Confessions of a college coffee monger: Cabell baristas tell all

Nick Bonadies
Spectrum Editor

Saturday afternoon was a rare quiet moment – an eye in the storm – for the strongly constituted employees manning stations at the Cabell Library Starbucks, which extended to a 24-hour operating schedule last week to accomodate students at Cabell’s Library Lite All Nite.

Three of them kindly gave their off-time to CT reporters to describe – from their side of the counter – the perhaps under-appreciated duty of doling caffeine to the destitute, and occasionally violent, finals-week masses.

CASEY COSIER, senior painting & printmaking and art education double major

Initially, going into it, my first shift was at 9 a.m. on a Wednesday, and I walked in and everyone was too busy with the morning rush to really tell me what to do. Just because I had been such a Starbucks fanatic in high school, I knew how to read cups. The anagrams. It’s really not that difficult, I mean it sounds weird, but there’s a syntax to it.

So all I did was stand next to Kim and literally spent four-and-a-half hours putting whipped cream on cups and handing them off.

It was pretty terrifying seeing all this action happening, especially since it’s not an unfamiliar place – I was a Starbucks addict in high school. It’s nerve-wracking, you don’t know where anything is; you don’t understand anything about it.

There’s always something a little stunning about when someone insists on having a venti caramel frappuccino with extra caramel in and outside of the cup, and extra whipped cream on top or whipped cream blended in. It’s a sugar bomb. We’re actually making them ice cream mush. There’s this innocent appeal because it’s coffee, it’s caffeine, and you don’t think about that it’s got 800 calories in it. There was an article about that, where the woman talked about how surprised she was how willing this nation was to drink its calories.

An extra shot of espresso sounds innocent enough, too. It’s just a shot. Think about that in bar terms: It’s just a shot of vodka;what’s it gonna do to you? When somebody orders four shots of espresso, it’s one of those things where you have to ask them, “Are you sure?”

With the unpleasantness, everyone gets stressed out. They’re in the library late, typically Sunday night when you can tell these people didn’t do anything over the weekend other than party, get drunk, and they’ll come in at Sunday on 4 p.m., hung over, just wanting to tell you how much homework they had to do or how much they enjoyed their weekend. But how much homework they had to do because they enjoyed their weekend.

This one girl — it was one in the morning; we had been closed for a solid hour. I was mopping the floor, and as I was mopping the floor, this girl came up and purposefully slammed down her drink with an intensity where the drink flew everywhere, and said, “What the hell is this?” I looked, and it was a strawberies and cream frappuccino – and it looked like something she had found because it was completely melted and separated. I figured she just found it somewhere in the library and thought, “Well, maybe if I complain, they’ll give me a free one.” It had been such a long night. I looked at her and said “Obviously it’s something you ordered at least an hour ago because we have been closed since midnight, ma’am.”

I just think, does it just help to be mean or mad at somebody? What is going on? Some of the people that come up to you are so aggressive, and it’s just weird because it could be as simple as “I don’t like this” or “Something’s not right with this.” But I feel like people are kind of worried that if you pose it as a question, or if you don’t infuse it with heightened emotion, you know, you’re gonna get ignored or get no response. So they act angry.

JUSTIN WALKER, freshman biology pre-med

Last semester was a lot worse – we didn’t have 24 hours last semester, but people used to come in here two minutes before we closed and order 30 drinks. People are kind of impatient and rude. We always come into that conflict, but you know – “the customer is always right,” so.

When I first started, I was like “Aaah, what’s going on?” I’ve never seen that big of a rush during finals week. I’ve worked in retail a long time, like ever since I’ve started working, and you really don’t get “please” and “thank you,” you know what I mean?  The customers kind of expect it, that it’s understood. People say “I want,” like “I want this” and “I want that.” Not “Can I please have this,” or “Is there a way I can?” I guess it’s also that way ’cause this is a college campus, but you still have those people who occasionally come who are like, “Hey, how are you guys doing?” We always ask that, but some people kind of take the time out to return the question. That’s always cool.

KIM LEE, shift manager, mother of four

I’ve been working here (Starbucks) since I was 15 years old, so – this (indicates accumulating line of customers) doesn’t bother me. I love it, you know what I’m saying? I love the students, I love the fast pace – all of that, you know. It’s just that some of my crew, they can’t take the fast pace, you know what I’m saying. Like I said, we’re a team, so we work together. And if they’ve got somebody down there with them, then everything’s all good. But some people have their days, you know. That’s every day. I don’t get mad if they don’t say “Good morning” back. That’s just how it goes.

Students, staff – you get ’em all in here. Some of them rude, some of them not. Some of them very nice, very well-mannered. Just a joy to come here every day in work … I know about a hundred people by name – the regulars – they come in here like two, three times a day. I’ve been here since they opened (this location), 2007. I’ve seen ’em come, and I’ve seen ’em go.

With the crew it depends on the person, you know what I’m saying; it depends on the type of work that they’ve done, their life, or whatever. If they come through here, we’re gonna help them as best as we can, but a whole lot of ’em quit after two or three days, ’cause they can’t take the pressure, you know, of the business; you stay busy constantly, consistently, every day.

My regular time is 6:30 in the morning to 4 in the evening. By the time I’ve left, we’ve (done) at least 1300 customers.  You know that’s a lot. But they pay good, you know, I can’t complain. Everybody has their bad days and their good days. I just go with the flow, baby. That’s it.

Thanks for the frappuccino, Kim.