if someone walks in with a phone in hand and appears out place, i do one of four things:

1. confirm if there’s a food service ticket on the back counter before they inevitably put their phone in my face.
2. ask if they’re looking for einstein’s which is two doors down.
3. point them to our menus at the register.
4. wave to them goodbye once they realize they aren’t where they’re meant to be.

the coffee shop is in the suburbs, you see? there’s a melting pot of people that come in. professional types that wear exclusively neutral colors sit in the same cafe that hosts college students who study from open until close. their tax brackets may be different but both will ask me two minutes after ordering a pour-over why it isn’t done yet. see? coffee brings people together.

there are some customers that act as case studies for privilege. it baffles me when someone calls to complain about the quality of oat milk in their lattes or get upset if we don’t have gluten-free food. i can’t help but wonder how wealthy do you have to be for a gluten allergy? the mantra is customers come first. customers are the bread and butter for the survival of any business, sure; but i shouldn’t have to put up with customers that disguise unwanted advances as friendliness or put downs as critiques. none of us should and yet, here i am.

so why do i continue working in coffee if i could … say … work in logistics, a job i have education and experience in, or start an 18+ onlyfans? both would be far more lucrative and instinctual. plus, these quarterly trips i’d like to take and my bills aren’t going to pay for themselves. nor will this magnificent display cabinet arrive in my bedroom by the time i’m 30 with the money i’m making. of course there are other things that matter to me that’d be easier to do with more income like having emergency funds, adopting a second dog, having a baby child, and maintaining relatively low debt, for example. so if i did make that leap to a corporate gig there would be more stability in that. but at what cost? my mental health? rest? to decorate a house i’m never in? it all seems useless when all i want to do is this. write about what i know and what i don’t and what i hope to.

i fantasize about bylines, interviewing artists i idolize, working with an editor and getting loving nudges from a publisher to submit more pages. i have suspended my previous belief that once i’m 30+ it can’t happen for me. still. while it isn’t happening (re: being paid generously to write), i have to be willing to submit to a plan b that pays more … and i haven’t the slightest clue of what that is. there are plenty of skills i have that would make me a great nurse but do i want to spend another year in school?

i digress. i want a comfortable life and a job that fulfills me as much as writing does. sure, i love working in coffee. it’s a job i don’t think about once i’ve crossed the building’s threshold. however, where i am in my life demands that i consider the world as it is and not as it should be outside of the coffee shop. so whenever i do leave i won’t miss the many white men named chris that love oat milk or bitching to my co-workers about customers with $50 orders who couldn’t be bothered to tip us.

but. i will miss the sparkle in a customer’s eye when i remember their name; and how seen and validated i feel when they ask for mine in return.