brother, Ric, was a lifeguard each summer for as long as I can remember. He called it “donning the green” since the swim trunks they had to wear were a bright kelly green in color. He donned the green each summer. Chris, my second oldest brother, also donned the green. One summer, Steph donned the green, too. As for me, I never donned the green. Until now.
Well…sort of.
Cash was tight. Still is. This is what happens, I have found, when you quit your job without lining a future one up beforehand. Imagine that. Anyway, I’d always been strangely fascinated with becoming a barista. The way they make fancy drinks out of thin air seemed so sophisticated and elegant. Quite naively, I wanted to be sophisticated and elegant, too. The fact that I don’t drink coffee more than once or twice a month (caffeine gives me a major headache) seemed like only a minor, inconsequential detail. As such, for the past two weeks I have been “donning the green”. Green apron, that is. I don’t want to say the company’s name because I’d like to avoid a lawsuit. So just think of a place associated with the terms macchiato, $4 coffee and, yes, green aprons.
Friends: I worked at a place I will not-so-cryptically refer to as “Starcash”.
Starcash is everywhere. You can’t walk more than a few blocks these days without discovering a new Starcash bursting with coffee goodness for you to explore. I checked out their website and they talk a really good game about valuing not only their employees and their happiness but also the environment and taking a socially responsible role within it. That, and they mentioned how they give health insurance to part-timers. And I like health insurance.
So I was hired as a barista. At $8.00 an hour. And no, the irony that I used to make almost three times that an hour was not at all lost on me.
I signed on for the morning shifts as I hoped that would get me up and at ‘em and help me stay motivated about my writing. I had no idea that meant having to be there at 5:30am some days. And since I live a short drive away from the Starcash I applied to, this meant waking up at 4:20am, getting ready and then hitting the road at 5:00am. This also meant I went to bed at 8:30pm. I hadn’t done that since I was about 8-years-old. What provided me a bit of solace from my early mornings was the fact that as an employee of Starcash you get free drinks right before, during, and just after your shift. Anything you want. As I said, I don’t drink coffee too often. So instead of coffee, for the first few days I was trying every frappuccino I had ever had an even remote interest in experiencing. The result was a brief but intense daily sugar high followed by a low and sluggish sugar hangover. I hated it so I promptly adjusted my “habit” to an iced chai every couple of days or so.
I always wondered who actually works at Starcash. Surprisingly, it is a very interesting and intelligent bunch of people and I don’t say that lightly, believe me. The following names have been changed to 'protect' the identities of some of the really sweet and sincere employees I met.
A brief cast of characters:
Melissa-the manager. She is bright-eyed and smart and passionate about her store as she should be. She is ridiculously knowledgeable about coffee and everything related to it. She knows pretty much everything to know and promptly corrects something if it’s wrong. I also get the strange feeling that it is more than just a job for her. You know the girl who was kind of a dork so she always tried too hard when she was younger and then even though she grew up and got a little moxie she never grew out of that dorky stage? The kind that still tries too hard? Everyone knows “that girl”. For a while, I was that girl. Anyway, she’s a little like that. Part of me, as I have to train with Melissa, wants to roll my eyes at her because she tries so hard. The other part of me wants to give her a hug and let her know that she can relax now.
Evan-is the resident rockstar at this particular Starcash. He has a build like Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy but even skinnier and more rockstar sinewy—he must have a size 25 waist, I swear. He wears mod/nerdish glasses and has that perfectly dirty, side-swept rocker shag hair that falls over his eyes. He is funny and snarky and sweet all at once.
Ryan-is probably about my age and is very attractive in that dark and brooding sort of way. We get along, as he is witty and bright. I wasn’t interested in him but I can’t fail to notice that he looks like a much younger, hotter Kevin Spacey. I tell him this in passing thinking he will laugh. He thinks I am hitting on him and promptly begins to avoid me.
Seamus-is probably one of the funniest and most laid back people I’ve ever met. There would be a line out the door and while I would be stressed out he’d be making 4 drinks at once and talking about how he’d happily discovered a channel on XM radio that plays Smurf theme music for a few hours very late each night.
Stan-has a kind face, is in his mid-forties, and is just divorced. Rumor has it his wife got everything. He makes odd jokes so you don’t know if he’s serious or not. He made a comment about leading a depraved and troubling life outside of Starcash. I get it and laugh. He doesn’t and walks away.
Liz-started just a week before me but knows three times what I do in regards to doing this job. She makes drinks and rings up customers and brews coffee like she’s been doing it for years. Through no fault of her own, she promptly makes me feel completely inadequate.
Johnny-is larger-than-life loud and fun and I keep wishing I have a shift with him. He is another resident rock star who is ridiculously funny, so funny that just moments after meeting we quickly find a silly banter to exchange each time we cross paths.
During my shifts, I worked the register, fetched pastries and chatted with the customers. I also cleaned the bathroom (which got wicked nasty), swept the café, set up the pastry case, and ran dishes through the sanitizer. I marked cups with that secret code they have to note a “half-caff, no foam, 180 degree, soy, 2 pump, sugar-free caramel latte”. I kept forgetting the real code (it's ridiculously involved) so I soon made up my own—which never made sense, of course—or I just wrote the whole drink out long-hand, a long novella trailing down the side of the cup.
After living the Starcash life for a bit, here are a few things I learned that I’d like to share in order to make your next Starcash experience as pleasant as possible:
1. When handing cash to a cashier, things to keep in mind: Don’t hand them a ball of crumpled bills. Don’t give a $20 for something that is 3.10, watch the cashier make all of the change and then 10 seconds later say, “Oh, I have a dime for you.” Don’t get annoyed when your credit card takes forever to clear—bring cash next time.
2. Don’t mumble your order and then get annoyed and impatient when you are asked to repeat it.
3. You might be having a bad morning. Don’t take it out on the chick ringing up your mocha.
4. Yes, you might go in every morning and order the same thing. No, they won’t always remember this—they are not coffee savants. In this vein, please also avoid plopping a $20 down and saying, “the usual”.
5. If you say you want it iced that is how you will get it. If you change your mind 5 minutes later and decide you want it hot, oh well.
Seamus told me that a lot of mob guys come into the store because it is right off of the Mass Pike. I knew he wasn’t kidding when I waited on two characters who looked like they were straight out of “The Departed”. They gave me a $100 bill and I was so nervous I couldn’t even make change. They were patient but I couldn’t get rid of them fast enough. I don't swim with sharks.
After 7 shifts (yes, I didn’t even last through the whole training period of 9 shifts), I came to terms with what I knew the first day: the job is ridiculously involved and tedious for $8/hr., I am not passionate about coffee and if I am going to work in customer service/retail I’d much rather work at Whole Foods where I go every other day anyway. Melissa and I parted ways amicably. I thanked her for being so kind and gracious and she thanked me for my honesty in not wanting to bring the morale down by staying. Because by the end, I wanted to tell the high maintenance customers (the ones who have such specifications that you mark all six boxes on the side of the cup) to get over themselves. Seriously.
I donned the green but the water conditions were not to my liking. At least I found out I could still swim.
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