The Regulars

Not everyone loves their job; hell, MOST people don’t love their jobs, especially jobs like mine. I worked for minimum wage, got customers with crazy complicated orders who yelled at me for the simplest mistakes, and cleaned up after lazy coworkers. There were many reasons to hate my job. But I don’t see it that way. Well, at least not all the time because, believe me, I do love to complain. I started my career as a barista only five short months ago, and although being a barista is a silly dream job, being a barista really is my calling. Much to my mother’s dismay, when I started raving about my experience, although she’ll support me no matter what, I still knew she would much rather I have a passion for science or law. They don’t see what I see. I don’t JUST make drinks or hand out premade, prepackaged food, I put smiles on people’s faces, and I offer support after a hard day. 

When I started my position, I met a regular who went by the nickname Kat, the first time I made her drink, she complained and asked for it to be remade. I annoyedly made the drink again; every time after that, I’ll admit, I wasn’t the kindest to her. She seemed to be middle-aged with light blonde hair, I was convinced she had to be getting her order for her and someone else just based on how skinny she was, but no, I guess genetics are just on her side. She always ordered two of our most popular bacon and egg sandwiches on our croissant bread. The only problem was that she often came in too late after we were already sold out, so I offered to start saving two a day for her. Her eyes lit up as if I had performed some kind of miracle. She was much nicer to me after that day, and that’s when it clicked. It’s really not that hard to put in a little extra effort to make someone’s day. 

The second regular I met was an older man who came in daily to get a black coffee. Now I’m not a coffee snob or anything, but I know our black coffee is not that good for him to make the drive here. The first day I took his order, he refused to tell me the order and insisted that I should know since he came in so often. I mean, really? How would I know if this was my first time encountering him? After about five minutes of giving me an attitude, he finally told me he wanted a large black coffee. He then proceeded to make fun of my hair, saying, ‘How can you see with all that black hair in your face?’ and then made fun of the way I said that the total would be two oh five instead of two dollars and five scents because ‘the letter O isn’t a way to measure money,’ I mean, he really was a handful. But I stayed nice through all that because my job was more than pouring coffee and making small talk. My job was to be a friend. I got to know and love all my regulars. There was an older lady who would always come in right before closing and order a caramel macchiato with five extra shots, yes, FIVE extra shots, and while I, of course, thought she was insane, I later found out that she was a nurse at the ER who was about to go in for the overnight shift. Here I thought I was the one performing miracles when this lady was sacrificing her sleep and sanity to help people. I never charged her the five extra dollars for the espresso that I was supposed to because, although it doesn’t compare to what she does, it’s easy to perform these small miracles for people. 

Serving the same people coffee every day made it easy to get to know people, but even people who I only saw once were just as important to me. A girl had walked in one day with red puffy eyes, I greeted her as usual, and she started to order, only her eyes flooded with fresh tears as she struggled to get the last few words out. I didn’t ask what was wrong. I simply walked away, made her the drink, and threw in a brownie, all for free; she confusedly tried to hand me her cash. I shook my head and told her to try and have a better day. Some people want you to ask what’s wrong, some people want to talk about it, and some don’t. I think that that is what my job truly is about. To understand. To not judge. Or maybe I’m reading way too much into all this. Perhaps coffee isn’t all that deep. Either way, it was my passion. 

After my first three months of working as a barista, I woke up one morning to bad news. My brother had passed away in his sleep. It seems that no matter how happy you are or how well things are going, life has a way of knocking you back down. Feelings of sadness and anger, of course, swirled my mind, but no feeling was greater than that of utter defeat. I was out of work for a month. I spent that month caring for my mother and staying strong for the people around me. My mind buzzed with anxiety as I drove to my first day back at work. I didn’t want to return, but unfortunately, my bank account was not so forgiving. I was surprised that I was met with such warmth. The regulars who had once made me remake their drinks, refused to tell me their orders, and who had all become familiar faces to me were happy that I was back. Did they know what had happened? Not likely, as it was personal information, but it didn’t matter to them; they were just happy I was there again. They all greeted me by name, asked how I was, and told me how relieved they were to have me back, as most thought I had quit. 

There was a point when I felt that I was the one doing them a favor, by being friendly and doing small mundane actions to make their days go by a little smoother. I overlooked all of the help they were giving me. Miracles don’t have to be huge because on my first day back, that first smile and ‘welcome back’ were the equivalent of watching someone walk on water. Miracles live in the mundane; you just have to look for them.