My name is Sofia and I work in NYC; some days as a barista, some nights as the woman who brings fire to your hooka on the lower east side. During the day I fill paper cups with lattes and cappucinos for doctors, lawyers, nannies, barbers on the upper east side. You'd think this would be an easy job. Not when the crazy doctor who doesn't trust banks and carries hundred dollars bills stuffed in his wallet is going on and on about his sick cat and how the floor cleaner that the cleaning lady used caused the cat's ill health. It goes on for months, the poor cat's torturous condition, because the docotor cannot make up his mind to put the cat to sleep or not. So he asks me for advice, but really is asking me to agree with his decision to wait, "Do you agree?" he goes on and on like this. And then finally one day he comes in, somber and quiet. His cat passed away the previous morning. Next week he will be looking for another cat.
You develop interesting relationships when you see the same faces daily. And you learn people's drinks. You have already made it by the time they walk in because you see them crossing the street toward the store in advance. Usually they entertain you about something that is going on in their lives (like the doctor). One of the regulars shows me and my coworker a picture of herself doing a headstand, printed in some yoga magazine for well-to-do folks who habitually consume eastern philosophies despite their western concept of the world. Then there are the upper east side joggers who must get their one percent milk cappuccinos at the same time every morning, or the woman who comes in with her child and nanny/house-worker to get pounds of coffee once a week. Some people who work from home come in for a break and confide in their loyal baristas that talking to us is one of the very few interactions they have during their day. One guy who is involved in stocks and is telling a fellow customer that he "turned a thousand dollars into millions," asks us about our travel mugs. He is concerned about the weekly accumulation of paper cups in his trash.
Sometimes people who have never walked into the store come in with a bunch of questions about the coffee and where it comes from. One guy asks if the coffee is organic, if we buy the coffee directly from the farmers, how much the farmers get paid and so on. I get it. But like my room-mate who used to work at Starbucks says (I don't work for Starbucks, god no!), fair trade only means we didn't kill your family to obtain your crop. "Fair trade" has become a trademark, something to identify with to feel hip and cool and free of guilt about where the things you buy come from. Does it always mean that the farmers who have been paid a few cents more are no longer struggling? I highly doubt it.
A few night ago I had a dream about the company I work for and what it means to work for a "company" in general. In my dream the company had decided that they were going to cook a cat and eat it. I was put in charge of killing the cat. The poor cat was in a large pot and I was throwing boiling water on it to kill it but then feeling horrible, I would quickly pour cold water to not let the cat die. Feeling obligated, because it was my job after all, I would pour more boiling water over the cat and again more cold water upon seeing the pain she was in. It was such a mindless thing to do to pour boiling water over a living creature. Finally, I realized that it was wrong for the company to put me in charge of killing a cat and I went to the office to complain. I told them how unfair it was that they were trying to get me to kill a cat and that I wasn't going to do it. The office was being its typical bureaucratic self and pretending to listen and understand, but behind their words (or lack of words) of assurance was the understanding that the job of killing the cat had to be done, because it was work.
So I woke up.
