Free Coffee Comes at a Price

Well, it'll be tough to top the quality and edge of your seat action of my last blog post, but as a certified food blogger I have to try damnit! You may all be wondering what I've been up to lately. What exactly happened last week? Well, while my last post caused every neuron in your brain to simultaneously fire with excitement, it did little to explain what I've been doing. How ironic that I think I got more comments on that post than I did for any other post I've ever written! And that includes "A Grand Return to the Writing Community", which still reigns as the longest post in the history of this blog! Ah well...best not to question it I suppose.

Well if you haven't yet figured it out, the title of this post has quite a bit to do with the topic to which I am writing. Go figure! But what phenomenon could validate such a mind boggling paradox as paying for free coffee? Work. Yes, for those of you who have not yet heard, I've recently been employed at Starbucks! And it has been quite a hectic start (what job doesn't have a busy start?) so I'm sorry to say I've been losing track of the food blog. But here I am. Back and writing better than ever! Gather round folks, for today you will hear the incredible story of the first few weeks of my employment!

It all started about a month ago, when a great many of us set off on a job hunt. Grabbing applications from anywhere from Einstien bagels to Barnes and Nobles to "Golf Adventure" to some Chinese restaurant, the Onions covered nearly every base to be covered! Now, I do have to come clean with you people. I didn't actually apply to the last two...only Erik and Fat Dan had the courage to put their lives on the line trying to apply to the Chinese restaurant! But among the places that I did get an application was Starbucks. I put it off for a day or two, but eventually filled the whole thing out and was ready to go! I actually had a good laugh at one of the questions on the application. It said: "What do you like about coffee?" Haha! What DON'T I like about coffee?! I replied "Insufficient Space".

I was actually on the way to drop off my application, when I got a phone call from a dear friend of mine, Ray Feeny. He informed me that Starbucks was actually holding walk-in interviews at the Neshaminy Starbucks in a few hours! Ha! Sounds good to me! I went against my mother's recommendation and held off on turning my application in.

5:00 rolled by and Ray, Ryan, and myself all headed to the Neshaminy Starbucks. We enjoyed ourselves as they took us over for interviews one by one. I was first. I was interviewed by two people, and they asked me a flurry of questions which I responded to as best I could. I thought(and now know) that it had gone very well, and the fact that they took the time to start explaining the benefits and dress code to me reaffirmed my high hopes. Ray was next, and also seemed to have a very good interview. Ryan didn't have as much luck, as he was only going to be home for the summer, and they weren't looking for seasonal folks. His interview lasted a good 30 seconds.
The man who had interviewed me called the next day.

Apparently I was training at Oxford Valley Mall Starbucks and actually working in the Newtown one. I felt like a soldier being trained in one place and then being shipped off elsewhere to serve the greater good. I'm actually under the suspicion that Starbucks is building an army. And then one day in the near future they're gonna call us all to arms and take over all the coffee plantations in the world, forcing everyone to pay unheard of prices for coffee. All I need now is evidence!

Well in either case, I had my first day of training at the mall two weeks ago. It might actually have been later than that, but I have no sense of time. I got there my first day to find out that my learning coach was not there. Figures. Not that it really mattered. I didn't learn much the first day, so the manager just took me under her wing. The manager just so happened to be one of the two people who interviewed me, and I would find out later that night that she was my mom's friend back from when they were kids! Ha! Small world.

I went in my second day to find that my learning coach was a man named Jeff...and wait a second...I used to work with him at Accura!! Ha! Small world. I believe I met him through my mother as well. I swear, my mother has left a legacy in this world. She paves a path wherever she goes, and I feel like I've only seen the beginning of it!

Training was pretty straightforward. Actually...scratch that. Training was confusing as hell! Supposedly there are 15000 (yes, there are 3 zeros there) different drink combinations!! 15000!! Dear lord. They started me off on Espresso bar A. This iwas just the basics. Lattes, Mochas, Cappuccinos. Oh, and of course coffee. I swear people are forgetting about coffee these days! Then I moved on to Espresso Bar B. Adding on to the basics. Triple Caramel Machiatos and all that fancy jazz Then cold bar. Frappichinos (Or as Fat Dan says: Frappa-whappa-chinos) and other iced drinks. Apparently we got a crapload of those at the mall because those damn mall rat teenagers don't get real drinks, but rather stick with the milkshakes. And then finally register training. I would also like to add on that training pretty much kicked ass. The only way to learn how to make drinks is to actually make them. And once I was done making all the drinks, there was nothing to do but drink them! So I would come home on the biggest caffeine rushes I've ever experienced!

Oh right and somewhere in all that, they had me go to a Starbucks class in Montgomoryville. I don't even know if that's what it's actually called or that's how it's spelled, but it was really far away! Goddamn! A guy named J.J. who was a shift supervisor that had yet to take the class gave me a ride down. I don't think I need to elaborate on how awesome that was, but lets just say he has good taste in movies. He reminded me of that one comedian guy who was making fun of George Lucas...I wish I knew his name. But if I didn't know better, I'd swear they were the same person! Maybe his name is JJ...ah well! The class was made up of 4 people...and 3 of them were from Oxford Valley! Why the hell didn't they just have the class there?! They showed us a movie and told us that we had to fill out our "coffee passports" within 3 months of employment. A coffee passport is a little book they give you, and every time you try a new type of coffee, you have to make notes about it! It's one of those things that are cool unless its mandatory. Then its just a pain!

So I finished my training on Friday, and am now a certified barista! Hell yea! I still don't really know what I'm doing, but I'm gonna get a cool pin for my hat! I said my goodbyes, got my free pound of coffee, and made my exit! On my way out of the mall, I actually ran into another friend from Accura, Guy! I think I actually met him at Sesame Place, and then ended up working with him at Accura later on! First thing he asked me was how my mom was. There's her legacy again!

The next day, I started in Newtown. Holy-Shit. Newtown is a good 100 times busier than the mall! Good god, I have never seen a more intimidating line in my life! And to make it worse, they were all Yuppies with their spoiled children! I think the human race needs to evolve and get less annoying. Goddamn! Yes m'am, I did hear that you wanted your milk to be 1% instead of 2% and you only wanted 2 and a half pumps of syrup although I'd bet 20 bucks that you can't tell the difference anyway. Sorry I asked you to repeat yourself sir, but maybe if you weren't so busy looking important while talking on your bluetooth, you could make the effort to speak clearly. But I guess as long as there are Yuppies, there will be spoiled children and as long as there are spoiled children, there will be future Yuppies. An endless cycle.

So I walked in and was ignored for awhile. They told me to go chill for 7 minutes, which I did. Then I came back and got my first job. What was that you ask? Well I got to watch a girl in the backroom who was having an allergic reaction and make sure she was breathing, and if she wasn't I had to let the supervisor know! Not that I knew who the supervisor was, or who the girl was for that matter, but that was what I had to do. So I'm standing there in dead silence with this girl sitting on a chair a few feet in front of me having difficulty breathing, and I could already tell Newtown was crazy. Thankfully the ambulance arrived before she died, and she gave me one request before being taken off to the hospital: to get her cup from the back. Unfortunately, I failed as I'm fairly certain there was no cup in that room! She was probably just delusional.

So I get out and some bitch tells me to do 800 things and then seemed to be annoyed with me cause I didn't know where anything was, who she was, what the drink was, or how hot I had to boil a children's hot chocolate. I later found out that she was the one who gave the girl the allergic reaction by giving her milk instead of soy, so maybe she was just having a bad day. But at the time, she was a total bitch! Things were a hundred times busier then they had ever been at Oxford Valley, and nobody had acknowledged the fact that I didn't know what I was doing. Fortunately, things died down a bit, and people started acting a bit more nicely as the day went on. I met this really cool artist guy named Tim...I want to add on to that thought, but I think I'll just leave it at that.

My second day was a little easier and I met another Ian who has been working there for a year. Not gonna lie, he was the coolest person there. It must be something about the name! He genuinely reminded me of Mike Scarfone. It was like it you combined me and Mike Scarfone, but only took my name and everything else from Mike Scarfone! I had more fun on day two.

Today was my third day. Now duly note that I've been working for the past like 6 days in a row, which is why I have failed to blog for so long! Work is also the reason my last blog wasn't more than it was! Busy busy busy! Today one of them asked me if I could make frappuchinos. Ha! Bitch please! I come from Oxford Valley! Don't YOU ask ME if I can make frappuchinos! Jeff done trained me right! I left them in awe at the sheer talent of my cold beverage making abilities, and they kept me on cold bar for awhile.

And that's that! Tomorrow is the first day I have off in like...six days, so I'm looking forward to sleeping. Who'd of thought going from a daily bedtime of about 4 in the morning and jumping right into work would be hard on my body?! But I apologize again for the late post, and I hope that you understand the toll that the Starbucks experience has had on my abilities to write. Even ask my mother, I've been in the process of writing this blog for the past 3 days, but have been unable to finish it! Ah well. You should all come to expect it from me. I'm gonna go drink some coffee.

Breakfast: Nothing.

Lunch: Nothing? Yea...still nothing!

Dinner: One of those inch long pizzas they sell at the Pizza Hut at Target. And a bowl of Ramen with a cup of coffee. I drink too much coffee...