I Smell Like Coffee

I don't think I will ever stop smelling like espresso beans. This is not definitely a bad thing, because I really do like the smell of coffee. But my guess is that I wouldn't like it if it lingered in my room indefinitely, which is why my coat is in the kitchen right now. The reason for the aroma is my first 6-hour shift earlier today, which also left me with tired legs and a scratchy throat, but was fun.

My shift started at 7am, and I showed up a little early. There's a giant clock above the entrance to Broadway Market, and it said it was 6:55. The doors were locked, so I hit them with my mitten a few times, which was kind of like knocking. The girl behind the counter shook her head and held up five fingers. "I work here!" I shouted silently, because the counter isn't near the door at all, so the regular kind of shouting would only have attracted attention from people outside the store. Not that there was anybody else wandering down the street before 7 on a very cold Saturday, but there's just something generally sad about futile yelling.

But my silent pleas were ignored. The girl shook her head again and continued doing whatever shadowy activity she'd been in the middle of. She was now my New Work Enemy Number 1.

Another girl came into view, and I tried again, pointing at myself and then into the store, and mouthing "I WORK HERE TOO!" as clearly as I could through chattering teeth. This girl avoided enemy status by looking genuinely sorry as she said, "Sorry - I can't let you in yet. It's company policy."

Company policy is chilly. I eventually got let in, and learned the first of my Important Lessons Of the Day: the Broadway Market clock is five minutes fast. I ditched my layers, grabbed my green apron, and met my New Work Enemy Number 2, the computer training program. It took a good two hours to go through the modules that were designed to train me to use the cash register, because the program wouldn't let me click "next" until a voiceover had finished reading what was on the screen. And within my first five minutes of actually using the actual cash register, I discovered that the changes in the system since 2001, when the program was made, were considerable.

So I ended up learning the way I learn best, which is by being asked to do things I don't understand, trying likely solutions, and getting corrected. Over and over. My New Work Enemy Number 1, once she was no longer standing between me and a room temperature environment, quickly got downgraded to New Chatty Co-Worker, and then upgraded to New Annoyingly Interfering With My Learning Process Co-Worker when she displayed her inability to let me do things like push buttons on my own. In her defense, it was taking me more than one second to find the correct button on my screen. But in my defense, back off, NAIWMLP! I'll never learn how to do it if you push me aside every time I'm about to figure something out!

My only other New Work Enemy of today was the woman who lied about what size drink she wanted, allowed me to charge the larger (requested by her!) size to her credit card, and then said, "didn't you charge me too much? I didn't want this big of a drink!" Which, okay, the customer is always right, I'm so sorry I "misheard" you, and yes I would love to go find my shift manager now to get her to void your previous credit card transaction. No, don't worry about those seven people behind you in line. They probably woud enjoy waiting longer.

Most customers were much more pleasant to deal with. Sometimes they would confuse me, though. Like, after about 10 hours of standing behind the register, people were still coming up to me and saying "good morning." Were all people incapable of telling time? What was going on? If I wore a watch I would have been able to confirm that it actually was 10:30am, and therefore a completely valid time to be saying good morning. So I started dancing in place a little bit, which made the last few hours go by much faster.