3.17.2006

a little something extra

this morning i made a venti latte for a mother of three. she was in a hurry, but was still very pleasant and polite. after handing her the latte, she proceeded to the condiment bar to doctor it up to her specifications. she came back to the bar after a couple minutes.

"um, excuse me," she had not a hint of attitude (so nice!). "i think there's something in my latte."
this really puzzled me because i had just made her drink and i know all that was put into her cup was espresso, steamed milk and a quarter inch of foam.
"if you stir it, you can feel there is something down there." she informed me.

sure enough, i stirred and there was definitely some sort of foreign object in her drink (which was really, really odd considering i'd just made it).

"i'll remake it for you," i told her. "but let's find out what's in your drink."
i poured the latte into the sink and had to laugh when i saw what was left in her cup.

"it's something from the espresso machine, huh?" she asked when she saw my smile.
"actually, it's from the condiment bar," i said and showed her the alien object.

it was the lid to the vanilla powder we keep near the sugar and milk. apparently she unscrewed the cap, poured some vanilla into her latte, and instead of screwing the cap back on, absentmindedly dropped it into the bottom of her cup.
well, she did have three kids to look after while she was fixing her drink.

we both had a good chuckle over that. it was really nice to see someone not freak out when something went wrong with their coffee. you wouldn't believe how many people screw up their own drinks up while at the condiment bar and then blame us for it, or give us tremendous amounts of attitude.

customer rant: be professional! if you misread a drink, or if you heard it wrong, just remake it! don't blame your fellow baristas for your mistake. don't explain to me that you thought the "V" meant valencia, not vanilla because the register partner didn't write it as "VAN". first of all, you should know that vanilla is always written as "V". second, you'll only make enemies of your fellow baristas if you play the blame game and third, you'll just come off as a complete dumbass to your customers.

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