work « theMaxOnline

5Oct/111

Baby’s mug

Another one of my awkward exchanges with customers that I'm reminded of whenever I pass by a certain red-headed customer on the streets of downtown Halifax. (seriously, I plan on putting my short stories and events into a book of some sort at some point in my life...)

This guy would come in most mornings while I was making lattes, pouring coffee, grinding beans and bagging muffins. Typically, he'd just pick up a coffee. This picking up also involved the exchange of his own mug. Not an uncommon thing. Bring a mug, save a quarter (or somewhere near there). But this mug was a personalized coffee mug like those "#1 Grampa" or "My friends went to Florida and all they got me was this lousy coffee mug" ones. It had a photograph of a baby on there.

Part of my job is to interact with the customer in any way I can that creates somewhat of a bond or something in the hope that they feel warm and fuzzy and make return visits to get more coffee so I ask who the baby is on the mug. He replies, "my baby" (or a variation of that which gives an answer that the baby on the mug is in fact his.) Now, this surprised me as the guy didn't look old enough to have a baby. Yeah, he had a receding hairline but his baby-face implied that he couldn't have been any older than me and as we all know, I'm WAY too young to have a baby. Plus, he didn't look like he'd even be old enough to be married or... okay. That's a whole other bag of beans there.

"How old is your daughter?" I ask.

"My son." he casually replies, as if such a mistaken question is normal.

Immediately I'm trying to scramble and backtrack but to no avail. I called a customer's son a girl. Perhaps one of the biggest insults to a man's newborn baby boy, despite what I know to not be the case both from my own opinion and the teachings of a certain Women's Studies course I'm taking at school. What to do. What to do. Oh! Of course he is. Look at those muscles... err... what to say to heal this wound that I've caused.

Awkward laugh... "oooh...." laugh again... "umm..."

"It's okay," he's still causal. Too casual. "It's not like his penis is sticking out or anything."

Is he pissed? Or is he understanding to the fact that ALL babies look the same and without any actual information to go on other than a small photo on a mug, I was guessing based on a colour that I forget of the snowsuit the baby was wearing.

He seemed fine. But the few times I've served him after that, I admit it. I felt awkward. He seemed normal.

But he doesn't come in as much anymore. No longer a daily customer. My fault? I think maybe this whole exchange could almost serve as some sort of intro to a paper for my women's studies class. It fits with the how babies are treated based on their gender and why it could be so offensive for some parents to mistake a strapping baby boy for a girl or a delicate baby girl for a boy.

But it's not like his penis was sticking out.

Tagged as: baby, customer, gender, mug, work 1 Comment

27Jun/113

Thank you! Thank you!

It's so odd how your actions and interactions every day can stand out to one person enough for them to approach you and make note of it. This morning, a guy I'd never seen before comes in and asks for an iced cappuccino. It's not a drink we have. Normally when someone asks for that, I'll clarify that we have a similar drink and explain briefly what it is. Most times, the person will go for it. James served this guy so he took his own approach. Instead, he went for a mango fruit smoothy. I won't lie, I typically think it's slightly strange when a middle-aged man gets a beverage like that with some exceptions. Though that's not what was odd about this particular situation.

While James was preparing the drink, I did the cash transaction. The way I always do. Ring it in, take the money, give back the change, thanks, etc. It was a slow morning and still early so I just kept dazing forward but from behind me on the other side of the counter the man calls for my attention.

"Just so you know, you said 'thank you' twice to me."

I thought this was an odd observation to make conversation about but I responded with an understanding "yeah."

"I'm the leader of the Scientology movement and saying thank you twice to someone is considered disrespectful. Once is fine twice is disrespectful toward the person you're saying it to."

.... no words. I manage to start explaining that I don't like saying "you're welcome" to people (another story for another time - remind me sometime) but he continues:

"Did you know that the United States doesn't allow Scientologists into the country. The border is closed to us. I'm not allowed in there."

I've no response to this. "Oh," I manage to answer.

James hands him his drink and he goes away. Wondering what he was saying, I refused to say anything until he had left the store.

He went to the front area and sat at one the stools. Leaving once to, what I assume was to wave at a police vehicle before walking the length of the front of the store and coming back in the door opposite of the one he left and sit back in his same seat. He stayed for about a half hour until leaving, finally freeing me to tell James what happened without being found odd by this obviously odd man.

It's not the fact that he called himself a Scientologist that struck me as odd. It's that he seemed to take offense to me saying "thank you" twice to him, as if I should either know who he is and know what he considers rude or polite, or I should naturally follow his "rules" of etiquette. Of course, it's probably a goal of someone of any organized religion that everyone follow their ways and standards but I thought it was incredibly rude at how presumptuous he was, as if I purposely disrespected him, a complete stranger, whose beliefs are almost completely unknown to those that don't subscribe to them. I think anyone with that type of perspective, as in the type of person to have a set of beliefs and expect every other person they come into contact with to naturally follow them, likely have their heads in the clouds or up their own butts and lack the ability to see things from the bigger picture. I didn't want to relay my interaction with him to anyone while he was there because I wasn't sure where his attention was directed. Most people after getting a drink would sit, watch the people walking along the streets until they were done and leave. He wasn't most people. He struck me as paranoid and I wasn't entirely sure he didn't continue to focus his attention on me, listening in to see if there were other ways I could be disrespecting him. Perhaps by looking past him over his right shoulder was a sign that I was praying to have his first born son kidnapped. But in his mind, everyone should know that.

Tagged as: thank you, work 3 Comments

4Jun/111

Got respect? Sad.

Sometimes when I'm working I'll go to collect the dishes at my cafe and find some half-eaten sandwiches, somewhat touched treats or barely sipped drinks and wonder what the person that bought those items thought about them as they left them there and what did they think about the place they just sat in for however long they were there. Was their decision to not finish their purchase immediate or was it a lingering thought which leaving it was the winning side.

I can't help but admit that it's somewhat disheartening that these things get left behind. Not because I frown upon the people that waste the food/drink but because I genuinely feel bad that they were likely disappointed. One of the things I try to do while at my job, and it's something that I've always done when working with food even as far back as Tim Hortons, was to ensure that the food I'm working with and handling is respectfully treated with dignity. It might sound like a silly thought but the idea that food I eat might be tossed around like it's nothing makes it seem so unappealing and I'd hate knowing that I might give that thought to someone else. I feel that someone who's willing to spend money on something they're consuming should know that they're consuming something worth it. If the server, ie. me, doesn't treat their food with respect, is it worth the money? Part of the enjoyment of the food you eat is knowing that it's coming from a place where the people that make it and the people that serve it are able to stand behind it. I likely wouldn't want to eat something that was slapped down on a plate in front of me without a second thought as to how it looks on the plate, even if it might taste good. To me, that's part of treating the food with dignity. I always ensure that any drink I make is made with my own personal standard. If it's not something I wouldn't drink myself, it's not something I would serve up.

To find out recently that someone I know thinks it's sad that I still work where I work is also nothing short of disappointing. Not something unexpected because I'm definitely my own biggest critic when it comes to what I'm doing in life but at the same time, it's a mixed bag of thoughts to find out that someone is critical enough of me to vocally specify that their opinion of my choices in employment is "sad" is in itself sad. Maybe it's due to my age that I'm still working at a coffee shop that is sad. Maybe it's my education that implies I should be doing something more that is sad. Or maybe it's the competitive catty nature of the person behind the comment that decided my current employment wasn't up to par that is sad.

Despite my own thoughts about the level of my employment right now, I'm quite happy where I work. I can say in all honesty that it's the easiest job I've ever gotten paid to do and I do make more there than I've made at any other job up until this point. If I didn't like it, I certainly wouldn't still be working there. I enjoy the people I work with. I very much enjoy the customers and it suits my lifestyle just fine for now. Of course, if I had a choice I'd be working other places but we all don't have such free reign over where we work. I've come to the conclusion fairly recently that I would have done things much differently as far as education after high school goes knowing what I know now. So it's fairly disheartening to hear that someone who knows me thinks it's perfectly okay to judge such as aspect of my own life as being "sad". I don't know if other people have thought or said the same thing about me and it just hasn't gotten back to me. I guess it really doesn't matter because I'm not out to prove anything. I do like what I do, regardless of what image it portrays to people that take it upon themselves to look down on people they think are "sad", when they really couldn't be more wrong.