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Catchphrases of the Dwellers of My Favorite Coffee Shop
"Is it a Good Morning?"
"Mostly milk, a little cream. You're doing it wrong! Just hand me the sugar packet!"
"[tongue click] Congress [head shake]"
"Wifi Password?"
"No thanks, I brought my own mug. Tree murder, ya know?"
"Sign this Petition!"
"If this is decaf, why am I shaking?"
"If this is a scone, why is it round?"
"StartupsVCsMetricsTractionCodeBase."
"Restroom Key?"
"Who stole the Restroom Key?"
"Me again."
"I said, the USUAL."
Kevin Smokler is the author of forthcoming essay collection Practical Classics: Rereading Your Favorite Books From High School (Prometheus Books 2013) and has written for the LA Times, Fast Company, and the Believer. He lives in San Francisco and tweets @Weegee.
Photo by PeterG, via Shutterstock
"You're shaking because you have Parkinson's, Dad. Christ, I'm sorry. That's not how I wanted to tell you."
"tree murder, ya know?" i'm fairy certain, despite that we live on opposite coasts, that i drink coffee at the same place as kevin smokler.
also, i want that sugar packet holder.
People who say "Is it a *good* morning?" make me so angry. They're wishing you a good morning, not demanding that you have one, so shut up. It's too early to be indignant.
@meganmaria: It's never too early to be indignant.
@meganmaria I do some of my best indignance when it's early.
@meganmaria I'm confused. Why would anyone want to pose that question to a customer? The answer is invariably no. Personally I would just say "hello." That way I wasn't inferring that things were good or bad. Wouldn't want to mess with the chaotic balance in the world of ME.
@meganmaria I have had this conversation a few times at work (I'm a barista:
Me: Good morning!
Customer: Is it a good morning?
Me: Errr… [Then I usually act ridiculously cheerful, since they're grouchy and most likely rude]
@polina Oh right. This the response to employee not other way around. I misunderstood!
"I said, the USUAL…combination of entitlement and neediness."
But scones ARE round…I am confused.
@Susanna@twitter
Sometimes they're triangle-shaped — some bakers shape scones by dropping the dough off a spoon, others roll the dough out and cut it into triangles.
However, anyone asking this question is just trying to make the person behind the counter scream with frustration.
@Susanna@twitter THIS. Starbucks wedge scones are cray-cray. Also, Americans, scone rhymes with "on" not "own".
@iceberg Also: Scones do not contain everything but the kitchen sink. Pumpkins? Chocolate chips? Nooo. I do understand though, since half of the proper accouterments are unavailable to you. Scones are to be had with Jam and (mmm) clotted cream. Butter if no cream available. Why does America lack clotted cream? Wisconsin, get on it now!
Signed, a scone purist.
@feartie I think it's because of the name. We have issues with the word "clotted." They're going to have to call it something else to get people here to eat it, thus ruining the purity anyway.
@feartie My boyfriend makes scones, and he also MAKES CLOTTED CREAM. He is hardcore into scones. And clotted cream is fucking amazing, once you get over the admittedly troublesome name.
@iceberg Nope. As long as I'm in America and there's a silent 'e' at the the end of the word, the 'o' in my scone is loooong.
P.S. I'm not in America though, so I will forfeit the long for the short.
@iceberg Okay, I'm confused! B/c my mom said her Scottish grandmother always said "scone" like "skon"…BUT when I lived in England, they said scone! Does anybody really know?
@D.@twitter English accents (particularly in the south) are markedly different from Scottish ones. As a result, there is no such thing as a British accent.
@D.@twitter Oh man, this reminds me of the best mispronouncing of "scone" story ever, courtesy of a friend who used to work at Starbucks. I mean, it's still kind of boring because its a story about the word scone, but it amuses me!
Lady – "I'll have a raspberry sconce." (Her pronunciation was like the light fixture)
Him – "Sure, one raspberry scone."
Lady – "No, a raspberry SCONCE." (Death glare)
My friend said that at that point he was a little unsure WHAT to give her. He gave her a scone and she seemed happy though, the end.
@Pixley
Maybe the next meetup should be a cream tea.
@feartie Also, everyone was too busy laughing at my pronunciation of words like "pastie" and "vase" for me to ask.
"Sign this Petition!" The wind power people in North Brooklyn have caught wise and started setting up at coffee shops with lots of brunch traffic and long wait lines. Try and tell them you're in a rush now, muahahaha.
There was a (female) barista at a Starbucks near Grand Central in NYC who would say to everyone female, "How you doin' Milady?" when she was taking their order. A mash-up of a seventeenth century lady in waiting and pure Nu Yoik charm that always made my day.
@feartie If you're going to be up at 2:30 in the morning so you can take a bunch of cranky people's coffee orders, you might as well have fun with it. Go, her.
@feartie I think I would smack her. Depending on the time. Things that severely annoy me at 7 a.m. are often the things I'd enjoy at 3 p.m.
My least favorite coffee shop/restaurant comment is when a customer asks how your day is. You say, "Great!" and then they lean in and conspiratorially whisper, "No, really, how IS your day?" I never know what to answer here. I am 99% of the time actually having a great day. Is it their pity for the working class? A genuine concern for my state of mind? I can never tell!
@dinoterror They want you to tell them how shitty it is so they can feel like they're more special to you than the other customers. You know. They're more 'real.' They get it. They've been there. They waited tables that summer in that beach town up north. You don't have to fake it with them.
@dinoterror: "Actually, I'm having a fantastic day – I put strychnine in all the coffee!"
@dinoterror I always enjoyed saying "oh you don't want to know!" That way they thought they were in on it, and really..they didn't want to know anyway.
What, no Anna danna fafanna manna fufaunnah?
"You're shaking because the rhythm gets everyone eventually. Or, the DT's. Whatevs."
@JessicaLovejoy "What I'm trying to say is, you have a drinking problem. Jeremy, I'm serious. You wet the bed last night, Jeremy."
@JessicaLovejoy gloria estefan was right!
Ughh. I should create a coffee-table book of annoying coffee shop customers from my days at Starbucks.
Like, the people who come in a few times a week at varying times, but expect the entire staff to remember the intricate details of their order. "The usual!" Um…. which is? "I come in here all the time! You don't know my order yet?!"
I was guilty of serving decaf drip at the end of the night when it was all that was left and I didn't want to brew a full pot of regular for one juicebox customer. I never served regular pretending it was decaf though, I was scared an old lady would have a heart attack or something due to my negligence.
Orrrrr the juicebox who came in during the Christmas Eve rush and wanted me to ring up like twenty or thirty $5 giftcards with a line out the door. The register wouldn't let me do more than five at a time so I had to wait for it to reboot.
OR the snotty bitch who came in and bought a mug and expected me to wrap it with Bloomingdales-Wrapping-Station precision. I don't have fancy tissue paper or ribbons, lady! What do you want me to do?? I will put it in a bag for you. You're welcome.
@bonnbee My friend who worked at Starbucks in high school once told me that they had a list of frequent bitchy customers who ALWAYS got decaf instead of regular.
i worked with someone in a coffee shop once who, if the customer was being ridiculous and bitchy about skim milk and half-foam and are you sure it's decaf etc., would go to the fridge and secretly make them a latte with CREAM. to this day i am terrified of making my coffee order too complicated…
I worked as a barista in New Orleans for a year. Now, New Orleans has a particular appeal for evangelists who, apoplectic about the impending apocalypse, are sure that their apotheosis is dependent on getting everyone to repent. Even the holy need something beyond divine sustenance, and so these people would waddle in, wearing their matching Bible-quote T-shirts, perhaps carrying a rolled up "JESUS IS COMING" poster, and order the most complicated and calorie-loaded drinks we had on the menu.
AND THEN THEY WOULD NEVER TIP. That's Christian charity for you. Sinners are far better tippers.
@D.@twitter Omg. So my friend used to waitress at this local buffet. On Sundays a group of evangelical wrinklies used to come in and leave WHAT LOOKED LIKE MONEY but was actually green paper with biblical references on it. Ewwwwww.
@polina Right now, thanks to you, polina, I'm a little bit in love with the phrase "evangelical wrinklies."
@polina Now that's just diabolical.
This has generated more discussion than just about anything I've ever written. Planning a sequel. I love you all!
Man, sometimes I hate asking customers how their day is or how they're doing because they then think it's an open invitation to tell me all about their life problems (…and then hold up the line). Although recently this woman was like, "Man, what a day!" and I didn't really want to ask because I was pretty sure she was going to tell me something stupid that I didn't care to hear, and she continued, "My husband was hit by a truck." and I was immediately like, "WOW, yeah". That is the only time I've ever actually been like, yes, you had a bad day. For real. (The good news is that her husband was okay, just a few broken bones.)