101 Jobs I've Held #4: Coffee Shop Girl

Youth and Beauty

I say "coffee shop girl" because the small chain I worked for only hired females of college age or younger. Little did I realize this would be the first in a long line of jobs that would exploit my youth and, well, fairly mild cuteness. Mostly my youth. I was so naive that I worked the whole summer and never noticed. It's pretty obvious now...the attendants now wear little pink tank tops and look like the coffee version of Hooter's waitresses. But I swear it was more subtle when I was there.

Click this link if you want to be seriously disturbed.

Over-Eager Elders

Mornings at the coffee shop were hell. While applying for the job, I was told that I might have to work an occasional early morning shift, but somehow ended up having to wake up at 4:30am to work early shifts every day. Just what every 19-year-old wants to do on summer vacation. At least my shift ended in the early afternoon and the shop was close to the beach...but then it rained almost every day.

From 5:30 to 6am I had to make 28 pots of coffee (don't ask) on three coffee brewers. While juggling pots in a nearly-impossible time-frame, I had to accept the doughnut delivery and count the papers, ready the register and perform a host of other minor tasks. It was a complicated dance but if you were really on the ball (aren't we all at 5:30 in the morning?) you could just about squeak through.

Unless there were interruptions. And there were always interruptions, in the form of over-eager elders banging on the door like caffeine-crazed zombies and begging me to open early. These regulars knew we opened at 6am but could never wait. Because 6:00 in the freakin' morning is just not early enough. In my first brush with "the customer is always right, even when he's an idiot" school of thought, management insisted I let the zombies in early for their coffee. Despite the fact that it meant I would never be ready for the morning rush.

Fun in the AM!

Ahhh, morning rush. The shop was directly on a major commuter route into Boston, so between 6 and 8, I faced an endless litany of pre-coffee commuters. Cheerful bunch.

Dance!

Coffee shops, especially in the pre-Starbucks caveman era, didn't really pay well. I think I made about $6 an hour (including the few small tips we received). However, the shop offered the occasional opportunity to earn some real money. For $20 an hour, you could don a giant pink cup costume - essentially a cup with legs - and stand in front of the store and wave. Maybe dance a little. However, my stepdad forbade it, which seemed really unfair at the time. Looking back...thank God for parental judgment.

Coffee Drinks

While pretending to take coffee seriously, the chain served a slew of flavored brews and a wide and profitable variety of unhealthy sugar/coffee/whipped cream/flavor shot concoctions. We also served espresso drinks but were only given about a minute's training on the machine. On the rare occasion someone ordered a cappuccino I panicked and made any kind of random drink using water and coffee and the machine. If you ever ordered an espresso drink on my shift, I apologize: it may have looked right but I'm pretty sure it wasn't what you were expecting. In the sense of tasting like actual coffee.
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Pros
All the free coffee I could drink

Cons
It turns that drinking lots of coffee makes me very jittery
Pre-coffee morning people
An early introduction to sexual harassment
Early mornings = no social life