Day 19 - The Sbux

Everyone needs a retail or fast food job once in their life. It keeps you grounded and gives you perspective. I decided last year that before I got my post-graduate degree, I should do a little work in retail because (hopefully) this was going to be my only chance to do it. I decided that since I lived in the land of coffee, it made good sense to try to work at a coffee shop, specifically Starbucks. Considering that I didn't like coffee and didn't have a whole lot of feeling for Starbucks, my choice seemed to make perfect sense.

Starbucks turned out to be a fabulous place to work. My store was close to home, had fabulous coworkers, and changed the way I view many service industries and Starbucks itself. I admit that now I drink the occasional latte (when properly sweetened) and have come to love the quiet, productive atmosphere of a coffee shop.

Here are the lessons I learned from my one year of working at Starbucks:

Milk Experiment! 2% is by far my favorite.

1. STEAMED MILK is the best. Yes, I know you can make lattes at home but there's nothing really like the milk that's been steamed on one of those big machines. By the way, different kinds of milk make lattes taste quite different as shown by my milk experiment
2. BARISTAS work hard. Being a barista does mean making a fair amount of coffee, but it also means a lot of scrubbing, cleaning, sorting, stocking and recleaning. I came to recognize that tipping is not necessary but it does help to show appreciation for a person's hard work.
3. STARBUCKS treats its employees very well. I felt that my manager and the company did its part to ensure my success. The company gives health insurance to all its part-time employees who work over 20 hours and has many incentive programs that encourage people to stay with Starbucks for the long haul (and not just pop in for a year or two to make a little cash - shame on me).
4. COFFEE, as I learned, in its drippy form, is still kinda disgusting. I doubt I'll ever be a drip coffee drinker. But I did learn that coffee, once covered in milk and some kind of sweetener, it a passable beverage.
5. WHEN magazines and newspapers talk about coffee shops as a person's "third space", they are absolutely right, at least that's how people treat coffee shops in the Northwest. Yes, people come to coffee shops for the coffee but they also come for the atmosphere, friendship, and routine. I had dozens of regulars at my Starbucks and their drinks and schedules were fairly predictable. There were also a couple groups of customers who had become friends with each other because of their frequenting the same Starbucks. They would sit together every Sunday doing crossword puzzles and greeting the other regular customers. I heard a radio news piece recently that said a lot of community programs that drew people together are dying. Think bowling leagues, Lions Clubs and Rotary. The news piece was speculating about where groups of people could come together in community. I'm not sure what the full answer is but it's clear to me from my Starbucks experience that coffee shops are definitely one of those few remaining spaces where "everybody knows your name".

I got a Starbucks sticker book!!