Stone Life

It has been creeping up behind me for some nearly two years now. I have often looked over my proverbial shoulder to see if it had caught up with me, ready to overtake me and take me back down to the realm of the common coffee drinker. Well, it did catch me, and it rather caught me by surprise despite my previous diligence….one might even use the apocalyptic, biblical imagery of, “like a thief in the night.”

I am no longer a Starbucks Barista; this crushes me.

It has been a good run; I am sad to see it go. Who would have known that a job I intended to work no more than 9 months would have stretched into more than four years? I suppose such a statement is a little misleading, though.

I worked diligently for the coffee-giant for about three years, most of that spent waking at 4:45 am in order to make it to the store by 5:30 am to feed the addictions of those unfortunates also forced to rise at that hour. I found that I enjoyed those people, and they were the same people each day, more than any other patron that came through the doors of 11919 Preston Rd. on any given day. Perhaps it is due to the fact that they too understood the drudgery of getting up hours before the sun in order to pay the bills and they gave me a break, but more than likely they were just too tired to put up much by way of a fight, and so their personalities that would normally be as grating as most of the others were subdued by the need for more sleep. Either way, they were great.

The 7:00 am crowd was by far the worst; they were hurried, angry, easily-annoyed, and mostly just pains-in-the-ass. My most lasting memory of the 7:00 am’ers is Debby (no, not that one). This one is a she-devil of sorts, sister or more likely mother of Beelzebub, and she made it her mission, particularly in my waning months of active employment, to make her 3-5 minutes of daily contact miserable. I believe I intentionally made her drink wrong on my last day just to reciprocate the spite and somehow avenge my years of assault….it certainly satisfied me.

The 9:00 am crowd; by far, the best. Probably due to the fact that they were either a.) retired, b.) housewives, or c.) executive-types who can flex their schedules enough to enjoy a leisurely, extended coffee break, they were just friendly and laid-back. It is from this group that I have made friendships that have extended beyond the storefront.

My co-workers (aka: partners); I have never been around a more mixed-bag of various states of insanity in my life. I have always stated that Starbucks has two things going for it that will forever ensure that their workforce’s ratio of utterly-odd to normal will be rivaled by none. First, the whole coffee-shop atmosphere attracts a certain artistic-type that you Dillard’s does not, and second, they pride themselves on diversity in hiring to the point of absurdity at times. Look around next time you are in one of the 12-14 thousand stores worldwide; you can almost make a “diversity roll-call”. White-artsy guy? – check, Black-woman? – check, Lesbian? – check, Old-retiree? – check, and who can forget, Hot-young blonde (or occasionally you can substitute brunette)? – check…..or in the case of my store – check, check, check (I am not making accusations, but there was a disproportionate number of pretty young girls at my store for a time…not that I am complaining). Diversity = Drama, and there was not a day that went by without wanting to kill one of them. It was like managing a group of hyperactive-preteens at times, but I loved them. Weird, but great.

Some of you might be a bit confused, saying, “Michael, I thought you were a school teacher.” You would be correct, because the last year and a half of employment at Starbucks have been by far the best. I went from forty-hours a week to eight to sixteen-hours per YEAR! That’s right, per year. My manager was a really cool guy, and he allowed to hang out on the payroll for all of this time, which did not earn me any money, but it did earn me a free lb. of coffee every week and a thirty-percent discount at every store nationwide. In return I only had to work one shift per quarter to keep corporate off of his back. It was beautiful, but I suppose that all beauty is subject to fading with age, and this was no exception. Apparently the District Manager caught what was going on and decided it was not in the best interest of the company to give away their product to a leech, and so she forced Mark to dispense with Partner #1151029. Sad day.

A New Chapter

On an interesting side-line, the very same day I received that call about being fired from Starbucks, I was given the head basketball coaching position for the varsity girls at St. Alban’s. We may be awful, really awful, but I am excited for the opportunity to run a varsity program. More on that later.