Miss the Coffee, Do Not Miss the Karens

Worked the counter and occasionally the espresso machine at a cafe chain for about a year and a half during and after uni, and honestly, mixed feelings doesn't begin to cover it.

The job itself was fine, genuinely. I liked the rhythm of it once I got fast enough, the little flow state of steaming milk while calling out order names. My shift crew was a solid bunch, we had a group chat that was 90% memes about difficult customers and 10% actually coordinating who's covering Sunday. I still talk to two of them regularly.

But customers, man. We had a regular who would order a "half caf oat milk latte, extra hot but not too hot, one pump vanilla, stirred not shaken" and then complain it "tasted different" every single time despite us following the same recipe taped to the machine. I started to suspect she just liked complaining as a hobby, which, fair, we all need hobbies. Then there was closing shift chaos, someone walking in at 9:58 for a two-minute-to-close order requiring four drinks from scratch, and if you glanced at the clock they'd say "I'm still a paying customer" in a tone suggesting we owed them a kidney, not a flat white.

Pay was minimum plus tips, tips were decent on weekends, and shift meals were a real perk, free drinks kept my grocery bill low during a broke era of my life. Management rotated through a few people and the good ones made a massive difference, one guy would jump behind the machine himself during rush instead of just watching us drown, which sounds like a low bar but you'd be shocked how many managers just don't.

I left because I graduated and got an offer in my actual field, nothing dramatic, just time to move on. But I look back on it fondly, weirdly. The chain treated staff fairly, shifts were scheduled two weeks out so I could actually plan my life, and the free coffee ruined me for gas station coffee forever, RIP my wallet at every other cafe I've been to since.

Would I recommend it. Yeah, honestly, if you can handle people being weird about oat milk, it's a solid job, especially for students. Just bring patience. Bring a lot of patience.