Introduction

Warning: The contents of this cup are hot and the stories you are about to read are real.

You may find yourself yawning at the thought of reading a blog about a coffee shop, but you would be surprised at the characters you meet working in a coffee shop in the heart of a major downtown area.

I am a barista. What is a barista you may ask? Wikipedia defines me as, "one who has acquired some level of expertise in the preparation of espresso-based coffee drinks." I would like to expand this definition to include the following:

"one who has acquired some level of expertise in the preparation of espresso-based coffee drinks and utilizes the necessary talents of barista survival (including but not limited to: entertaining, life counseling, direction giving, weather forecasting, mind reading, pant stapling, selecting the biggest slice of coffee cake, and turning dollar bills into quarters) while wearing a smile and making sure you wash your hands."

I could probably add a hundred more talents to that list but i will keep it at that for now. My future posts will go into further detail on how I manage to utilize these talents on an almost daily basis.

I am a drug dealer, but my drug just happens to be legal. I have had people walk right up to the counter, roll up their sleeves and point to their arm asking, "can you just inject my coffee here." Others merely ask for their fix and extend a shaky hand grasping a form of payment. Once they receive their drink of choice they let out a sigh of relief and cradle it as if it were their own child or small dog. I have customers who come in 3-4 times a day, customers with morning drinks and afternoon drinks, and customers who cry when their favorite seasonal flavor runs out.

I should stop right here and say that I love my coffee and it's ok to love coffee or to not love coffee. I need caffeine to get me going most days. I also enjoy being a barista for the most part. The job has helped me fund my way through college and meet some pretty interesting people. I have met some of the rudest and most inconsiderate people on the planet, and some of the sweetest and most down to earth people as well. I have served rock stars, movie stars and pro athletes, college students and professors, police officers, criminals, business executives, cab drivers, bartenders, drunk people, high people, kids, dogs, and the homeless. Coffee enthusiasts provide me with some great writing material. I'm not the only one that is amused by my customers' quirks or shocked by their audacity. Sometimes after work I go out and grab an adult beverage with some of my fellow baristas. Once we start swapping work stories it is hard to get us to stop. Each story gets crazier than the next in an all out battle of one-uppers. It's nice to share these stories with people that get where you're coming from and understand service industry etiquette.

I may work in a coffee shop, but I'm sure similar incidents have happened to servers, valets and bartenders alike. I hope my fellow service industry workers can relate to some of these tales and find them amusing. And if you haven't ever worked behind a counter, I suggest you take some lessons from my experiences and realize the right and wrong ways to treat those who serve. It's amazing what some people consider to be socially acceptable.