“I’m a student that has an awful ‘on-call’ job with pretty low, but not minimum hourly pay. There is this one coffee shop around where I live that has just recently opened. It’s a shop that focuses on freshly made coffee. I like coffee, a lot. But not like drinking it a lot, I like to study coffee (I have a huge collection with different beans and grinders). I find it interesting, different coffee mixed together can taste so good. I’m just a guy that’s very interested in coffee, so I went to go check it out.
There was this guy (probably new) that was having a hard time grinding coffee beans. Grinding beans by hand is very delicate work and isn’t easy by any means. He proceeded to try to find a co-worker to help him, but couldn’t. I asked him if he needed help.
He asked, ‘Do you know how to do this? Because I’m not very good at it.’ I just briefly said I study coffee as a hobby.
He then opened the door (like those you see in the cowboy movies at a bar) and I go to help him. Like the coffee maniac I am, I started to help him with the other orders as well. Teaching him how to correctly grind and mix and before I knew it, there are these two people standing behind us.
One of them (an older woman) said, ‘Oh, there you are! What are you doing here? The dishes are in the back and I need you to clean it!’
I didn’t know how to respond, so the guy helped and said I was just a customer who offered help.
‘Oh, he’s just helping me and teaching me some neat tricks.’ He said.
Then the woman took a good look at me and was a bit surprised I was not the person she thought I was. She then tasted the coffee and was surprised.
‘Oh wow! This coffee is good! Are you a master barista?’ she asked.
I just laughed it off and said I’m just a broke student that likes to study about coffee and wasn’t a fancy mater barista. I then politely excused myself and was on my way out.
Then I heard her saying to me, ‘Aren’t you interested in working here?’
She told me that she would be happy to have me working here and maybe even teach them how to make coffee!
I was a bit shocked, of course. But, I told her I was interested. She then told me she was going to pay X amount as hourly pay, then I was hooked because it was double my existing job. I told her I would be considering the job and would come again to see them, but in reality, I went home and called my boss to tell him that I quit. Life is peculiar sometimes.”
