"I really hate coffee!"


Today (Saturday) I worked. I was 'on-call'. I called an hour before my 'scheduled' time, as is the required practice, and lo and behold, I was 'needed'. I won't complain though, I can always use the hours, and the resulting larger paycheck....

...To cut straight to the gist of things, though, today was worse than yesterday's busy day at the registers. Since I was technically not scheduled to work anywhere in specific, I was placed in the Barnes and Noble cafe for my duration at work. Great.

But what's so bad about working in the cafe, you may ask? Well, for one, I've vowed never to ever work in a fast-food environment -- not my cup of tea. Two, the place has a pungent aroma of coffee -- I hate coffee. I'm not a drinker, never liked the taste much, and the smell makes me kind of queasy. Three, I don't know the difference from a Mocha Latte, and a Frapaccino -- don't care really... I don't drink the stuff anyway.

Don't get me wrong though, I can handle an hour or so filling in for someone if there is a desperate need and I'm the last available candidate, but not a six hour shift. The store placed, me, a coffee-hater, in a coffee-lover's heaven. Sure, they placed me at the register and my cafe co-workers made the strange beverages. I just forwarded the questions the customers had to the more knowledged. I took and processed their money. Easy enough. You'd think so anyway....

It get's better though.

You know how my day at work at the registers on Friday was a busy one with maybe a 6-10 person line most of the time? Well, make that 10-12 people at any given time waiting for a beverage or pastry item to be made/gathered for them. One person would get through the line and immediately be replaced by more people. It never ended! How can such a pungent, disgusting beverage be so popular?... and expensive. (no offense to B&N, but coffee shouldn't cost that much either.)... But, what do you expect, I guess that's what happens when it carries the Starbucks Coffee brand name, right? ... [grin]

I ended up going on 'robot-mode' typing in strange codes that cooresponded with whatever coffee beverage or cafe pastry was on the menu. I ended up doing the old, "punch register buttons, tell customer what the screen says" sort of thing. I'm still alive, so I made it through the ordeal, but it was 'painful' and sometimes not the sweetest-smelling..... Oh, yeah, and I sit here now typing this with the coffee aroma still imprinted on my senses.... [sigh].

Oh, well, I work tomarrow, and as is usually the case in Sundays, I'm back at the register on the book floor.... and oh, how sweet THAT will smell to this poor coffee survivor! [chuckles]

Take care all, and if you like coffee.... well, you are a brave brave soul. ... :)

Your blogging friend,
-Jon
posted by Jon at 12:34 AM  I   I  0 comments