#and one of my old coworkers from barista days has been posting a bunch of pics with new coworkers that came in right as i was moving and. i

[knightlysoulsnatcher]

it’s time for a death note rewatch bc im sitting over here feeling like light the way im monologuing possible motives for my antagonistic-ly sporadic ex coworker’s responses that feel timed juuuust right each time to be less about catching up and more about. help

[brokebuckkmountain]

Some more gems from your favorite grumpy barista

Sometimes I need to vent and post while sitting in the break room, but I’ve overall decided to keep my work-related stories in long posts under the cut. Since this isn’t a barista blog and I’m sure most of you don’t care. But anyways, people have been trying me these past two weeks.

me: Hi, how are y-

customer: Iced green tea!

me: What size would you like?

customer: Venti.

me: Can I get you anything els-

customer: I want soy.

me: ...In your iced green tea?

customer: (looking at me like I was dropped as a child) Ugh, no I want a green tea latte! God!

----------------------------------

This one customer let his two toddlers run through my store, screaming and grabbing things- it was so obnoxious that several customers commented on it. As I’m in the middle of helping a wonderful older lady, he walks up to my register from the wrong side of the line and interrupts us to say “How much is this?”. If it was anything else I would have told him to wait, but he was holding up a banana and I know off the top of my head those are $1, so I answered. After I was done with my customer, he walks up to me, throws a dollar at me, and walks off, sneering at me when I said “have a nice day”.

----------------------------------

This one girl wanted a refill on her iced green tea (and she even changed what she originally got, so I rewrote her cup for her) and was shocked when I said it was 50 cents. Apparently she saw somewhere they were free, and argued with me that I shouldn’t charge her. She even had me get a more experienced barista to back me up. When we both confirmed that refills were 50 cents, she went “Nevermind, I don’t even want it anymore. Give me my cup back!” All this, over two freakin quarters. And better yet, in the time it took me to deal with her, my line got long, so my manager came out and chided me for letting it get so long.

----------------------------------

I’ve had whole massive groups of people not know what size they want, and whenever I ask them, they all go “uh....” and think about it for awhile. Because apparently seeing their four friends before them get asked didn’t clue them in to the fact that they’d need too know. Worse yet, I’ve had singular people order 5+ drinks and struggle to come up with a size for each one.

----------------------------------

Today a women tried to pay me with her Starbucks card, and rather than the old “oh no I’m paying!”-”no no I’ve got it!” shtick older women like to do, her friend literally shoved her away from my register to pay me herself; they jockeyed back and forth against each other like that for awhile while I tried to inform them that whoever was paying, I swiped the card on my side.

----------------------------------

customer: (after letting her four children all order for themselves, so a mass of frappuccinos I had to pull teeth to get) And can I get two vanilla creams? Grande?

me: Do you mean the vanilla cream frappucinos? (please understand that half of the time someone orders a frappuccino from me, they just say “(flavor) cream”, so that’s what I’m used to assuming)

customer: Uh, no. I want it hot.

me: You want... hot vanilla cream? Like just the cream? Do you mean vanilla flavored steamed milk?

customer: God, just ask one of the people who actually make the drinks. They’ll know better than you.

(because apparently this woman has never step foot into a Starbucks before and doesn’t realize we all have the same job, and just switch positions)

So I explained the situation to my coworker on bar, who proceeds to explain in unnecessary detail that I need to find “steamed milk” on the register and add vanilla flavor. Ya know, rather than saying “Yes Sarah it is exactly what you guessed it was”. So I looked like an idiot, confirming everything the bitchy customer already thought.

----------------------------------

This one girl ordered a Trenta Very Berry Hibiscus with “extra extra ice”, watched me make the entire drink, and as I was pouring it into her cup, she goes “Um, actually, I changed my mind. Can you do it light ice instead? Like less than the normal amount?”

To which I said “sure”, smiled, and dumped out the entire drink I had just made because it was already all shaken together.

----------------------------------

I had a woman continually badgering my coworkers and me about her scone during a rush, despite the long line of warmings before hers. And the fact that we were on bar and had never spoken to her before, nor were we heating the food. My coworker and I were in the middle of solving an actual problem with coffee grounds, and she kept interrupting us every 10 seconds about if we knew if her goddamn scone was coming. She would also watch everytime the girl doing warmings would call out a food item (warm bagel, panini, etc, for Bill or some shit) and interrupt us to go “Umm I think that’s mine? Can you check?”

----------------------------------

customer: Which of your frappuccinos can someone with diabetes have?

me: Literally none of them.

(this person also apparently didn’t know the dietary restrictions that come with having diabetes because she went through every item on the menu and asked if she could have it)

----------------------------------

On a similar note, yesterday I had a woman order a chicken panini from me, had me warm it up, then came back 30 seconds later to complain to my manager that she was vegetarian and couldn’t eat it.

----------------------------------

I don’t know why this keeps happening, but I keep having these couples come to my register, and while the girlfriend is ordering, the boyfriend has his arms around her waist and is kissing on her neck and whispering in her ear. Like please take that PDA shit elsewhere, you can have your foreplay after you order your frappuccinos. Ya nasties.

----------------------------------

I’ve given a few customers drip coffees, only for them decide they didn’t want the sleeve and wordlessly throw it back at me.

----------------------------------

“Can I get a grande drip in a venti cup, no room?” No, because if there was no room it’d be a venti drip, how stupid do you all think I am?

----------------------------------

customer: (seeing that I am completely out of straws on the bar and also in the middle of making a thousand drinks) Um, I need my straw.

me: I’m actually out of those right now, but if you look right behind you on the condiment bar there are a bunch.

(walking that five feet and getting his own was a real inconvenience, apparently)

----------------------------------

customer: (orders a $2 coffee and tries to pay me with a $100 bill)

me: I’m sorry, I actually don’t have enough change in my till for that.

customer: Can’t you just do it anyway?

me: Not if you want all of your change back.

----------------------------------

(during rushes, sometimes another barista will write the cups of the people in line for me and I’ll just ring when they get to me)

me: Hi, what’ll it be for you today?

customer: (pointing to coworker writing cups) She knows.

(sometimes they just wordlessly point)

me: Okay, I still need to know what you ordered so I can ring you up though.

----------------------------------

me: Can I get your name please?

customer: (stares at me for a long time) Just put the letter K.

(variations of this one happen all the time. what do you think I’m going to do with your name, bro?)

----------------------------------

me: Can I get your name please?

customer: It’s (whisper-mumbles something I can’t make out)

me: I’m sorry, what was that?

customer: (angrily) D-A-V-E!

(listen if your name is some shit like Dave or Kim or John and you’ve gotten it spelled wrong, someone did it to mess with you because you’re a dick. we all know how to spell your name.)

----------------------------------

(during a rush)

coworker: Remember to ask how they like it spelled. Especially Sarah’s. They all really like it when you ask how their name is spelled, it’s super important.

me: You realize Sarah is my name, right??

----------------------------------

customer: Can I get a grande nonfat mocha?

me: Sure!

customer: Make sure it’s nonfat.

me: Oh yeah, I got that.

customer: And make it 14 pumps of mocha.

me: ....

----------------------------------

(grown ass adult) customer: Can I get an octopus cookie? I want a purple one though, not an orange one! You have purple left, right? I want purple!

----------------------------------

woman I have literally never seen before in my life: I’ll have my regular.

----------------------------------

customer: I’ll have a coffee.

me: Just a regular drip coffee? What size?

customer: No, no, I want your ground coffee.

me: Are you talking about a hot drink, or a-

customer: (yelling) Ground coffee! Ground! Ground!

me: I-

customer: It’s all ground up!

me: Oh, do you mean the icy ground up drinks? The frappuccinos?

customer: Yeah, that one.

----------------------------------

I also had a woman (who only ordered a water) tell me the government had stolen 6 thousand dollars form her, that schools teach young women to prostitute themselves, and that she was convinced her daughter was into prostituting as well because she came home in such high heels and short skirts. I eventually was able to politely mover her along, as I had a growing line.

----------------------------------

(the customer was incredibly cheerful and nice this entire interaction, btw)

me: Can I get your name please?

customer: Sure, it’s Jared. What’s your name? (reads name tag) Oh, Sarah! That’s my sister’s name.

me: Oh nice, is she an H or no H?

customer: I don’t really know, she changes it all the time... I haven’t seen that bitch in years though, so who cares? Have a nice day!

[michaelfallcon]

Teaching The Next Generation Of Baristas At Pinwheel Coffee In Denver

As the city of Denver continues to grow and every bit of real estate seems to be reserved for more apartment buildings or breweries, an old space in the Sunnyside neighborhood has become home to one of the more innovative concepts around town: a specialty coffee shop operated by local middle- and high-school students.

Pinwheel Coffee is a cafe that employs Compass and Denver Montessori School students, along with a team of full-time baristas. In partnership with the Montessori junior high and high schools, along with help from Colorado-based nonprofit organization Great Work Inc., students learn the ropes of specialty coffee while also gaining experience in customer service and human interaction, small-business operations, money-handling and accounting, and exposure to one of Denver’s most popular industries.

For more than a century, Montessori schools have prioritized real-world experience and freedom of choice over more traditional middle- and high-school environments. Coupled with Denver’s natural inclination toward appreciating craft beverages, coffee is a natural, easy fit.

Pinwheel holds the potential to be an alternative entry to the specialty coffee world for its student employees. Rather than finding coffee after other careers, Montessori students are learning at a young enough age to either participate in the “coffee lifers”’ school of thought, or use it as a safety net between schooling and finding a place in another preferred job field.

The Pinwheel Coffee bar consists of a Synesso MVP espresso machine, a pour-over setup, Mahlkönig PEAK and Mazzer espresso grinders, and local Upstart Kombucha on tap. The setup is efficient, tasteful and easy to work with, offering students and baristas an opportunity to learn how to consistently make good cups of coffee.

Along with learning school subjects in the form of hands-on training, the Montessori students are learning specialty coffee from Middle State Coffee, one of Denver’s most prominent roasters, and even getting a look at the roasting side in the process.

“I had a round of students in the roastery one day and we actually got them all on the sample roaster,” says Middle State owner Jay DeRose. “We did a spiel like, ‘This is coffee, this is why good coffee is good coffee,’ we did a little bit of education stuff, and then we fired up the sample roaster and each of them got to roast a batch and take it home.”

For high school junior Eli Chung, working at Pinwheel is an opportunity to set himself up for success for college and beyond. His job training can translate to a career in coffee if he chooses, but he can also pursue whatever his dream profession may be while earning a living in a respected, engaging field.

“In my middle school years, we had something called ‘Occupations,’ which was kind of the same idea as Pinwheel, but in a middle-school environment,’ says Chung. “There was a wood shop and a culinary program, and you would choose a new one each semester. There was a coffee shop and I’d taken that for about a year, so this feels like sort of a prolonged out-of-school extension of that experience. It was small-scale, student-run, student client-based, and everything was inside of the school. This feels like more of a larger community reach, but with a similar experience.”

Like any other barista, Chung can dial in espresso, steam milk, inform customers which coffees are available on any given day, and work the shifts his schedule allows. His authentic experience as an employee at a coffee shop has been positive, and could even potentially lead to a continued role in the coffee industry.

“I don’t want to limit myself to not working in coffee [career-wise],” he says. “I like it, and I think the experience will prove to be beneficial down the line, especially when I’m looking for positions during college. I’ll have this experience under my belt when I’m applying for part-time jobs, whatever they may be.”

Instead of working at a convenience store or a local supermarket, Montessori students’ involvement with Pinwheel could be a blueprint for the next wave of coffee professionals. Working at a local coffee shop in college has been fashionable for as long as coffee shops and campuses have been around, but preparing junior high and high schoolers for the professional coffee workplace can prepare students to pursue something else, too.

With college debt stacking up like a pile of tips, coffee could be an incubator that provides more young adults with the essentials: decent pay and job stability, interesting work, and a good cup of coffee each morning.

It’s also a twist on workplace dynamics and a potential teaching space for experienced customer service professionals. Instead of just relaying information about shop etiquette to the new hire, experienced baristas have an opportunity to be involved in formative times for their coworkers.

“Throwing a bunch of students into a restaurant environment would be so saturating that there wouldn’t be room for absorption,” says barista Colleen Reardon. “It’s so fast-paced and there’s so much information. But coffee shops are the perfect atmosphere for learning because you usually have some dry spaces where you don’t have a lot going on, and you can take time to explain what’s going and the students can actually learn.”

Reardon, a veteran of Denver’s coffee scene, feels that Pinwheel is special because of the people involved from top to bottom, and because the students have been receptive to any learning experience that pops up along the way.

It’s an unusual cafe concept and it involves everyone buying into the approach to learning that is being taught. It’s pure Montessori.

Pinwheel Coffee is located at 3659 Navajo Street, Denver. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Ben Wiese is a freelance journalist based in Denver. Read more Ben Wiese on Sprudge.

The post Teaching The Next Generation Of Baristas At Pinwheel Coffee In Denver appeared first on Sprudge.

Teaching The Next Generation Of Baristas At Pinwheel Coffee In Denver published first on https://medium.com/@LinLinCoffee

[epchapman89]

Teaching The Next Generation Of Baristas At Pinwheel Coffee In Denver

As the city of Denver continues to grow and every bit of real estate seems to be reserved for more apartment buildings or breweries, an old space in the Sunnyside neighborhood has become home to one of the more innovative concepts around town: a specialty coffee shop operated by local middle- and high-school students.

Pinwheel Coffee is a cafe that employs Compass and Denver Montessori School students, along with a team of full-time baristas. In partnership with the Montessori junior high and high schools, along with help from Colorado-based nonprofit organization Great Work Inc., students learn the ropes of specialty coffee while also gaining experience in customer service and human interaction, small-business operations, money-handling and accounting, and exposure to one of Denver’s most popular industries.

For more than a century, Montessori schools have prioritized real-world experience and freedom of choice over more traditional middle- and high-school environments. Coupled with Denver’s natural inclination toward appreciating craft beverages, coffee is a natural, easy fit.

Pinwheel holds the potential to be an alternative entry to the specialty coffee world for its student employees. Rather than finding coffee after other careers, Montessori students are learning at a young enough age to either participate in the “coffee lifers”’ school of thought, or use it as a safety net between schooling and finding a place in another preferred job field.

The Pinwheel Coffee bar consists of a Synesso MVP espresso machine, a pour-over setup, Mahlkönig PEAK and Mazzer espresso grinders, and local Upstart Kombucha on tap. The setup is efficient, tasteful and easy to work with, offering students and baristas an opportunity to learn how to consistently make good cups of coffee.

Along with learning school subjects in the form of hands-on training, the Montessori students are learning specialty coffee from Middle State Coffee, one of Denver’s most prominent roasters, and even getting a look at the roasting side in the process.

“I had a round of students in the roastery one day and we actually got them all on the sample roaster,” says Middle State owner Jay DeRose. “We did a spiel like, ‘This is coffee, this is why good coffee is good coffee,’ we did a little bit of education stuff, and then we fired up the sample roaster and each of them got to roast a batch and take it home.”

For high school junior Eli Chung, working at Pinwheel is an opportunity to set himself up for success for college and beyond. His job training can translate to a career in coffee if he chooses, but he can also pursue whatever his dream profession may be while earning a living in a respected, engaging field.

“In my middle school years, we had something called ‘Occupations,’ which was kind of the same idea as Pinwheel, but in a middle-school environment,’ says Chung. “There was a wood shop and a culinary program, and you would choose a new one each semester. There was a coffee shop and I’d taken that for about a year, so this feels like sort of a prolonged out-of-school extension of that experience. It was small-scale, student-run, student client-based, and everything was inside of the school. This feels like more of a larger community reach, but with a similar experience.”

Like any other barista, Chung can dial in espresso, steam milk, inform customers which coffees are available on any given day, and work the shifts his schedule allows. His authentic experience as an employee at a coffee shop has been positive, and could even potentially lead to a continued role in the coffee industry.

“I don’t want to limit myself to not working in coffee [career-wise],” he says. “I like it, and I think the experience will prove to be beneficial down the line, especially when I’m looking for positions during college. I’ll have this experience under my belt when I’m applying for part-time jobs, whatever they may be.”

Instead of working at a convenience store or a local supermarket, Montessori students’ involvement with Pinwheel could be a blueprint for the next wave of coffee professionals. Working at a local coffee shop in college has been fashionable for as long as coffee shops and campuses have been around, but preparing junior high and high schoolers for the professional coffee workplace can prepare students to pursue something else, too.

With college debt stacking up like a pile of tips, coffee could be an incubator that provides more young adults with the essentials: decent pay and job stability, interesting work, and a good cup of coffee each morning.

It’s also a twist on workplace dynamics and a potential teaching space for experienced customer service professionals. Instead of just relaying information about shop etiquette to the new hire, experienced baristas have an opportunity to be involved in formative times for their coworkers.

“Throwing a bunch of students into a restaurant environment would be so saturating that there wouldn’t be room for absorption,” says barista Colleen Reardon. “It’s so fast-paced and there’s so much information. But coffee shops are the perfect atmosphere for learning because you usually have some dry spaces where you don’t have a lot going on, and you can take time to explain what’s going and the students can actually learn.”

Reardon, a veteran of Denver’s coffee scene, feels that Pinwheel is special because of the people involved from top to bottom, and because the students have been receptive to any learning experience that pops up along the way.

It’s an unusual cafe concept and it involves everyone buying into the approach to learning that is being taught. It’s pure Montessori.

Pinwheel Coffee is located at 3659 Navajo Street, Denver. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Ben Wiese is a freelance journalist based in Denver. Read more Ben Wiese on Sprudge.

The post Teaching The Next Generation Of Baristas At Pinwheel Coffee In Denver appeared first on Sprudge.

seen 1st on http://sprudge.com

[mrwilliamcharley]

Teaching The Next Generation Of Baristas At Pinwheel Coffee In Denver

As the city of Denver continues to grow and every bit of real estate seems to be reserved for more apartment buildings or breweries, an old space in the Sunnyside neighborhood has become home to one of the more innovative concepts around town: a specialty coffee shop operated by local middle- and high-school students.

Pinwheel Coffee is a cafe that employs Compass and Denver Montessori School students, along with a team of full-time baristas. In partnership with the Montessori junior high and high schools, along with help from Colorado-based nonprofit organization Great Work Inc., students learn the ropes of specialty coffee while also gaining experience in customer service and human interaction, small-business operations, money-handling and accounting, and exposure to one of Denver’s most popular industries.

For more than a century, Montessori schools have prioritized real-world experience and freedom of choice over more traditional middle- and high-school environments. Coupled with Denver’s natural inclination toward appreciating craft beverages, coffee is a natural, easy fit.

Pinwheel holds the potential to be an alternative entry to the specialty coffee world for its student employees. Rather than finding coffee after other careers, Montessori students are learning at a young enough age to either participate in the “coffee lifers”’ school of thought, or use it as a safety net between schooling and finding a place in another preferred job field.

The Pinwheel Coffee bar consists of a Synesso MVP espresso machine, a pour-over setup, Mahlkönig PEAK and Mazzer espresso grinders, and local Upstart Kombucha on tap. The setup is efficient, tasteful and easy to work with, offering students and baristas an opportunity to learn how to consistently make good cups of coffee.

Along with learning school subjects in the form of hands-on training, the Montessori students are learning specialty coffee from Middle State Coffee, one of Denver’s most prominent roasters, and even getting a look at the roasting side in the process.

“I had a round of students in the roastery one day and we actually got them all on the sample roaster,” says Middle State owner Jay DeRose. “We did a spiel like, ‘This is coffee, this is why good coffee is good coffee,’ we did a little bit of education stuff, and then we fired up the sample roaster and each of them got to roast a batch and take it home.”

For high school junior Eli Chung, working at Pinwheel is an opportunity to set himself up for success for college and beyond. His job training can translate to a career in coffee if he chooses, but he can also pursue whatever his dream profession may be while earning a living in a respected, engaging field.

“In my middle school years, we had something called ‘Occupations,’ which was kind of the same idea as Pinwheel, but in a middle-school environment,’ says Chung. “There was a wood shop and a culinary program, and you would choose a new one each semester. There was a coffee shop and I’d taken that for about a year, so this feels like sort of a prolonged out-of-school extension of that experience. It was small-scale, student-run, student client-based, and everything was inside of the school. This feels like more of a larger community reach, but with a similar experience.”

Like any other barista, Chung can dial in espresso, steam milk, inform customers which coffees are available on any given day, and work the shifts his schedule allows. His authentic experience as an employee at a coffee shop has been positive, and could even potentially lead to a continued role in the coffee industry.

“I don’t want to limit myself to not working in coffee [career-wise],” he says. “I like it, and I think the experience will prove to be beneficial down the line, especially when I’m looking for positions during college. I’ll have this experience under my belt when I’m applying for part-time jobs, whatever they may be.”

Instead of working at a convenience store or a local supermarket, Montessori students’ involvement with Pinwheel could be a blueprint for the next wave of coffee professionals. Working at a local coffee shop in college has been fashionable for as long as coffee shops and campuses have been around, but preparing junior high and high schoolers for the professional coffee workplace can prepare students to pursue something else, too.

With college debt stacking up like a pile of tips, coffee could be an incubator that provides more young adults with the essentials: decent pay and job stability, interesting work, and a good cup of coffee each morning.

It’s also a twist on workplace dynamics and a potential teaching space for experienced customer service professionals. Instead of just relaying information about shop etiquette to the new hire, experienced baristas have an opportunity to be involved in formative times for their coworkers.

“Throwing a bunch of students into a restaurant environment would be so saturating that there wouldn’t be room for absorption,” says barista Colleen Reardon. “It’s so fast-paced and there’s so much information. But coffee shops are the perfect atmosphere for learning because you usually have some dry spaces where you don’t have a lot going on, and you can take time to explain what’s going and the students can actually learn.”

Reardon, a veteran of Denver’s coffee scene, feels that Pinwheel is special because of the people involved from top to bottom, and because the students have been receptive to any learning experience that pops up along the way.

It’s an unusual cafe concept and it involves everyone buying into the approach to learning that is being taught. It’s pure Montessori.

Pinwheel Coffee is located at 3659 Navajo Street, Denver. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Ben Wiese is a freelance journalist based in Denver. Read more Ben Wiese on Sprudge.

The post Teaching The Next Generation Of Baristas At Pinwheel Coffee In Denver appeared first on Sprudge.

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