I Hate Coffee (cont)

What have I learned from my stint at Barnes & Noble?

• I hate coffee. I truly do. It smells great, but I really don't want to drink it.
  
• Everything at the B&N cafe is way exorbitant. I thought it was still expensive even for me, and I got 50% off all the drinks and food.
• The B&N Membership is so not worth getting. You pay $25.00 a year for the membership, but you only save 10% off all future purchases. This means that unless you spend more than $250 a year at B&N, you will not even recoup the amount of the membership.
• Don't let the people at the cafe upsell you to a bigger size coffee or talk you into getting some crazily overpriced food to go with your already overpriced drink.
• There are so many ways to hurt yourself working in the cafe. I have splattered milk at 160 degrees all over myself, knocked over drinks I was making, splattered dishwater in my eye, burned myself on the coffee shotglasses, burned myself with the hot water coming out of the San Marcos, burned myself on the drip coffee, and cut my finger while trying to slice open a sandwich for a customer.
• B&N cafe has a policy of getting the customer's order in their hand within two minutes from their entry into the line. How realistic is that when there are like 10 people lined up?
• Coffee is a whole different language. When I first started I couldn't even understand what people were saying. How many different variations could there be? Let's see: decaf or regular; whole, nonfat, 1%, 2%, or soy milk; how many shots can you get; what flavored syrup and how many pumps can you get; how much foam do you want; whipped cream or not; layered or mixed; etc. I think I'll be happy to stick to tea.

It's funny how right after I was hired several other applications came in, and they all had like 5 years experience at Starbucks and/or B&N. Looks like I had barely beat the rush.

It was kind of cool seeing the regulars who always came in. There was the one woman who came in twice a day every day, and has been doing so for 7 years. Each time she spends about $3, which means she spends almost $6 a day on coffee. The amount it comes out to per year is mindboggling. Then there were all these old people who came in as couples and hung out together reading and just being cute together. I hope I can be like that if I get to that age.