Greetings,

I am a barista in a Barnes&Noble cafe (functions fundamentally similarly to Starbucks with the same drinks and food on a bit more limited scale). I started my job this past March, and I am liking it. I found this subreddit, and all of you seem like great people. I just wanted to introduce my self and share my experiences thus far.

What I like about the job:

1. My team.
2. Eating the food and drinks at a discount
3. The customers. The nice, fun ones, not the insensitive dullards.

What I dislike about the job:

1. Detail cleaning (I like the results, though, but I suppose most do?)
2. Opening the store (After three shifts of it, I made sure my availability never aligned with pre-opening again)
3. Rude, insensitive customers. I am also uncomfortable around overly "woke" customers, if you can decipher that.
4. Encountering people I know (i mean from my past, not regular customers)

Least favorite drinks to make (uncustomized) in no particular order:
1. Brown Sugar Shaken Espresso
2. Frozen Dragon Berry Squeeze
3. Teas (w/tea bags)
4. Pour-overs (I cannot do this on my own yet due to lack of consistent practice)

Best Experience With a Customer:

Working alone, I encountered a man at the register who had about ten other people behind him. As he was about to order, he looked at the other four cup orders (all heavily marked 🙃) I was sitting on and looked past me for a second. Then, he asked if I was alone for the day, to which I affirmed. He rescinded his order, told me to hang in there and thanks for all we do, and he took his leave. Not before he gave me a twenty dollar tip though. I wonder how he is doing.

Worst Experience With a Customer:

A customer tried her hand at a scam with me. She was with her cronies who had ordered seperately from her. After servicing them, the lone girl came up and told me I had missed her choclate chip cookie (she did not order one, spoiler alert). I deny that she ordered one since I have a fairly decent memory when it comes to who got what, and she still protests. At this point, the manager happens to swoop into our station (she needed to put money in the register) and I explain the situation. The store manager requests the receipt that I gave her; surprise surprise, she 'is having trouble finding it.' Manager tells her to show the charge on her money account, and it showed a discrepancy between what was charged and what she said I forgot. After more protesting from the customer (to no avail), the customer seemingly 'found' her receipt, thus giving up. She gave me a bit of a look though before walking off to her crew and starts speaking spanish (looking at me). Thanks for the save, boss. Customer, scamming is not worth a cookie; stop it.

How to Make Me Dislike You, The Customer:

1. Order food from the bake case I just wrapped, or ask for food *as* I am wrapping the bake case.
2. Being messy. Throwing trash away with bad aim so thst we have to waste time picking up after you is not cool. Leaving trash on the floor bigger than crumbs (i.e napkins, clam shells, etc.). Leavimg tables just looking like a storm hit it.
3. Asking for a bunch of conflicting or complex additives to your drink. It is not that important.
4. Getting in line despite seeing five plus order cups on the counter, ten plus people in line, and one or two cafe workers in play. Then asking about the staus of your order two minutes after ordering.
5. Coming in line for a full course meal twenty minutes before closing. Stop it.

What I learned from Working as a Barista So Far:

1. A lot of people have no idea what they are ordering and lack the inquistiveness to even try and find out before asking for something. I had a lady ask for a Vanilla Bean Frappe, but not blended. I then legit spent the next five-ish minutes talking through the menu with her to try and decipher what she could possibly want. It ended up translating as a latte with vanilla bean powder and drizzle.

2. People often cannot tell when corners have been cut in their drink order. One lady wanted five espresso shots to her venti frappe. This is basically a death sentence to getting any milk, so I just do two because I do not have time to wait on this with that long line of people staring us down. She said it was perfect 😶.

3. People have very little awareness about them sometimes. I spent four customers in a row saying we are out of lemonade. No, you cannot have SARL, MDRL, or PPRL. Customer four, If I just told the three people in front of you we cannot make any of those three items, chances are pretty high that *regular lemonade* is out of the question too.

Thanks for reading my story to any degree. I understand that I may not be considered a "real" barista to some of you since it is not a full-fledged starbucks. Fair enough. I only want to mingle here and have some fun seeing your stories, if you will allow it.

Edit: To those wondering what a *clam shell* is, just google "clam shell container." We use them to encapsulate easily collapsible food items like cheesecakes, muffins, cupcakes, cakes, etc.

Edit 2: I forgot the frozen dragonberry squeeze is unique to my store. Here are the steps, as I understand:

Greetings,

1. Pour Lemonade to the bottom line.
2. Pour Strawberry Puree to the next line.
3. Pour into blender.
4. One scoop of both dragon and strawberries each.
5. Ice.
6. Creme Based Syrup.
7. Blend.
8. Pour into cup, then top with whip cream.

Rung up as {four units total):
Blended Lemonade
Add berries x2
Add dairy

Cheers,
co is