It's 5:00 AM on Sunday and I have work at 9:00 AM and I usually wake up at 8:00 AM to leave by 8:30 AM (although with my bike and the need to first go to the bank, I was thinking more like 8:15 or 8:20 AM). I actually woke up about a half hour before this and have since shaved, put on a sweater, watched the unfinished robot movie, considered smoking a bowl, thought about asking Sara (and probably Adam, too) if they'll want to help me film scenes for the robot movie, rolled around under the blankets with my eyes shut trying to fall back to sleep and failed, and went pee. It's safe to say that it's "one of those mornings" and I think I'll just do the opposite of what a normal person might do and just go with it. I got five hours of sleep. That's enough, right? What does the sun have to do with how rested I feel?
So anyway, I was thinking of using this time to talk about my job.
A'roma Roasters is a coffeeshop owned by two women (and the answer is yes) and they're both at least fifty, maybe sixty, and both of them oddly resemble the two extremes of my grandmother's personality. Kay is crazy. That's how I remember her name. She is always fixing, always adjusting, always cleaning something. There is one thing she'll devote an entire afternoon to fixing even if it means she has to pull the dishwasher out from under the counter and block off half of our working space. You'll look around and there she is, cleaning dust from the rafters, spraying the sidewalks down with a pressure washer, or desperately trying to convey something to Yuen, who just nods and looks for Jose for translation. And then you have Dayna, who is the calmer of the two. But while Kay walks the walk, it's Dayna who talks the talk. If you get into trouble, it's Dayna who will sit you down and talk it over. Kay has no time for such manners because there's a loose screw somewhere in the cafe that needs to be tightened. So Dayna has that calm and rational personality that makes her more pleasant to be around.
Then there's Carole who does the music bookings and the paychecks and the teas. About her... she's a pretty plain motherly figure who, for some reason or another, finds herself coming in every day to do whatever it is that she does. I'm not totally sure. I know she's in charge of our paychecks, though, and that reminds me that today is payday. Thank God.
And Tema finishes up the last of the management team, although she's going to be moving to Florida pretty soon (I think she said she was leaving in August). She's been with A'romas for sixteen years (it's been open for eighteen) and has since married a woman named Lupe and done side work for a dance club. She's got short blonde hair that she styles with gel and loves stickers with puppies on them. For a long time she was the shift manager in charge of scheduling. Now that task will go to Jose when Tema is gone.
A'romas is a lot different now than it used to be. When I started working, these people were my mentors and none of them still work there: Angelina, Jillian, Tiffany, Shayna, Carl, Shauna, Mario, Crystal, AJ, Lizzy, Shaun, Marc. Then there are people that have come and gone while I've been there: Jazmin, Belen, Steve, Ryan, Sarah (I especially miss Sarah's friendship), Annie, Carlos, James. And there could be more, but it's early and I can't think of anyone else right now. But it's just interesting to me that when I started two years ago, the coffeeshop was a different entity. Now that new people have come, the atmosphere of the place had to readjust. I can't tell you what makes one person stay longer than another. Some people leave in the first week and some make it through a whole summer.
Coffeeshops are in my blood. My dad's been working at coffeeshops for years. I remember waking up super early when I was a kid so that he could take me with him to this cafe by the train station. We'd load up this cart and go outside in the cold Bay Area dawn and serve fresh coffee and hot chocolate to the commuters. Also, my grandmother bought up this house in Auburn and converted it into a coffeeshop across the street from a courthouse. She calls it Courthouse Coffee and that place has been open--what?--like six or seven years, now. I worked there from the day it opened to the day I moved off to college. It was usually so slow during the day that I'd spend 75% of the time on the internet. But it was family owned and it was easy work and I loved working with the espresso machine and the smell of freshly ground coffee and the taste of a really good mocha. And Courthouse Coffee was not just coffee, but also sandwiches and salads and smoothies and, later, beer and wine and quiche and pie. It was good training for the future because I knew how to multi-task. I think this is why they hired me on the spot at A'romas.
One end of the building consists of the Ice Cream Room, the Manager's Office, and the Middle Office. Then there's the connecting hallway with the two bathrooms. The main room is the Coffeeshop with a long, bent counter that stretches from the hallway to the back door. Starting from the entrance to the Back Office, the areas behind the counter are divided as the Food Station, Register, Drink Station, and then Bussing Station. Food is food: sandwiches, burritos, salads. Register is that and nothing more. Drinks are drinks: mochas, lattes, cappuccinos. Bussing Station keeps dishes clean, brewed coffee fresh, back-ups plentiful, tables cleared, cream and sugar stocked, etc. When you have a shift of strong employees, the combined efforts of all four stations can work flawlessly, or one weak link will drag down the tempo of the others. But we all kind of meander around when there aren't customers or we'll switch around to help eachother out in the middle of a rush, and so if we're all friends behind the counter than it usually just feels like hanging out and getting paid to make coffee for a few hours.
There are a couple different shifts you can work and, besides being put on one of the four stations and making that your primary task, each shift has something expected of you that is unique from the others.
1. Opening: wake up early, brew Columbian for the black iced coffee, start a dark and a light and a decaf brew, make black iced tea, put away bagels and pastries, prepare the coffeeshop for business.
2. Nine to Five: come in at nine, ignore the clock until around noon, take two 20 minute breaks, get your second-wind around 3:00 and crash at around 4:00, get a lot of sympathy from coworkers.
3. The Afternoon: come in a few before 1:00 and have a cup of coffee, do a majority of the chore list, wonder where all the customers are, wonder why all the customers show up when someone's on break, wonder why the tip jar looks so empty, wonder what to do when the chore list is done, clean the same thing you just cleaned ten minutes ago, wrap the leftover bagels and pastries, change the music a lot.
4. Break Coverage: come in at 9:00 AM, 3:00 PM, or 8:00 PM and fill the spot of whoever takes first break, take out trashes, stock everything, grind back-ups, touch on the chore list if applicable, feel like a pimp when you leave a half hour before everyone else (sometimes for day shifts, never at closing).
5. Closing: come in around 6:00 PM, if it's Friday or Saturday then you can move the corner table to make room for the band, see a lot of drunk and high people, play the music louder than usual, pull the soup before eight, lock up the chairs out front at eight, pull the cold-masters by nine, start taking down the espresso machine around ten, close the ice cream room, close the bathrooms, wrap the cakes and pies inside the pastry case, sweep the floors, mop the floors, put up the chairs and vacuum the platform carpet and put down the chairs again, clean everything, wipe down everything, refill sugars and honey and beans, give the fifteen minute warning, if you're the monitor then go clean up the place where the smoker's hang out and lock the gates, kick everyone out at 11:00 or 12:00 (depending), lock the front door and bathroom, turn on internet radio or plug in someone's iPod, close down the shop, count tips, turn off the lights, set the alarm, exit.
Working at A'romas is, overall, pretty amazing. It's not like working at Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory or anything, but it can still be a lot of fun. It's definitely my favorite job so far. I've met some of the best people there and I honestly miss some of the employees that have left. It makes me happy to see Annie, Tiffany, Shayna, Angelina, and Mario still come by sometimes and say hello. Because there are people who don't ever come back, like Shauna or Ryan or Sarah...
Sarah, who I mentioned earlier, was this punk-rock girl, 23, who I would have loved to have been friends with when I was single. One night after a closing shift--we're talking like one in the morning, here--me, Sarah, Danny and Danny's friend decided to go to San Francisco. No one was high or drunk. We first went to the beach and started up a bonfire, but it was too cold and windy and so we went back to the car to venture elsewhere. I don't know San Francisco too well, so I don't know exactly where we went, but after that I remember us parading up and down this one road, being goofy and loud. Danny's friend tried to frog-leap over a parking meter and failed, falling to his ass. I'm starting to think that Danny's friend was named Danny, too. So I'm off topic now. This was also the night we stopped just near the Golden Gate Bridge and there are these abandoned military bunker-looking structures we walked through, which was creepy in the thick of the night when not even a cellphone screen can help you see.
For the record: Danny (the Danny from the last paragraph) used to work at A'romas and then left to try out San Diego. A few days ago Danny came back and he plans on working at A'romas for a while before heading off toward some other goal. This is odd timing because now there's a new Danny who works at A'romas. We call one of them Danny Blonde and the other Danny Brown.
Now it's 6:23 AM. Sara and Danny Brown are going to open A'romas in seven minutes. Then Michelle will get there at 8:30 AM. My shift starts at 9:00 AM alongside Ruth, and we'll both go on the clock so that Danny or Sara can take a break. Four hours will go by like they always do and it'll be 1:00 PM. I think I'll ask Michelle if she wants to smoke a bowl with me before I go with Sara to the Toad in the Hole (assuming she wants to stick to tradition). I'd like to go play pool later. I also would love to have Sara and Adam help me on the movie. Carissa will be off work at 6:00 PM with Alisa and I told Carissa to try and get Alisa to go out again, so maybe something will come of that. Who knows? I like to have no expectations and yet be ready for anything, you know? These aren't plans. These are theories yet to be proven.
In conclusion, A'roma Roasters is where I work. It's an independently-owned coffeeshop in Santa Rosa that doubles as one of the city's more popular hang-outs. Not kidding. This place has a lot of loyal customers and each day brings a flock of new ones. It's fertile flirting grounds both behind and across the counter. The atmosphere is generally good, depending on the personalities that make up that crew. I get paid enough to afford rent and keep up a social life. And hell, I was even Employee of the Month in July. Come September, it'll be two years at this place. What this all means for me in the future... I don't really care right now.
So anyway, I was thinking of using this time to talk about my job.
A'roma Roasters is a coffeeshop owned by two women (and the answer is yes) and they're both at least fifty, maybe sixty, and both of them oddly resemble the two extremes of my grandmother's personality. Kay is crazy. That's how I remember her name. She is always fixing, always adjusting, always cleaning something. There is one thing she'll devote an entire afternoon to fixing even if it means she has to pull the dishwasher out from under the counter and block off half of our working space. You'll look around and there she is, cleaning dust from the rafters, spraying the sidewalks down with a pressure washer, or desperately trying to convey something to Yuen, who just nods and looks for Jose for translation. And then you have Dayna, who is the calmer of the two. But while Kay walks the walk, it's Dayna who talks the talk. If you get into trouble, it's Dayna who will sit you down and talk it over. Kay has no time for such manners because there's a loose screw somewhere in the cafe that needs to be tightened. So Dayna has that calm and rational personality that makes her more pleasant to be around.
Then there's Carole who does the music bookings and the paychecks and the teas. About her... she's a pretty plain motherly figure who, for some reason or another, finds herself coming in every day to do whatever it is that she does. I'm not totally sure. I know she's in charge of our paychecks, though, and that reminds me that today is payday. Thank God.
And Tema finishes up the last of the management team, although she's going to be moving to Florida pretty soon (I think she said she was leaving in August). She's been with A'romas for sixteen years (it's been open for eighteen) and has since married a woman named Lupe and done side work for a dance club. She's got short blonde hair that she styles with gel and loves stickers with puppies on them. For a long time she was the shift manager in charge of scheduling. Now that task will go to Jose when Tema is gone.
A'romas is a lot different now than it used to be. When I started working, these people were my mentors and none of them still work there: Angelina, Jillian, Tiffany, Shayna, Carl, Shauna, Mario, Crystal, AJ, Lizzy, Shaun, Marc. Then there are people that have come and gone while I've been there: Jazmin, Belen, Steve, Ryan, Sarah (I especially miss Sarah's friendship), Annie, Carlos, James. And there could be more, but it's early and I can't think of anyone else right now. But it's just interesting to me that when I started two years ago, the coffeeshop was a different entity. Now that new people have come, the atmosphere of the place had to readjust. I can't tell you what makes one person stay longer than another. Some people leave in the first week and some make it through a whole summer.
Coffeeshops are in my blood. My dad's been working at coffeeshops for years. I remember waking up super early when I was a kid so that he could take me with him to this cafe by the train station. We'd load up this cart and go outside in the cold Bay Area dawn and serve fresh coffee and hot chocolate to the commuters. Also, my grandmother bought up this house in Auburn and converted it into a coffeeshop across the street from a courthouse. She calls it Courthouse Coffee and that place has been open--what?--like six or seven years, now. I worked there from the day it opened to the day I moved off to college. It was usually so slow during the day that I'd spend 75% of the time on the internet. But it was family owned and it was easy work and I loved working with the espresso machine and the smell of freshly ground coffee and the taste of a really good mocha. And Courthouse Coffee was not just coffee, but also sandwiches and salads and smoothies and, later, beer and wine and quiche and pie. It was good training for the future because I knew how to multi-task. I think this is why they hired me on the spot at A'romas.
One end of the building consists of the Ice Cream Room, the Manager's Office, and the Middle Office. Then there's the connecting hallway with the two bathrooms. The main room is the Coffeeshop with a long, bent counter that stretches from the hallway to the back door. Starting from the entrance to the Back Office, the areas behind the counter are divided as the Food Station, Register, Drink Station, and then Bussing Station. Food is food: sandwiches, burritos, salads. Register is that and nothing more. Drinks are drinks: mochas, lattes, cappuccinos. Bussing Station keeps dishes clean, brewed coffee fresh, back-ups plentiful, tables cleared, cream and sugar stocked, etc. When you have a shift of strong employees, the combined efforts of all four stations can work flawlessly, or one weak link will drag down the tempo of the others. But we all kind of meander around when there aren't customers or we'll switch around to help eachother out in the middle of a rush, and so if we're all friends behind the counter than it usually just feels like hanging out and getting paid to make coffee for a few hours.
There are a couple different shifts you can work and, besides being put on one of the four stations and making that your primary task, each shift has something expected of you that is unique from the others.
1. Opening: wake up early, brew Columbian for the black iced coffee, start a dark and a light and a decaf brew, make black iced tea, put away bagels and pastries, prepare the coffeeshop for business.
2. Nine to Five: come in at nine, ignore the clock until around noon, take two 20 minute breaks, get your second-wind around 3:00 and crash at around 4:00, get a lot of sympathy from coworkers.
3. The Afternoon: come in a few before 1:00 and have a cup of coffee, do a majority of the chore list, wonder where all the customers are, wonder why all the customers show up when someone's on break, wonder why the tip jar looks so empty, wonder what to do when the chore list is done, clean the same thing you just cleaned ten minutes ago, wrap the leftover bagels and pastries, change the music a lot.
4. Break Coverage: come in at 9:00 AM, 3:00 PM, or 8:00 PM and fill the spot of whoever takes first break, take out trashes, stock everything, grind back-ups, touch on the chore list if applicable, feel like a pimp when you leave a half hour before everyone else (sometimes for day shifts, never at closing).
5. Closing: come in around 6:00 PM, if it's Friday or Saturday then you can move the corner table to make room for the band, see a lot of drunk and high people, play the music louder than usual, pull the soup before eight, lock up the chairs out front at eight, pull the cold-masters by nine, start taking down the espresso machine around ten, close the ice cream room, close the bathrooms, wrap the cakes and pies inside the pastry case, sweep the floors, mop the floors, put up the chairs and vacuum the platform carpet and put down the chairs again, clean everything, wipe down everything, refill sugars and honey and beans, give the fifteen minute warning, if you're the monitor then go clean up the place where the smoker's hang out and lock the gates, kick everyone out at 11:00 or 12:00 (depending), lock the front door and bathroom, turn on internet radio or plug in someone's iPod, close down the shop, count tips, turn off the lights, set the alarm, exit.
Working at A'romas is, overall, pretty amazing. It's not like working at Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory or anything, but it can still be a lot of fun. It's definitely my favorite job so far. I've met some of the best people there and I honestly miss some of the employees that have left. It makes me happy to see Annie, Tiffany, Shayna, Angelina, and Mario still come by sometimes and say hello. Because there are people who don't ever come back, like Shauna or Ryan or Sarah...
Sarah, who I mentioned earlier, was this punk-rock girl, 23, who I would have loved to have been friends with when I was single. One night after a closing shift--we're talking like one in the morning, here--me, Sarah, Danny and Danny's friend decided to go to San Francisco. No one was high or drunk. We first went to the beach and started up a bonfire, but it was too cold and windy and so we went back to the car to venture elsewhere. I don't know San Francisco too well, so I don't know exactly where we went, but after that I remember us parading up and down this one road, being goofy and loud. Danny's friend tried to frog-leap over a parking meter and failed, falling to his ass. I'm starting to think that Danny's friend was named Danny, too. So I'm off topic now. This was also the night we stopped just near the Golden Gate Bridge and there are these abandoned military bunker-looking structures we walked through, which was creepy in the thick of the night when not even a cellphone screen can help you see.
For the record: Danny (the Danny from the last paragraph) used to work at A'romas and then left to try out San Diego. A few days ago Danny came back and he plans on working at A'romas for a while before heading off toward some other goal. This is odd timing because now there's a new Danny who works at A'romas. We call one of them Danny Blonde and the other Danny Brown.
Now it's 6:23 AM. Sara and Danny Brown are going to open A'romas in seven minutes. Then Michelle will get there at 8:30 AM. My shift starts at 9:00 AM alongside Ruth, and we'll both go on the clock so that Danny or Sara can take a break. Four hours will go by like they always do and it'll be 1:00 PM. I think I'll ask Michelle if she wants to smoke a bowl with me before I go with Sara to the Toad in the Hole (assuming she wants to stick to tradition). I'd like to go play pool later. I also would love to have Sara and Adam help me on the movie. Carissa will be off work at 6:00 PM with Alisa and I told Carissa to try and get Alisa to go out again, so maybe something will come of that. Who knows? I like to have no expectations and yet be ready for anything, you know? These aren't plans. These are theories yet to be proven.
In conclusion, A'roma Roasters is where I work. It's an independently-owned coffeeshop in Santa Rosa that doubles as one of the city's more popular hang-outs. Not kidding. This place has a lot of loyal customers and each day brings a flock of new ones. It's fertile flirting grounds both behind and across the counter. The atmosphere is generally good, depending on the personalities that make up that crew. I get paid enough to afford rent and keep up a social life. And hell, I was even Employee of the Month in July. Come September, it'll be two years at this place. What this all means for me in the future... I don't really care right now.
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