“Coffee time Craziness” submitted by ‘M’. 4/25/08

I had just started my first “real” job out of high school. It was at a chain coffee shop, and I was learning the closing shift. One particular shift supervisor (I’ll call him Jim) worked every night — he was a great guy, always at work on time, did his job well, and was fun to work with. One night Jim was supposed to come in a half-hour earlier than usual to take over the manager’s shift. 4:25 rolls around, no Jim yet. Manager is getting pretty agitated. 4:30…4:32…4:35…and he shows up only a few minutes late. Manager was fuming, directed him into the back room and just LIT into him. I couldn’t make out everything he said, but clearly remember him screaming, “HOW THE HELL COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?!? WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?” etc. Suddenly I start to hear banging noises, and Jim comes FLYING through the office door. I think Jim got the last shove in after that, and the manager screams at him “GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE BEFORE I CALL THE COPS!!!” and Jim takes off running.

Probably the worst part about this is the way the manager handled the aftermath. I was standing there just shaking…I was a brand new employee right out of high school, and had NEVER witnessed anything like that in my life. There were probably 4 or 5 customers in the store, and rather than apologizing to them, the manager had the nerve to ask if they would act as witnesses to the ‘assault’! I never found out what the big deal was that Jim was 5 minutes late…and of course the manager never made it to wherever he needed to go, as he now had to fill in for Jim’s shift — boy, was THAT an awkward night. I never, ever received any sort of apology from the manager, or even acknowledgement that I’d seen the whole thing go down, and was never comfortable being around him again. Jim never did file assault charges, and neither did the manager, and Jim ended up with a better job later anyway.

What a way to get introduced to the service industry.

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Void Says:
June 17th, 2008 at 5:41 pm

No job at a coffee shop qualifies as a “real job”.

Lola Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 12:38 pm

Any job where you do real work is a “real job”. I am a server/bartender part time and I hate it when people ask me when I am going to get a real job. I work really hard and I make really good money, so I say it is a “real job”.

M Says:
August 31st, 2008 at 1:58 am

Void: by “real,” I meant that I wasn’t refereeing peewee soccer like I did in junior high, I could get health insurance, and some of my coworkers actually weren’t students.

And anyway…how do YOU define a “real” job? One where you actually go home tired? Check. One that can stress you out so much that you get nightmares? Check. One that you can actually care about the work you do? Check. One where you can make a difference in peoples’ days? Check.

Currently I have a job that you may consider more “real” working in software development. However, in many ways the coffee shop job was much, much more exhausting and stressful than this one will ever be. I’d even say the coffee shop was 10 times more difficult, despite not requiring any post-high-school education.

It really bugs me when people try to tell other people just how easy their jobs are, which you seem to be implying. If you’re not, please, enlighten me as to what you really meant by your snarky comment.