Your Daily Starbucks 11/13/13

Your daily Starbucks 11/13/13

I had coffee in the house, but I only had fat-free half and half.  I had purchased it instead of regular half-and-half in a fractured moment of aspirational virtuousness at the grocery store before finally admitting to myself that fat-free half-and-half seems like it should be great, but in the end is really no better than hotel porn. And the Starbucks is pretty close to where I live, so.

It’s in a strip mall with a Chinese restaurant and a CHASE bank. The building next door has a blood bank and there are signs that say “parking for blood donors ONLY” – even in morally compromised California people usually avoid those spots, but it clogs up everywhere else especially in the morning time. There is a really weird drive through; one lane is for the coffee and the other is for the CHASE bank because clearly the building used to only be a bank and had two drive through lanes. People get mixed up, and it’s a problem. In my travels I note that many Starbucks’ are in former banks, and I wonder what this means. 

Today there is also a Cintas uniform truck double parked and with the drive through cars and the Cintas truck and the blood bank spots, it’s pretty much gridlock. So I drive all the way around the corner and park at the Extended Stay America and a security guard tells me I can’t park there, hotel guests only. So I tell him I am a hotel guest and I’m just going to get coffee, and he says what room are you in and I say “yes” and keep walking.

Inside there is a big line, but this is normal at this Starbucks at this time of day. They’re usually pretty fast. But we all know it depends not on the furiously kinetic baristas, but on who is in line. Right away I spot two problems.

1. Another Barista who is off shift and I can just tell that he’s gonna use his code and order something super complicated and talk jargon for ages with the other barista. Which he does.

2. A young woman in medical scrubs who is shuffling about 4 different credit cards. I can just tell she’s gonna place a separate order with each card since she must be the designated coffee runner for the office. And she does.

The guy right in front of me is a talker. Which is basically not allowed since the advent of smartphones. You just fondle your screen, even if it’s just for pretend, and it’s the human equivalent of a Do Not Disturb sign.So the guy’s phone rings and his phone is like a super old flip phone and he actually leaves the line to take his call. No one does that. Then he comes back, so naturally I give him back his spot, and then he wants to be super chatty. His mom called, he said, and I thought “how does a man your age have a living mother” but I don’t say anything, I just smile a little bit and mess with my phone.

The off shift barista is talking jargon and the medical girl is on her 3^rd drink order with the separate cards. *Beatriz* is the name to write on the cup for the [whatever complicated thing]. I’ve always thought if I had an unusual name, I would never use that name at Starbucks. I’d just say “Nathan” or something easy instead of “Thaddeus” and I don’t see a problem. But now medical girl is spelling B-E-A-T-R-I-Z to the barista, who can’t hear her, has never heard that name, and is just asking her to repeat it.

At this point I question whether it would have been faster to do the drive through. I also castigate myself for forgetting to make a note of which car I would have been behind so I could look out the window and see when that vehicle is served and determine whether or not I made the correct decision. But I forgot, and now I feel sad. Yet I also have an existential conundrum about the drive through, because I don’t want a coffee trip to feel like a trip to, say, In-and-Out. I would always prefer to go inside unless 3 or more cars after whichever entered the drive through line at the same time I entered the store were served. That’s the price in time I’m willing to pay for this experience, but I couldn't really explain why. And if I could, I would, because I’m a man who does not mind writing 2,000 words about a trip to Starbucks.

Then I start thinking computational thoughts, and I wonder how many specific things a barista has to know. It’s a lot. Then there are the different focus areas: drive through, register, espresso, blender, oven, retail, condiment bar bussing, and many others. Each of these has hundreds of individual tasks, and many baristas are trained in numerous focus areas. They aren’t paid any better than they were 10 years ago when Starbucks menu was 1/3 the size and there was no drive through. In order to survive all of this they all drink Red Bull, a product they do not sell and consider their competition in the marketplace.

There is a barista who I guess I would call an expediter, and she makes eye contact before I get to the register and asks me what I want. This is my favorite part, because I almost always say “grande coffee” and they look so relieved; I can see the thought bubble above their head that says “yes, an easy one.” And I take a stupid, small measure of pride in this.

She rings me up and it’s $1.95. I give $2 and I hate nickels so don’t want change. However, this prompts the barista to treat the nickel as a tip, which I don’t want, because giving someone a nickel tip is an insult, but baristas are trained to act super appreciative for tips, so she acts all happy, and I think to myself I wish there were a way to explain that I’m not tipping her, because if I were it would be more, but I just don’t like nickels. But this all seems way too complicated yet it would also be rude to basically give someone a nickel and then say “I’m not tipping you”. So what I do is I just give the 2 dollars and move quickly away, creating the impression that the nickel is meaningless. This usually works but sometimes they call out to me and give it back to me, and in that case I take it but feel awkward.

So I go over to the condiment bar and chatty guy is there blocking access to the half-and-half with a very slow process of opening individual sugar packets and stirring them in to his drink. His position shifts slightly, so I deftly but respectfully reach for the half and half. It is almost empty, and the person before me did that thing where they think that by unscrewing the cap almost all the way, more half-and-half will somehow be available. But my judgment of what remained was off because the overly unscrewed cap threw off the balance and feel of the thermos, and in a quick slug all the remaining half-and-half disappears into my cup. This is awkward because chatty guy also wanted some.So had to do the thing where you drink some  right there so you can put the lid on. But it was still super full and when that happens, coffee drips out the side where the seam on the cup meets the lid. I don't like the smell of coffee and fingers.  

Phones, Checks, and Photographs

11/2/13

I teach a lot of college music lessons. It’s what I mostly do. Mostly, it’s what I do. It’s what I do, mostly. Meaning that I’m semi-employed, and of the stuff I get paid for, most of it is teaching college music lessons. I get paid by a lot of checks. From the State of California, from some kid’s dad, from the San Francisco Symphony, from a Japanese girl in San Jose.

I don’t hear any complaints about the depositing-checks-with-phone-pics apps. So I guess it must be working for everyone. I have roughly an 80% failure rate with mine (CHASE). The camera flashes about 3 seconds before the pic snaps, and there are no camera settings in the phone app and no way to change this. 

So, I set the check on a dark background and aim a flashlight at it leaving only one hand to hold the camera. Then I form a pincer with my thumb and middle finger to hold the phone along a horizontal plane directly above and parallel to the check, allowing me to press the pic button with my index finger. Then I aim the flashlight with my left hand in such a way as not to cause any bright spots on the check itself, but rather to illuminate the whole area around the check as evenly as possible. I am good at this. Using this technique I get an excellent shot, then flip the check over to do the back and submit. Then 8/10 times it says there was an “error” but no info on what the error was. Then I try again and again. If it finally works, I cancel all of my lessons and have a beer. 

When successful, the process generates two emails indicating the deposit has been processed and accepted. At this point I should shred the check, but I do not. I still fear a further error of some kind and so I keep it sitting around, quickly forgetting whether or not I attempted to deposit it. In passing it occurs to me I should put a post-it note on the check that says “this one was accepted” and the date, but I do not. Then I think about other things I should shred, and quickly gather them up. I shred about two documents, and then remember that I have gross stuff in the trash, and I could probably throw the rest of the documents out because they will get soaked with bacon grease and coffee grounds and cat litter right away. I do this and I remember that I am embarrassed that I have a cat, but actually like the cat.

Then the next day I drive to the bank with my other endorsed checks that didn't process and deposit them in person. Then they tell me to have a nice day. Then I say thank you, I will, and today is already looking up because I was able to deposit my checks that I endorsed yesterday at my apartment, and I made those checks feel special by pointing a flashlight at them and photographing them over and over again, and I think they liked it and possibly had something to do with the deposit failure because they just wanted attention. 

Then I think about my failed relationships. But I’m happy the teller has them, my precious checks that I loved so well and treated so good, and I hope he gives them the star treatment like I did, but that in any event the funds do end up in my account, since I incurred two bounce fees at midnight after the other two checks didn't clear but had bills paid against them already. Then the teller gives me one back and tells me it’s already been deposited and I realize I really should start up that thing with the post-it notes, and also that the other check is living with bacon grease et. al.

So yeah. I will have a nice day. The same to you, and thank you.