3.25.2007

still roasting

*i know i've missed a week's worth of blogging, and i hope this post brings everyone back up to speed*

here's the latest goings on at brat's bux:

- mr. whim made the talker cry.
seriously.
according to the talker, mr. whim was more abrupt that usual when asking for his drink to be remade. the talker made some comment about how mr. whim's whims always seem to change, and mr. whim shot back with a "what's it to you, fag?". so, while the talker went to the backroom to have a cry, perky assistant manager had some harsh words of her own for mr. whim.
"sir, you can take your business elsewhere. we don't serve customers who call our baristas derogatory names."
mr. whim, however, claimed he had used the word 'friend', and not 'fag'. perky assistant manager wasn't buying it, but let him off with a strict warning. i have to admit mr. whim was on his best behaviour when he came in this morning - and he didn't complain at all about his drink.

- overly amorous barista has now alienated herself from every single partner in our store. besides talking smack about her fellow baristas, she's managed to screw up every shift she's been on (by either slacking off, or by making disastrous mistakes). she's also pissed off our manager by demanding more hours, only to give up at least one of her shifts a week. i have a feeling she is on her way out.

- someone decided to leave their mark in our toilet. apparently tagging the mirror or the wooden door wasn't good enough. it's unbelievable but somebody actually drained the toilet tank so they could tag the inside of the bowl. the idiocy involved is almost comical, in my opinion.

- one of our regulars came in intoxicated and managed to hit on every one of the baristas working - boys and girls. "your ass is like two perfectly formed dumplings - i could nosh on it for days!" is what he told one of our particularly fit male baristas. "i wouldn't need a caffeine fix if i woke up to a cup of you everyday." is the bizarre comment he said to me.

- mr. split assistant manager and i have a mutual friend outside of work, which means mr. split now considers me his bux BFF. the upside is he's totally cool with me at work. the downside is having to listen to him bitch about how he can't get a girlfriend, and how all the girls that try to friend him on myspace are "total woofers". he also wants to hang together on our days off, but that is so not going to happen.

- our district manager spent an insane amount of time creating a poster and "incentive contest" for our brewing event. honestly, no one but the manager and assistant managers care about selling x-amount of coffee makers, so district manager is super upset with us baristas. not only that we are now being threatened with write-ups if we don't demo the machines at least three times per shift.

- the property manager of our shopping center has been hassling the baristas about our neighborhood SDF. i guess our property manager was trying to evict the homeless man from behind trash bin #3 - who claims "well, the starbucks people say i can stay, so i'm staying!". since the property manager has "no reason NOT to believe him!" he's been on our case about it. he's even gone as far as to suggest one of us give the homeless man a ride to the nearest shelter so that he won't be hanging around the trash bins anymore.

barista rant: what planet are you from? just because you're hungry doesn't mean you can take one of our sandwiches out of its wrapper, take three large bites and then hand us a dollar because you didn't plan on eating the whole thing. getting pissy with us when we explain that you have to pay for the entire sandwich, even if you only had three bites, will not suddenly make everything "all good".

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

the property manager of our shopping center has been hassling the baristas about our neighborhood SDF.

Pardon my ignorance, but what's an "SDF"?
Where I work (a major furniture store in a medium size city), we're constantly plagued with homeless people coming and stinking up the furniture by sitting on it. We've had to have 3 arrested and escorted away in the past month alone!

Anonymous said...

welcome back!

good little rundown on what's been going on the past week to make up for the fact that i missed reading about the shenanigans that go on in your bux...

i particularly like the intoxicated regular story - hilarious... plus the one about putting mr. whim in his place... what an asshole...

anyway, not starbucks stories from me apart from the fact that i bought another of my favourite mugs (to replace the one that got stolen in the office) so i can be all branded now with coffee shop merchandise.. :p

oh, and watch Idiocracy (starring luke wilson) if you can find it - it's got a funny take on what's gonna happen to starbucks in the future..

Andrew said...

Good to see you're posting again. :-) Man, what kind of a guy does that with his sandwiches? It's kinda bizarre. Never heard of anything like that before. "Large" bites may mean he ate more than half the sandwich too, which means he'd have to pay more than just a buck, hahaha.

OldSchoolD15 said...

"I wouldn't need a caffeine fix if I woke up to a cup of you everyday."

I gotta remember that one. JK

Moxie said...

Good to see ya, brat! People are really something with their weird comments, sammich habits, and drunken come-ons. I would have loved to have seen a picture of that tagged toilet. Bux, represent!

Food, she thought. said...

am wondering how he got the water out of the toilet, and that did make me LOL.

Traveling Matt said...

it's funny how it's been so many years since I worked for the siren and your stories could have totally happened to me yesterday.

We were encouraged to sell sell sell for the brewing even so we all just made up and memorized a spiel for ONE of the machines and sold an unbelievable amount of that ONE. I can't believe anyone bought anything what with our non-answers to their many questions. we were a hot mess.

SkippyMom said...

missed you! welcome back...what a fun week - I do think the guy that wanted the sandwich for a $1 is the same loon who tagged the bathroom....

your customers are freaks sometimes - freaks in a funny, haha! way - well except bigoted mr. whim..don't like him much...

hope you have another great and interesting week...

hugs

Erin said...

I really liked the dumpling comment. Dumplings?!?! That would probably be the LAST metaphor I would come up with!! But it is really funny, and Brat, at least you know you could make someone's morning . . . even without your coffee powers!

Allan said...

Welcome back!
"one of our regulars came in intoxicated and managed to hit on every one of the baristas working - boys and girls."

You have to admire that sort of even-handed drunken lechery. Or not.

Tony said...

Those were some good lines from your drunken regular. As a waiter, I've gotten my own share of odd comments from guests, but the best was from a drunken female guest who ordered a hamburger. When asked how she wanted the burger cooked, she said "Well done, like your ass."

barista brat said...

anonymous - oops! SDF stands for 'sans domicile fixe', which is french for 'without permanant residence' - another way of saying homeless.

marcus - did the mug get stolen again?!? and i'll keep my eye out for that movie.

andrew - i should have taken out a ruler!

oldschool36 - let me know if you have better luck with it than our regular, haha!

moxie - if i had my camera i totally would've taken a picture! luckily it came off quite easily with the toilet scrubber.

lizabeth - i think he just shut the water valve off. at least that what i HOPE he did!

monica - that was a genius strategy! hot mess, indeed!

skippymom - thanks!

little miss - yeah, the dumpling comment was kind of confusing at first. we didn't know if he meant to be insulting or flattering.

allan - haha, who can blame him for doubling his chances at success?

steven - ok, that was friggen funny!