CS isn’t my favorite place, but I like it (most of the time). The only time I don’t like it is on days like today.

We were short staffed, like always, and that means we didn’t have a CS at all this morning. Whoever was in front/food also brewed coffee so no prep or dishes were being done. I was out on CS around 30 minutes before my lunch and was given those 30 mins to prep the following: whips (12), sweet creams, strawberry açaí cubes, 4 toddies, chai cubes, frap roast (because we need to keep 3 cubes at all times apparently), mocha for hot and cold bar, white mocha/dark caramel back ups and the list went on.

I love doing prep, it’s my favorite thing about CS besides dishes. I usually get it done pretty fast, but because we had the mount everest of dishes I had to do a HUGE load in order to actually *do* prep. It just isn’t realistically possible to get ALL of that done in such a short time. So while I was trying to keep coffee brewed (because my store would rather empty all the urns before my next brew cycle and not tell me, just to fuss about it later), do as many dishes I could, do prep, and keep everyone happy nothing got done. My name was being called every 2.5 seconds for the dumbest shit, like “Ugh I didn’t want to walk all the way from bar to grab a sweet cream from the back can you bring me one” like???? I know that’s literally my job as customer support but I specifically asked that bar people or front grab minor things like sweet creams from the back fridge or maybe a bottle of vanilla if they needed it so I could get things caught up faster. (It was busier than a typical Tuesday but by no means super busy—it would not have affected anything if they stepped away for a second)

They agreed that for things like milk/ice/beans/lids/cups/etc I would do and they would get small things they needed. I finally gathered enough things to begin a speed round of prep, only to find out there was no ice. No milk. No syrups. No lids. Low on all cups. Got bitched at by my SSV for it. When I brewed coffee I would check and everything was stocked so idk if there was a little rush that hit and wiped us out but I was beyond annoyed. Had to constantly run back and grab things, only to stock one area for another to run out of something.

I went on my lunch and came back, back to CS I went. It was suuuper slow so I figured it would be a perfect time to get everything prepped and caught up. Wrong. My name was being called every second by my SSV and other baristas, (“can you watch food and front for a sec?” “I need this, that, this, that...”). So yet again I was being pulled in 4 different directions and still unable to make the prep we need.

Come 3pm most of morning shift has by then left (besides me) and night shift is coming in. Guess what? Night shift starts complaining that nothing was done. I always feel bad, but every fucking time I opened a bag of mocha powder or brought out pitchers to make sweet cream or brought out caramel bottles, I would be told to do something else and if I to my SSV “let me do this one thing super quick” I would get told to ignore it. It’s just frustrating because night crew got left with a ton of dishes, the little bit of prep I did get done, and they also got screwed over in terms of scheduling. I stayed 45 minutes over to help with what I could but everything was such a disaster I didn’t even know where to start.