She Thought a Latte

Thoughts on coffee, work, and coffee.

Every so often, as I gaze upon my morning coffee, I am taken back to the halcyon days of when I used to be a barista. This was at a Starbucks in southern Maine in the late 2000s. I remember little about it except that:

• The boss was insane, which is a federal requirement for bosses.

• The employees each had a designated co-worker they obsessed over, openly despised, yet somehow simultaneously had a crush on, which is a federal requirement for employees at such places.

(If you are asking yourself how this is possible, then (a) you are a rational human being, and (b) you have never been an employee at such a place.)

No, what I most remember about the place is that I got to make myself my own drinks: whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. If I wanted a free strawberry Frappuccino, I would just put in the necessary admixtures, press a few buttons, and boom, the thing was mine, all 30,000 yummy calories of it. I’ve rarely had such perks at a job since. I don’t even think they make strawberry Frappuccinos anymore. I think that was a thing of its day, much like those horrid dresses-over-pants combinations girls wore to bars when I was in college.¹

These days, I no longer work as a barista. It’s kind of a shame, because I liked it. I really enjoyed chatting with the customers; less so fulfilling their orders, which I forgot immediately once they said them, but so what? Wasn’t that secondary to the point of chatting with them, anyway? Regardless, I always got a big tip. And as I recall, I enjoyed making the drinks. Not so much the boss’ admonitions not to read a book when the store was empty and entirely clean, because “if you can lean, you can clean” — evidently meaning you should spend all your downtime mindlessly scrubbing a store that had already been scrubbed to death.

I no longer have a boss, because I run my own business. This is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, I never have to hear inanities about cleaning anymore. On the other hand, I have to rely on my own brain for governance, and a less governing organ you are unlikely to find. Let’s say there’s an email I have to send. It’s generally agreed that the first step is to type in the recipient’s address. Well, my brain has zero interest in this. It will execute twenty other unrelated tasks before it will ever get to the email. First, it will look at second-hand clothes I don’t need on ThredUp. Next, it will look at products I don’t need on Amazon. Then, it will take me down the street to look at stuff I don’t need at Goodwill. (Are you sensing a pattern here?)

Reminded a second time to write the email, my brain will duly — you guessed it — take a left turn and look up music by the composer Reynaldo Hahn. It will make some inane remark to me about how he wrote really good music, despite the fact that his name was “Reynaldo” (which my brain finds comical; just go with me here) and it will snicker at that remark, despite the fact that it makes no sense. I’m sure plenty of people are capable of all sorts of things despite being named “Reynaldo,” or “Brittney,” or what have you. Lastly, it will write an essay about all of these thoughts, despite the fact that they are stupid.

Duly reminded a second — or is it third? — time to WRITE THE EMAIL, GODDAMMIT, my brain will finally, at long last (you knew it was coming!) latch onto a commercial jingle it last heard 25 years ago. Once we are finally done with this, it will write the email, at least assuming there’s no one around to play Scrabble with.

But would it really be better to have an officious boss around? I’m not sure it would. There are downsides beyond the platitudes. For one, bosses often smell funny. For another, they’re just not very fun people. They’d be unlikely to play Scrabble with you. So I am content, for now, to stick with my own lousy-executive brain as my boss. For one thing, it looks up good music. For another, it takes me down memory lane to old commercials, which are garbage but which I have an ill-concealed deep affection for. (Have you ever looked up compilations of old French TV commercials? They’re the best, even if you don’t understand French.)

And in the end, my brain does get done what needs getting done. It just takes its own route to get there, and it is never the one recommended by Google Maps. It will spend needless time struggling with some task literally any other brain could manage, such as trying 106 unsuccessful times to open my earphone case from one side before figuring out which side actually opens it (hint: the other side). And I guess that is okay.

If you fare better in a traditional work environment, with bosses and employees, that’s okay too. If it’s a place with good food and drinks, you’ll reap excellent free benefits into the bargain. All I ask of you is this: please make me a strawberry Frappuccino.

1. Seriously: what was with that? And when did it go away? Did it die on its own, or did the girls all have to take a vaccine or something?