I was a bad girl

I've been bad and I need to confess. First of all, I haven't been blogging lately which is disrespectful to all you devoted fans out there (ha ha). Secondly, I was late for work today an dI still feel ashamed about it. I just don't do that. It didn't end up affecting the shift so much, and the supervisor on duty was someone who has been late for my shifts a million times, but still you know? Also, one of my lovely male co-workers did try to hook up with me a couple nights ago, and I'm still in that strange bewildered state where I don't know how to react. We worked together on Saturday (cinco de mayo, anyone?) and after work we went to the bar to get wasted, which we did quite successfully! We were talking about random, boring relationship stuff. He, well Sam, has a girlfriend who he cheats on relentlessly and I tried my best to give him proper advicxe on how to break up with someone. I'll admit that getting tipsy can bring out my flirtatious side, so I may have been asking for it the whole time, but there came a point after the 7th or 8th beer where I could tell he was thinking that we'd be gettin it on soon. He's attractive and there's definitely some chemistry but I simply could not go along with his advances. It became extremely awkward when we hit another bar and ran into a co-worker, Dave, who immediately began casting suspicious glances my way as it was obvious at that time in the drunken evening that we were wasted and flirting. Dave knows that Sam is a man-slut. Well, everyone knows. Sam used to hook up with Jane and as far as I know he sleeps with different girls all the time. So Dave sees the two of us together and knows that something must be going on. So I take him outside for a smoke and tell him I know what it looks like, but I swear it's innocent. We come back and Sam, getting drunker by the minute, starts getting possessive over me and putting his arm around me and I just didn't know what to do. The most amusing part was when we were sitting around the table, and Dave and Sam were taking turns texting me all secretively. Dave would write "come on, let's get out of here you don't want to put up with Sam anymore, do you?" and two seconds later I'd get a message from Sam, "you're beautiful. hook up with me." How charming. But then all of a sudden Sam got a message from some chick he screws on occasion and he ran off into the evening to get some ass elsewhere. So that was that. Now my inbox is flooded with apologetic messages from Sam. I guess he's embarassed. I would be too, but he doesn't know my past. If anyone can forgive drunken sluttiness, it's me.

No more poopy.

I only chose that title for this entry because I want everyone to know that I will no longer clean up dookie at work. I write that here in this blog that no one will ever read, but I know that it's not true. Unfortunately, one of the shitty (pun intended duh) aspects of this job is that I really have no choice in the matter when it comes to poop. If it's there have to clean it up. I get mad though, when I'm, supervising and someone else on the shift has been assigned the job of cleaning the bathrooms (we have to do it once during every shift) and they go in, come out two seconds later and tell me that there's shit everywhere, expecting me to then absorb the task of scrubbing it off the walls just because I'm in charge of the shift. It seems strange that I have enough experience with this sort of thing to merit me even writing about it, but I can assure you that I deal with a shitty bathroom at least a couple times every month. Our cafe's pretty large I think. We have three fucking bathrooms. We serve coffee!! Some people just use our bathrooms for their morning shit. They don't even buy coffee. I know a couple of the garbage guys do it. I guess that's okay. At least they work hard and have to smell far shittier things than I do all day. But then there are some customers who come in every day to get coffee and take a huge smelly dump. I see them and I know that if I could just get up the nerve to refuse them service one morning, then maybe their bowels wouldn't be prompted to explode so soon in a place where I have to clean it up/. I mean, come on guys, save it for the office!! There is this story that I have that involves more dookie than you can shake a stick at. I've been waiting for the perfect time to write about it. I have to be in a specific mood, and I have to be awake and coherent enough to write it well so that you'll feel just an ounce of my pain.
I'll give you a little taste- this guy one time crapped all over the bathroom and spread it on the walls and mirror and sink with his hands (which he didn't wash afterwards just so you know). He was drunk and it was at nighttime. I hate him. We had to call the police. I'll tell you more juicy stuff some other time. love dani

MTV thinks we're boring!

Well folks, sorry to dissappoint, but it looks like you won't be seeing any of Cafe Nasty on the small screen anytime soon. I honestly am a little disappointed. It would've been fun to watch some of my lamer co-workers duke it out over random, stupid things. Now that Jane is gone, so is a lot of the in-store drama, so the excitement level has been taken down several notches since those producers were milling about a couple months ago.
I still have theatrical hopes for our cafe though. I want to make an espresso training movie with a couple of the other coffee trainers at the store. I just don't know how to execute the project. David Schomer has really informative videos that we watch every now and then at staff meetings, and I highly recommend them to anyone who works at a cafe or is just curious about coffee. But the movies don't quite tackle the way we at Nasty brew our joe, and Schomer's words are thus rendered less than useful, though still interesting and insightful. I think that Nasty needs its own line of videos because our methods are extremely unique and I've never been to any other cafe that came close to approximating what we do. SO no use trying to confuse our poor workers with training supplies that won''t really serve them at their jobs. It's time I got in front of the camera and showed all those bitches how it's done.

Nothing

Today was one of those days where every customer, even the regulars who are typically nice, acted pissed off. I guess it's a common thing for people in my line of work to serve as punching bags for customers who are experiencing some dissatisfaction in other areas of their lives. We're just the humble servants behind the counter. We can't snap back, even if the customer is completely out of line and blatantly rude. I don't feel like I'm a slave. I take pride in my work, and want to be treated as a professional- I try to dress somewhat well, wear make-up and radiate a sense of pride and confidence, just hoping customers will pick up on it and give me some credit and less attitude. That's about all I can do. This renders me helpless in the face of everyday crabiness that I'll inevitably run into at least once during any given shift. I must allow a certain amount of rudeness and be willing to put up with it, or else I'll crumble beneath it and go home feeling so shitty about myself every day. The only way I've been able to tolerate people's crap is to drape myself in a thick cloak of impermeable confidence before each shift. Though I'm confident enough naturally, the emotional strength that's required to devote more than four full years of my life to serving cappuccinos is far beyond what's inherent in my being. I do, however, have a strong appreciation for the art of service, and that has certainly helped me carry on. I can embrace the theatrical aspect of customer service. That thick cloak I was discussing is really just my usual facade- my workplace persona that is more outgoing and talkative and eager to please than my normal self. If I can enjoy putting that mask on day-in and day-out, then I'll have no problem keeping up with this job. Days like today truly test my passion for Cafe Nasty. So far, I'm still having fun.

I promise I'm still here

I feel heavily weighed upon by the amount of schoolwork and freelance work that's been thrust upon me this month. I'd made it a priority when I started this blog to write in it every day, both to keep up my writing skills and to take a deeper look into the coffee business, so I might appreciate this very time-consuming job a little more I suppose. I am lazy as well as techophobic by nature, so it's no surprise to me that I've been slacking in the blogosphere. Nonetheless, I made a commitment to myself several months ago to be regular with my posts, and I swear I'll try to adhere to that commitment more responsibly in the future.
I've thought about different ways to make the coffee business more prevalent on the web. Though I possess no internet programming skills or whatever of my own, I'm still a creative visionary, and I can at least generate ideas and manipulate others into executing them. Does coffeeshop.com exist? I was thinking it could be a web community devoted to coffee. Like there could be blogs by cafe workers like me, roasters, enthusiasts. I also think it would be cool to have a rating system for coffee shops around the country (or even the world) for hardcore addicts to rate the quality of service, espresso, brewed coffee, ambience and stuff like that.

Am I a bitch?

I was racked with guilt for most of today's shift. I waas mean. Sometimes you just have to be, when your workers are slacking and shit just isn't getting done. That's how it was this morning. I tried to be the good person, I really did. But these bitches threw it back in my face and made me suffer for my attempts at kindness. Hannah, who no one can stand, surprised me in the wee hours of the morn' by walking in to work (she was covering forit another girl on the shift). Since I know that no one can stand her, I did the nice thing by working side by side with her all day and putting the other two girls together. Thing is, the other two are friends, and friends tend to slow each other down at work, with all their giggling and gossiping and shit. I kept turning around to see what kind of shape Cafe Nasty was in while they were in charge of keping it clean (that's right, we don't have janitors- we do everything ourselves) and it was just a horrendous sight time after time. I got snappy. I couldn't help it! You should have seen. The garbage can was literally overflowing- to the point where they would put an empty milk container in and it would roll off the top of the dirty mound onto the floor. The nerve! So I definitely got huffy and bitchy. But then I felt really bad and apologized after the shift. They said they didn't notice me being mean and not to worry, but they were lying I know it.
Moral of the story is to not have two good friends working close together if you're in charge, b/c they won't do shit and then you'll have to yell at them and feel bad.

Back to my old tricks.

That was a nice little vacation. Now I'm back at work, like nothing ever changed. One thing I noticed during my adventures out west is that, no matter where I went, food service was slow and uninspired. I know what you're thinking- that service workers (myself included) are underpaid and underappreciated, the work is dull and dirty, so why would I expect enthusiasm from the young dude serving me coffee in the morning? I'll tell you why- because where I come from, if you fail to go that extra mile for each customer you serve, or if you show signs of laziness or that jaded coffee shop worker attitude you are toast. With all the training and effort we at Nasty put into cultivating superior work ethics in our employees, it's nearly impossible for anyone to last at the job without becoming just as psychotically obsessed with customer service as I am. Those that can't live up to the responsibility are quickly weeded out. Why do we even bother? The competition between hip, independent coffee houses around here is so minimal that I'm sure we'd still have a following even if we gave shitty service. But out west, I'd think it would be a different story. Isn't that where Starbucks was birthed? The shortage in efficient and friendly service extends beyond the coffee industry though. Fast food, nice restaurants, ice cream shops, they were all guilty in my brief experience in San Diego. I'm curious just how fact-based my assessments are. Mind you, I was only there for five days. But perhaps that fast-paced New York vibe radiates outward from the city and infects the entire eastern seaboard with its frantic energy. Maybe things are just different out west, and I have to learn to accept that. I don't know.