Not Laughing At You. Oh Wait. Yes I Am.

4Sep/08Off

Not Laughing At You. Oh Wait. Yes I Am.

"Ma'am? Miss? Excuse me?"

The barista is hanging over the counter trying to get the attention of the woman at the creamer counter. Someone in the fairly longish line steps out and taps her on the shoulder.

"What?" she snaps.

"Your card is short by $2," the barista says somewhat quietly over the crowd.

"You rang it through twice. I know there's at least $5 on it left."

"I can give you a print out of your purchase..."

With a huff she turns back to the front of the line and with weighted flourish, dumps her purse on the counter. She gets the bill and in hushed tones, tries to reason with the barista why she thought there was more money on the card. Finally, angrily, she hands over the remaining cash.

"This is the longest I have ever had to wait for service," she offers as punctuation to her $4 coffee purchase, and storms off.

I've known the barista for some time. Not much fazes her, but you can tell that cow got to her somehow. At my turn at the counter, she takes my order and I stand slightly to the left to wait for my tea. I'm going to tell her that she's doing a great job... that it's a great day... something positive. Suddenly a soccer mom with daughter in tow stands directly in front of me and orders. And orders something else. And complicates something (I wasn't paying that much attention). The barista places my tea on the counter and while I wait for her to take my money, tries to smooth out the soccer mom's order, which she does, except for...

"Can you give me my coffee now?" the snotty soccer mom asks.

I make eye contact with the barista. I roll my eyes and make a "mah moo mive me my moffee mow?" face behind the soccer mom's back.

Both of us laugh. Try not to. Then snort hard. Try not to. I give up and laugh and look at the stunned soccer mom. I drop a $1 tip into the box.

It's just coffee, people!

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Tagged as: barista, coffee, cow, creamer, crowd, excuse, eye contact, flourish, front of the line, huff, hushed tones, job, laugh, money, oh wait, punctuation, purse, s, soccer mom, storms, tea Comments Off

Comments (8) Trackbacks (1) ( subscribe to comments on this post )

Vanyel
September 4th, 2008 - 10:07

Which is all the more reason I would vote to give some retail service staff either a caddle prod or a taser gun. I could go on for hours about some of the idiots and assholes I’ve seen in store line-ups and the shitty way they treat the folks behind the counter. If you ever want to see obnoxious behaviour at its best, spend some time around the financial district… I bet you’d see at least 5 in the first ten minutes observing.

My comment to the barista might have likely been along the lines of one of my old stand-bys, “SOMEBODY pissed in her cornflakes this morning.” Or, one of my favourite LOLCATS which stated, “Please wait, kitteh is processing yer stupid.”

Or the old rule, never piss off anyone in any establishment where they serve any kind of food or beverage, as gawd only knows what will end up in your drink (remembering the time that grandma wrung out a dishrag from a sink of dirty water in some asshole’s beer – which was as funny as hell when she told the story).
Dead Robot
September 4th, 2008 - 10:16

The Soccer Mom did clue in that I had done something behind her back and muttered something along the lines that I was “immature”.

I’ve been on both sides of the counter. It’s called “respect” and some days, it’s seriously lacking.
cb
September 4th, 2008 - 14:03

Good for you! I once called a woman out by calling her “Sally Albright” (from When Harry Met Sally) after she spent 5 minutes at a fast food restaurant ordering things exactly the way she wanted.
SharkBoy
September 4th, 2008 - 22:01

My new favourite thing when working the info desk is to go with a very fast succession of uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh, if they insist on continuing with their boring story while I look up their files… eventually they realize I’ve stopped listening while printing the details they’ll need to fill up their forms before seeing a court official.
FurryWolf
September 5th, 2008 - 11:15

Luckily I get to avoid all this drama…make coffee at home, drink one at home and one in the car in the commute, get to work, we have three espresso-capuccino machines for a quarter a cup and the milk is supplied free of charge. Nice to work for an Italian company. (the coffee is imported too!) Now, if I could just find a way for someone to drive me to work…lol.
Teena
September 6th, 2008 - 15:47

She’s gotta chill!
Dead Robot
September 6th, 2008 - 16:02

It was weird, like everyone in the line was pissed for some reason, vented to the poor Batista.

But that cafe has always been a bit high strung.
madamerouge
September 6th, 2008 - 18:29

maybe their SUVs will plummet over an embankment, burst into flames, and destroy their evilness and all of their evil spawn

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