Heya! 2 week old green bean here!

First off, congrats on the job! The fact that you are already memorizing recipes makes you a better barista than most. Some nuggets of truth I’ve learned about the green bean life;

1. During peak, you will always be in the way. Everyone is and if you move when asked or start to watch and pinpoint places where you shouldn’t stand, then you are totally fine.
2. You are not expected to be a knowledgeable barista on day 1, or even week 2. You will go through pretty through training in your first week, so don’t feel like you need to know everything right now.
3. You are going to mess up. It’s okay. Everyone does. The most important thing is to be honest with yourself and know when you need to ask questions or see something demonstrated again.
4. Make the most of you time with your trainer. My trainer was visiting from another store, so once my training was over, she was gone. Because of that, I made to sure to ask every question, even if I thought I knew the answer. I let her know that I would rather ask questions now than make mistakes later and she really appreciated it, it showed her I was paying attention.
5. Introduce yourself to everyone and use every moment as a learning moment. During my breaks, I would watch other baristas from my cafe table. I would note who seemed nicer, who seemed to know their stuff, and any tricks they used to make their jobs a little easier.
6. The hardest part of your job, drink making and customers aside, will be working understaffed shifts. It’s probably gonna happen, and you will probably feel undertrained in every situation. But this is where your common sense kicks in. This is why the manager hired you. It is easy to buckle under pressure when you are running the drive through and there’s only 1 person on bar and people in line are honking and a brat in the car wants her chess danish warmed up again. But you put on a smile and do it. Use your customer service voice, turn on turbo speed, and keep chugging along.
7. Try not to take things personally. You will make a lot of mistakes, and more seasoned baristas will offer help, tips, tricks, and constructive criticism (whether you asked for it or not) assume the best in people and thank them for their help, but know that you are doing a great job even when it seems like everyone is at your throat with suggestions.