1. Because you haven’t been able to find a stable office job in more than four years and coffee shops are some of the only places you can afford to spend more than half an hour in without having to admit you can no longer keep up with your friends financially
2. Because your parents romanticized blue-collar labor and watching someone pull espresso shots is the closest you’ve ever come to visiting a factory
3. Because in this anxious world full of chaos and NAFTA and Panama Papers, there’s something hypnotic and soothing about watching someone confident and self-assured perform a series of discrete tasks efficiently and competently. At the end there is a product. Perhaps one day there will be unions again
4. Because you have yet to distinguish between unpredictable attention (the difference between how they act when they serve you your drink vs. how they act when they’re completely ignoring you after you sit down) and real love
5. Because everyone forgets how the service industry demands a very particular emotional performance from its employees when it comes to how their barista treats them
6. Because literally everyone is attracted to nice forearms and rolled-up sleeves
7. Because *extremely Kevin Spacey voice* we first begin to covet what we see every day
8. Because your life lacks direction and focus and you’re running out of alternatives to “going back to school” even though you don’t want to rack up even more debt and everything just makes sense here
9. Because they already know your name so that’s like one-third of a good relationship right there
[Image via]
Put efficiency and forearms on my tombstone.
I was never a barista, but I used to be a cook in an open kitchen that had seating around it, and A LOT of people would flirt with me. I do not believe I was particularly attractive, sweaty and gross and cooking hamburgers, BUT my sleeves were rolled up and I had to do lots of repetitive movements.
Yes but I’m always a little in love with the people who make my food and drinks, because life sustaining and all that.
“Perhaps one day there will be unions again.”
Crying.
Same
Unions don’t just happen people. Organize those baristas! Think of all the great conversations you’ll have. And nothing is sexier than a voice on the job.
Damn, so true. I was union at the best bookstore I was ever employed by, and I loved it, and also can confirm that something about tattooed, bookish people who are passionate about workers’ rights and are arguing for a better contract for you is smoking hot.
There is no greater high than speaking truth to power.
I misread that as “there will be unicorns again.” I’m not sure which is more likely.
Because 1.5 feet of counter space (with a tip jar on it) is exactly the distance that makes you comfortable enough to talk to another human being.
I do sometimes feel compelled to pay people who talk to me for more than 30 seconds.
Also because “barista” is a good job for aspiring actors to get, so it’s a job disproportionately filled with attractive extroverts
oh my god numbers 5 & 6 are SO TRUE IT HURTS
all of this, but with the guy who repaired and sold pianos at the piano warehouse where I took voice lessons
he played the piano too, obviously
::slumps down in chair, desperately fans self::
* he asked me out once and then promptly got back together with his ex. Which, not to brag, kiiiind of makes me a relationship fixer.
uggggghhhhhhhh. But he does sound like the Aidan of Pianos.
I think people building/repairing musical instruments are a category by themselves. They clearly have magic powers (I’m having flashbacks to my former luthier’s young apprentice here).
“My former luthier’s young apprentice.”
So you are totally a character from a fantasy novel, right? It’s okay, you can tell me.
“If Your Former Luthier’s Young Apprentice Was Your Lover”
I was just interested in his cello-building skills, honestly.
… if you know what I mean 😉
That was a euphemism, right?
Well… no. Celli > men.
Why, yes, of course, my dear. Every lady must, after all, have at least glancing knowledge of one fine instrument in addition to her swordplay lessons and needlework.
luthier is also just a super sexy word
Me and my favorite-ever staff member from my favorite-ever video store, so yeeeeeah but with Shakespearean adaptations and horror movies.
READER, I MARRIED HIM.
The store closed last year, but I’ve still got the husband. Every Valentine’s day, we snuggle down and watch a half-dozen horror movies.
UNF, a man who can skillfully play the piano is unfortunately my “soulful dude with a guitar.”
I will sniff haughtily at a whole coffeeshop full of sensitive men strumming their own ballads, but the guy who sits down and lays out some Chopin? Absolute, embarrassing puddle.
(are piano bros a thing? I assume so.)
Oh yes. An acquaintance of mine is a bartender, jock and former piano performance major. 100% piano bro.
My youngest brother is a bona-fide piano bro. I can attest that they are a thing.
PIANO BROS ARE A THING AND THEY ARE ONE OF MY MANY WEAKNESSES
oh my god, my bass luthier. a real risk to my marriage, tbh.
I… I repair pianos. And harpsichords. Also double basses sometimes.
Had no idea this was/is my “forearms with sleeves rolled up”! Most people just look at me like I’ve revealed that I dive for scallops or manufacture festive wreaths. Bemused.
I’d go for a scallop diver as well though, because presumably they would come with scallops
That’s completely fair.
“Because they already know your name so that’s like one-third of a good relationship right there”
What if they’re 100% sure they know your name but it’s the wrong name, and you must look like a Marykay to them but that’s not actually your name, and it’s been going on long enough that you feel weird about correcting them and now just cheerfully answer to Marykay? Is that a slightly dysfunctional relationship?
I always give them a fake name because they look panicked when confronted with my real (Asian) name, so it’s like a relationship in which I have a built-in exit strategy. They think my name is Holly, and if things go south I can go to another coffee shop with a new name.
I get so, so excited when a) get my name right, and b) spell it correctly.
I happily called a guy Max for a whole year once before he told me his name was actually Adam, but he’d felt awkward about correcting me.
that is adorable. and hilarious. and Max is a better name than Adam anyway.
(how do you RESPOND to that though??)
I just gave him a ton of shit about it. Also, he’s a sweetheart, so that helped. My “goddamnit, why would you do that” was fondly exasperated, rather than genuinely upset.
“Do you take this man, Adam, to be your lawful wedded husband?”
“Wait, what? Adam? ADAM?”
I am friends with a woman who has pronounced my name wrong for twenty years and has called my son by the wrong name for his whole life. After the first decade, you really can’t say um, actually, it’s Ethan not Ian.
omg that is NEXT LEVEL MISNAMING. How did no-one else refer to him as Ethan in front of her? Do you call him Ian instead? I have so many questions.
True story, I met my husband at a wedding and the whole night I thought his name was Brandon. It was not. It was Sean. We used to justify Ke that we would name our son Brandon & tell him he was named after his father. We didn’t. We called him Oliver instead.
Because… dammit, tags! *pout*
Everyone already did it on Twitter.
There was also “because they give you the drug”.
Well, I’m not on Twitter and don’t care what Twitter says. I was formulating the perfect comment while reading the list, and then the tags RUINED it.
A perfectly healthy attitude. I only bring it up to note that Mallory has seen it already.
As a former barista yes yes all of these yes.
cosigned! AND YET i would probably still be a barista if it hadn’t given me a pinched nerve in my shoulder, because turns out most jobs require that same type and amount of emotional labor if you present as a woman *runs away laughing maniacally*
Oh, great. I’ve been thinking about branching out, possibly into a “real profession”, whatever that means, but tbh my hours are so flexible and the money is so good I don’t feel a very strong urge to stop making coffee anytime soon. This confirms my laziness, so ty.
ooof. so true it hurts.
truth.
Oh yeah this whole article makes me feel real good. Thank u world for appreciating my efficient and skillful espresso shot pulling.
Because after standing in line behind someone who wants a ridiculously complicated drink and freaks out when they have to explain what it is while their kid is throwing a tantrum you become 1000% more attractive when you step up, order a black coffee and smile politely.
Unless you’re a middle-aged man who clearly feels his masculinity is threatened just by being in the vicinity of a macchiato, so he gets up to the counter and goes “just a plain black coffee, none of this fancy stuff. Do you even serve that anymore or do I have to buy some kind of cappa-frappa-whatever?” Those guys are the worst.
Ugh, I forgot about them. Yea, they are the worst.
I think I told someone who said that that it became a tired cliche in the ’90s.
:: furious applause ::
*stab*
“cappa-frappa-whatever” dying.
also I don’t think they know that the 90’s aren’t still happening anymore.
To be fair, current fashions make it confusing. I’m seeing backwards hats, mullets, and overalls with only one strap fastened all over the place.
Prove it’s not still the 90s.
I mean, a regular coffee with nothing else, or espresso with nothing else, are right up there on the menu generally.
Number 5, but for me it’s the cashier who works the pho truck
Off-topic, but pho truck?! I am so curious. How is the pho delivered? Big bowl, bucket, or? Where do you eat it? How do you doctor it up to your liking without a place to set the bowl down and put stuff in it bit by bit and dip the meat in sriracha and hoisin?
http://phowheelsdc.com/
They give you a big to-go bowl with the actual pho in it. And then there is a side cup with a lime wedge and some peppers. And big bottles of sriracha and hoisin on the truck counter, which you then dispense into small to-go cups, which they will put in your bag for you. And then you go eat it wherever. I usually just take it back to my desk, but I could theoretically also go eat in a nearby park.
Okay, that all makes sense. I don’t know what I was picturing but I know I’m hella clumsy and not to be trusted carrying boiling hot soup around in regular big pho bowls………….
WHERE is this pho truck? Oh jeez, now I think I have to get pho for lunch today.
Same, but with the guy at the frame shop where I paid waaay too much money to frame a poster because of how nice he was.
last year (2014 is last year right…) I got a bunch of starbucks gift cards for christmas so i went to the starbucks right by my bus stop any time it was cold and a long wait (aka every day) and eventually one of the baristas memorized my order and remembered my name. eventually one day he started a conversation and asked if i had any plans for the weekend and i never went to that starbucks again.
As it should be.
(I did the same with a bus driver.)
(Woke up an hour earlier to get the earlier bus to college to avoid the awkwardness.)
(And would then arrive one hour before any of the college buildings opened.)
…
(But I did not regret the decision.)
Same, except it was the bar inside a bowling alley, and to date it’s the only place where a server has consistently remembered my name
totally appropriate response
oh, man, you guys are missing out! Being greeted by name with a warm smile by someone who knows your order is aces, as far as I’m concerned, and SOMETIMES it leads to getting things for free. (For me it is the pizza place I go to like 2x/week)
DAD STORY – so my Dad goes to the local Taco Bell for a breakfast crunchwrap on Sunday mornings about every other week and now they know who he is and immediately start making his order for him as soon as he walks in and he’s very pleased with this fact and it cracks me up.
When I got a bunch of Starbucks gift cards for Christmas I gave most of them away and made sure I cycled between the three Starbucks within walking distance for the remainder.
the growler-filler at a nearby brewery recently commented that she hadn’t seen me in a while, and I was so thrown off that I recounted all of my busy holiday as an apology, and now she knows what I did for Christmas and it’s just too much intimacy.
Oh, when that happens to me, I just say, “Oh… yeah” in a sort of regretful voice. It’s not rude (or I don’t think it’s rude? it doesn’t feel rude anyway) but avoids that awkward conversation where I feel like I’m justifying why I haven’t been in (even though I’m SURE they’re not trying to put me on the spot and are just being friendly). And it sort of conveys “ah yes I wish I could come more often” without making a whole thing about it I think.
Huh. This is such an interesting thread to read; I never realized before that I am a definitely more narcissistic and extroverted than average. I’ll tell my life story to anyone who so much as makes a polite small talk inquiry and my main concern is only ever “oh god I talked too much, this is why people think I am exhausting.”
I would be a truly terrible spy.
I very specifically try to avoid having a predictable, regular order that people will have ready for me, because what if I want something else, but they already have *my* order ready to go?
That happens to me! I am known in a few bars in my hometown (I guess I drink too much) and one coffeeshop. Most of them have my order prepared as I walk in. In the coffeeshop I like to joke that I want something else. Anyway there was this worked in a bar I visites often. She quit there only to volunteer on special parties. Every time she works I still get a beer and a shot tequila next to it. While that hasnt been my standard order for years now. It makes me happy as it feels nostalgic too me, haha!
Because while they’re steaming your milk they can’t escape you so they must here your words
(Former baristas unite! I don’t miss the job but I’m so judgey about my lattes now).
do you also make the cringing face when you hear someone Not Steaming Milk Properly and you hear that awful milk wand scream
ahhhh the milk wand scream.
one day i was at a coffeeshop and the barista at the espresso machine asked the other barista if he knew how to pull shots and it took everything in my power not to be like, no worries, i got this, i’m a BARISTA. (The barista who did not know how to pull shots ultimately left them entirely out of my latte, sigh)
within a month i had purchased my own tiny espresso maker.
wait so was your latte just….milk?? How do you work as a barista without knowing how to pull shots. I have so many questions.
There was a very grungy stoner coffee shop near my old house where the baristas were (I suspect) permanently high and prone to doing things like leaving my bagel in the toaster for 20 minutes and reacting with a “…….whoa, oops” when this was pointed out. Their idea of a “latte” was a cup half full of steamed milk, and you filled it the rest of the way from their self-serve coffee dispenser. I’m certainly no coffee snob but that’s not….quite what a traditional latte is.
yesssssssssssss oh my god always.
And when my espresso tastes burnt I’m like “… you just put that right in a cup and let it sit there while you made the milk wand scream didn’t you?”
Flames, flames on the side of my face. And then when they pull the shots too soon/don’t mix them properly with mocha.
Oh god yeah I judge my milk so hard. I’m not super picky about the espresso, but milk that tastes scalded or just gross or has absolutely no foam? 🙅 And you can tell before you get it from the sound ugh. Or when the barista walks away while they just leave the wand in the steaming pitcher. 😐
It has been ten years since I was a barista and to this day I won’t order anything steamed if I hear milk screaming as it’s being tortured.
When I was a barista Tomson Highway used to come in once a week (I think he was teaching a class at the university) and I never ever got up the courage to tell him he was amazing.
I’d have the hardest time telling someone how amazing they were while I was covered in chocolate and milk froth, but I bet you made him excellent beverages that conveyed how wonderful he was. (None of the famous/admirable people I cared about ever got coffee while I was working, but there were lots of Sports Coaches for the well-known school that was adjacent to my store. People were surprised that I did not care about them).
Maybe he’s reading nowwwwwww
as a former barista, i am still baffled by the number of times i have been asked out despite being covered in chocolate sauce & freezy pseudo coffee things pretty much every day.
i must have kept my forearms clean, that is the only explanation
You were *covered in chocolate sauce*. That’s basically a time saving device for foreplay.
No. 8: IT ME.
Anybody else with me?
Came down to the comments just to say exactly that! Everyone seems to have direction and focus inside a coffee shop. Something about paying someone else to make me my caffeine fix makes me feel like I am Going Places, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Oh yes, definitely! :-/
I don’t like coffee so these – “baristas” you called them? – are an unknown experience in my life.
Because all the female-presenting baristas are riding the fine line between Hipster and Gay, and I’m living in a red state so I’ll take what I can get.
And yes, thirty smiling seconds of attention from a lady who might not even be queer is what I can get.
I’m not in a red state but if she’s wearing a plaid button down and smiling at me I am GOING to be confused and pleased.
Schrodinger’s Queers
There is a barista at a place I go to who is Almost Certainly Not Lesbian, but she is so pretty that the first time I saw her I had to drop my eyes not to stare, which is a rarity with my Mostly Not Lesbian But Yeah the Kinsey Scale Is a Thing self.
For a while almost everyone who worked there was really unusually good-looking. I started thinking the manager must have a real thing for dimples, because both the men and the women seemed to have them.
Yup, I feel this so much it hurts.
And No. 4 just broke me.
I, um, am married to a man that I met while he was working as a barista. This list is transporting me back to 2007, so thanks?
Because you walk in the door angry at coffee shops for existing, angry at yourself for spending money, and angry at the staff for whatever habits and personality you’ve projected on them based on their appearances, and you cannot distinguish between the emotionally aroused states of love and anger.
As a barista, I appreciate the bit about “performing a series of discrete tasks efficiently and competently”.
My customers seem to think all the food and the drinks they (all 980 of them, the entirety of the people that work at the headquarters of a bank) consume every day at my shop is delivered in the morning by fairies or something, and the only thing I need to do is put everything in boxes/cups/bags.
Somebody has to squeeze the thawed blueberry muffin batter into the muffin trays, people!!
Because seeing a person in a very particular situation for a very brief window allows you to fill in all sorts of flattering backstory for them, to the point where their attractiveness becomes an amalgamation of their always-smiling face and your own carefully curated desires.
Oh look it’s the story of every crush I’ve ever had
A crush is just a love letter to yourself, written in the ink of another person.
ahhhhhhhhhhhh
this is the most precise expression of the “If <x> were your <y>” series, too
Yesss. There was even a Link Roundup where Nicole wrote (something on the lines of) “Look, we’re totally on board with the idea of a sweaty, exhausting sexual nirvana with Idris Elba, but that’s not the point of the series. It’s about your ideal fantasy relationship projected onto the form of a likeable celebrity.”
I filled in at the Barnes & Noble Starbucks sometimes and this bummed me out a bit because I seemed to be impervious to people’s apparent attraction to baristas. I was working two jobs at the time, though, closing the bars and getting up at 6:00 to go teach high school. So it’s possible I a) looked like a wreck during this time and b) was completely oblivious to my surroundings in general.
You must have just crossed the line from “attractive so I want to flirt with them” to “oh god, too attractive, I can never let them know I ever considered myself worthy”.
I don’t like to brag, but my aunts did used to go *on and on* about how handsome a fellow I was.
I seem to think this about a fair number of women I see, feeling that they’re soaring across the skies as I plod through the mud.
This is just as we’re catching a train or buying groceries or something, so it’s clearly just my personality flaw and nothing to do with them.
My crushes on baristas are shown via quiet adoration and optimally efficient ordering, so the emotions may have been covert.
You could replace every usage of “barista” with “bartender” and “coffee shop” with “bar” and it would still be devastatingly accurate.
Also, to quote my friend Carrie, “forearms are men’s cleavage.”
And sometimes women’s too!
plenty of good forearms from all kinds! i was just trying to keep the exact quote.
I have a crush on a Nordic man and I think half the attraction is his gorgeous long-boned Viking forearms.
This, but for the people who work the front desk at the gym.
(I think I associate too much stress with coffee shops to find anyone in them attractive, although I love and appreciate my regular baristas in a professional way.)
Because you’re unemployed and you don’t see any other humans regularly except for immediate family and you’re so starved for attention/conversation that the 30 seconds of barista banter gives you more of a buzz than the coffee itself and even though you would never bother them beyond those 30 seconds in your mind you like to think that you have this amazing rapport and that they genuinely like you as a person, not just “a paying customer who doesn’t complain when her drink is wrong.”
Because you live alone so they are the first person you see in the morning and it is a brief break from existential loneliness.
We all fall in love because coffee is disgusting and everything is better in comparison.
Isn’t #7 Hannibal Lecter? Isn’t #8 literally everybody else?
Because it’s the only chance you get to hear another human being yell your name enthusiastically.
More like Latte-Stage Capitalism!
amirite?
A+ dad joke.
Boo!
Very good.
Cupitalism!
Hence every coffee shop AU. <3
All clearly written by current or former baristas. There’s a lot of coffee-shop detail in those fics.
Or people spending their free time writing fanfic in the corner of the coffee shop.
No, the descriptions of milk-foaming and espresso shots are far too lovingly detailed, with lots of asides about how people think this is what a latte macchiato is, but they’re all mistaken.
A friend who writes very popular fics took my barista rants to heart and wrote an excellent coffee shop au without ever having worked in one. Apparently I got that worked up about improper technique for putting cream on top of drinks and how heating the milk really shouldn’t sound like that and okay fine just chat with your mate while the shots die, that’s fine (ymmv but this place had crappy machines and dammit the crema has a purpose and you’re killing it here).
…I may have some rage stored up.
You’re….you’re just letting the milk for a cappuccino sit there with the wand at the bottom of the pitcher? Do you even microfoam, bro?
(who’s your friend, and in what fandom can I find this coffeeshop AU? Is it on AO3?)
All her stuff is! I think the one with the most coffee stuff is I’ve Suffered Shipwrecks (though is less coffee shop centric than others even though it’s set in a coffee shop) which is Avengers and the whipped cream technique turns up in I Was Just a Card, Merlin fic. She’s paperclipbitch
I was the ugly duckling of the baristas at the coffee shop/oatmeal cafe (yes – NYC is a strange place) I worked at during grad school, and I STILL got flirted with, even though half the time I didn’t realize it until one of my coworkers pointed it out. I filled the “geek girl” stereotype, I guess; meanwhile, I usually worked with a guy who legit got described as “Keira Knightley’s elfin brother” by a magazine, the store’s owner who is a wonderful blonde goddess of a person, and a girl who always had PERFECT eyeliner and red lipstick and looked like she just stepped out of the most glamorous nightclub even as she mass-baked scones at 7 AM.
(I apologize, though, I never knew anyone’s names. D:)
Let me reassure you that I at least would kind of prefer it if I’m not known by name at coffee shops, restaurants, etc. Allow me to be an anonymous face in the crowd, even if I’ve come in every day for the last five years at the same time and ordered the same thing–it is a kindness.
(Yeah, I know, some people like being recognized, but some of us get self-conscious about it, and since there’s no way to know ahead of time which someone is, you were never going to be able to perfectly please everyone anyway, so I don’t think you need to feel bad about it.)
This is amazingly accurate. I’m a barista at a very popular cafe in Brooklyn and can confirm. A month or so ago a regular customer called me “(Cafe Name’s) Girlfriend.” I’m the only woman who works there, and also all of my coworkers are very good looking, because that’s just how third wave coffee works. You would not believe the amount of persistent flirters we get, like the social contract that requires me to give you a cheerful macchiato gives you the right to stand at the end of the counter staring at me. Do not give me your hand to shake and tell me your name! Do not sit down with me on my breaks! I just want your cash tips. 🙁
My “favorite” customer is a girl who loves my coworker but hates me with a violent passion and when she’s not looking at him she’s being terrible at me. The thing I dislike most about being a barista is that, the aura of casual chill most coffee shops strive to project makes customers think any behavior towards us is completely acceptable. Like this might not be a “professional setting” but it’s MY profession, damn it!
Nothing fills me with more rage than when a customer sits with me/talks to me on my break. We don’t know each other. Begone.
Whyyyy would you decide that a barista’s break from customers needs a customer intruding on them!?
Suddenly the constant misspellings of names on cups makes sense. It’s a way to prevent customers getting too attached!
10. Have read too many coffee shop AU fanfics
Is there really such a thing as too many coffee shop AUs?
Well more coffee shop AUs should definitely be written. Unlimited coffee shop AUs should be written. But reading too many coffee shop AUs may have given me unrealistic expectations regarding barista crushes.
Most fan fiction gives me some unrealistic relationship standards. I mean, can real life live up to your OTP in the multiverse?
Coffee shop AUs and cute baristas make me wish I liked coffee (A little part of me is convinced everyone just pretends to like coffee and are too sheepish to admit otherwise for fear of being judged)
I’m swan queen trash that stopped actually watching OUAT because the fanfic is so much better.
That sounds like a great prompt for a coffee shop AU: coffee skeptic becomes barista for the $ but gorgeous regular customer convinces them the bitter beverage is sometimes the sweetest of all.
“Bitter Brews: A Coffeeshop AU”
10/10 would read
My perfect romance novel is that one Inception coffee shop AU where Arthur stress-bakes.
I’VE NEVER EVEN SEEN INCEPTION.
Re: No. 1- I have a stable office job (in a terrible midwestern city, with stagnant mediocre wages and no hope of advancement), and I’m here to tell you that it’s not a cure for the existential itchiness caused by being unsure of your direction in life and feeling your chances slip away.
I often feel that the “stable office job not of my dreams” is roughly analogous to Cowslip’s warren from Watership Down. It’s comfortable, but the wires, the wires…and you’re ashamed that you’re not running away, too.
Oh my God. I’ll just be over here rethinking my life.
“6. Because literally everyone is attracted to nice forearms and rolled-up sleeves”
Embarrassingly accurate for me. One of the major selling points of first meeting my husband. (He made me a PIE on our first date, there was lots of mixing and rolling and pie making exploits with forearms.)
I thought it was just me. I first noticed I guy I dated (and who broke my heart) in my mid-20s when I saw his forearms in a sleeves-rolled-up dress shirt. Now, a looong time later — I’m almost certainly the oldest person on this thread — I’m swooning a little in my office chair at the thought of it.
This has been my guiding influence for most of the tops I have bought for my professional career, failing to take into account other things like length, material, my body shape, and how many embroidered unicorns is too many?
I was talking to an ex (back when we were still dating) and he complained that all of the sleeves on his shirts were too short so he constantly had to roll them up and I was like “… that is not a problem. Keep doing that. Do nothing but that.”
10. They’re your excuse to leave the office and see sunlight 2-3 times per day, and you’re grateful that there’s somebody in the world who’s required to be happy to see you and provide you with a few moments of human connection as well as a delicious frou-frou drink.
I guess this would explain why a bunch of guys at the coffee shop I used to work at in Seattle kept friending me on Facebook.
“Because your life lacks direction and focus and you’re running out of alternatives to “going back to school” even though you don’t want to rack up even more debt and everything just makes sense here”
LOLOLololol… *SOBS*
You are a college student during finals week and this mildly friendly dude has handed you a latte, but instead of having the normal feelings (“this is vaguely pleasant, I guess, you know, if we have to be here, at this time, shit o’ clock in the morning”) you react by deciding that you’re going to MARRY this latte, you are going to buy this latte a DIAMOND RING and a BOUQUET OF ONE THOUSAND ROSES every day. Then you start crying, because you haven’t had an emotion that is not wretched sorrow in at least forty-eight hours, and this one moment of joy has completely overwhelmed you*. Then you start casting your dumb emotions towards the universe, because you are hollow inside, now, and cannot keep them. The barista is there, trapped next to the smoothie machine, so they must be his problem. That’s all it is. Next semester you will try to remember what you saw in his slightly disconcerting face. He will quit the barista gig during midterms week and you will be left with only a pile of curiosity about your own misguided decisions.
* Yesterday you totally cried & then made out with someone because of a picture of a nice dog on instagram.
Because the best closest coffee shop to my office is Italian and seems to import their employees directly from Italy and one of them is very tall and has a glorious dark beard and nice forearms and eyes and….. I’m married, yo.
I can relate to this. Some of the most beautiful people in all of New York City work at Dervish, a Turkish restaurant in Times Square. I used to go there A LOT.
The only pleasant people I see all day are the baristas.
I also love coffee.
I have a stable office job that I hate.
I’ve worked blue collar jobs enough to not romanticize them.
There’s a quote from that Curious George Made Horrific article that has never left my brain – “If enough things happen to you, you can learn to love something just for being familiar.”
I love you, baristas in green aprons who smile at me. You are my only constant.
I used to be a barista (and a server and a hostess and…), and #5 all day long.
Thank you for explaining why customers are always trying to friend me on Facebook.
Several of my FB friends are actually former regulars of mine. I told them I was quitting, and they said we should be friends on FB, so now we are.
#5. Because it’s really not enough for the person making my drinks to merely be knowledgeable, welcoming, considerate and involved, you know? It’s imperative that they *genuinely* care about me. Lattes just taste better when the person making it has to give something of their self to me in order to be eligible for that 20 cent raise next year.
Guess which pin I never earned? #flairless
You mean you don’t take human blood in your coffee?
This is true of everyone who works at the coffee shop next to the bar I used to work at, especially one of em. My fellow barpeople and I were far more surly and so did not have the same effect.
#5 – I’ve experienced it from both sides, in a variety of service jobs, including grad assistant. I ran one of the design computer labs in grad school and it was kind of embarrassing how many undergrads had low level crushes on me. And knowing that it was the position did not keep me from developing a crush on the guy who ran the AV lab in the fine arts building.
I worked retail in a shopping district with a lot of locally owned shops and tbh I think a lot of us younger service workers just traded crushes on each other. There was a fair amount of flirting on the 6pm train home too.
Number 1 pretty much sums up our entire national economic zeitgeist.
I literally gazed longingly at a barista while sitting in a coffee shop to panic about my utter lack of post college graduation earning potential/life plan/even general vague direction today. Feeling number 8 hard.
I have an incredible local tiiiiny coffee shop and the boys and girl there do a grand job of maintaining the facade of being super excited to see any member of my family and any given time. Bless them.
Because Coffeeshop AUs have led you to believe that they are where Wizards/Superheroes/Serial Killers who not really Wizards/Superheroes/Serial Killers go when they want to fall in love without the weight of the world complicating things.
Good article. Please amend point 7 to “Hannibal Lecter voice” or “Anthony Hopkins voice”, otherwise I will not be able to sleep tonight. Thank you.
My senior year of college I took a class with a close friend who looks somewhat similar to me (similar build, same color hair) and we sat next to each other. The professor called us both Elizabeth ALL SEMESTER even though neither of us was called Elizabeth or anything even remotely like Elizabeth. Still haven't figured that one out.
DAD STORY – so my Dad goes to the local Taco Bell for a breakfast crunchwrap on Sunday mornings about every other week and now they know who he is and immediately start making his order for him as soon as he walks in and he's very pleased with this fact and it cracks me up.
I worked as a barista for a couple of years during high school, and I honest to god had confusing vaguely relationships with everyone I told to “keep the change.” I’m a little thankful I don’t work as one anymore.
Did you two seem very Elizabethy? Refuse to marry and split your kingdom with a king? Disdain a proud aristocrat you later grew to understand and then love?
Is that you, Ron Swanson?
Apparently I "look" like I could be Elizabeth, but I wish I had refused to split my kingdom with a king. Still working on the disdaining of an aristocrat though