Release, Richard, Rants, and a Feral Ballerina

The album release party was a success.  Everyone enjoyed the music, and we sold a number of cds, perhaps not so many as we hoped, but not so few as we feared either.

As a follow-up to a recent post, I must say that Richard III was quite good, the setting in the 1930s done very well, and Ian McKellen simply perfection as Richard, slimy and charming, wily and paranoid, all at once.  So the woman at the junk store was once again proved wrong, not that I ever listened to her recommendations much anyway.

I leave Thursday morning for my annual writers' conference, and find myself in a state of mingled excitement and worry, as usual.  Excitement because of the cathartic experience of spending four days in the company of fellow writers, concentrating on writing, writing as life rather than an accessory to life.  Worry, because of meeting editors and agents and exposing my writing (and through it, myself) to the scrutiny of others.  These things will always be harrowing experiences I think, no matter how my writing eventually fares, or how much confidence I gain.

The four days of the conference serve another useful (at this point indispensable) purpose as well.  They shall offer me a brief respite from work.  In general it hasn't been too bad.  I've met some lovely people, found an endless new supply of character ideas, and the tips aren't so bad either.  The last two days, however, have worn me down into a fine paste.  There are always days like that, there always will be, at any job.  At the coffeehouse there was the man who invited me out to his "ranch", the one who always asked you to stir his coffee with your little finger "to sweeten it up", the woman who went on a tirade when you ran out of her favorite salad dressing.  At the golf course there is the man who offered to be my sugar daddy, or the one who mocked me as I split up his tab, or the woman who insisted I stop and take her party's order as I was on my way to the kitchen with three water glasses in each hand, menus under one arm, and the ketchup and mustard carousel dangling from my little finger.  Not that my days are made up entirely of these occurrences.  Hardly.  There are generally plenty of good things to balance out the bad.  I don't mind cleaning up after people, really, and I actually quite like waiting on tables.  What I don't like, what makes me see red, is the air of entitlement which so often comes with the aforementioned actions, the attitude that the fact that you are waiting tables and they are not gives them the right to treat you in any way they see fit, to mock, harangue, or hit on you without compunction.  Meanwhile, they expect speed, efficiency, serenity, and grace from you.  Generally I can manage the speed and serenity, if not always the other two.  The last two days I've been slipping.  Four days of rejuvenating literary immersion should be just what I need.

Rant over.  By next Monday morning I will love customer service again, or at least see the amusing side again and dislike it a little less fiercely.

I must conclude this post with a photo of my alter-ego, the Feral Ballerina, from Stephen Pastis' comic strip Pearls Before Swine.

Beverages and Costuming

I just realized that it's been a week and a half since my last post.  In my defense, I've been quite busy this week.  Still...flaky.  I don't have much time now, since I'll be rushing off to work soon.  Beverage cart today (meaning I get to drive around the course serving drinks) and the weather looks like it might rain, or might clear off and be gorgeous.  Oh, wait, I think it is starting to rain.  Good thing I like the rain.  But will the golfers?  That is the question.  I can't say I've ever considered the opinions of golfers so much before, at least, not so much as to think of them whenever a good storm came on.


Here is a photo (taken before our recent show) of us in the costumes I created for one of our dances, Clouds Below Your Knees.

More soon!

Customer Service

After more than five years in food and beverage service I have to say, it's not as easy as most people seem to think.  It's also more rewarding.  There's a mixture of science and art to making a good latte, but that's only the first of a number of skills necessary for being a good barista, and certainly the easiest to define.  Here are a few more.


1.  Cheerfulness (preferably genuine).  You are often the first person the customer sees in the morning outside their immediate family.  They are tired and grouchy.  Sometimes they have bed-head.  Often they mumble incoherently.  They NEED COFFEE.  Always important to remember that you are supplying an addiction.  If you give them good coffee and smile while doing it, they will love you forever.  If you don't, they may come and kill you in your sleep.


2.  A good poker face.  They may have just ordered the most disgusting combination of flavors you've ever heard of.  They might smell like they haven't washed in several months.  That old man's tasteless joke was most definitely not as funny as he thought it was.  The elderly woman just snapped her fingers and yelled, "Ma'am!" at you from across the room.  Yet your countenance must betray no hint of what you're feeling.


3.  Intuition.  Sometimes a customer will not know what they are ordering.  Sometimes they try to sound like they know when they don't.  It is up to you to figure this out, without making them feel stupid for not knowing. Example: Preteen girl orders "espresso".  You know she doesn't want a straight shot of espresso in a cup.  But it really would be rude to laugh.  So you smile and ask, "what size would you like?".  If she says 20 oz, you know you're on the right track, because the shots it would take to fill a 20 oz cup would probably make her little heart explode in her chest.  So then you ask if she wants any flavor.  "Ummm, yeah, chocolate, and can you add caramel?  And can you make it blended, with whipped cream?"  Last question.  "How many shots of espresso would you like?"  "Umm, one."  So there you have it.  "Espresso" has turned into a 20 oz blended caramel mocha with whipped cream.


4.  Creativity. When people don't know what they want, often the best thing to do is tell them.  Invent something so delicious they'll never have to wonder what to order again.  


5.  A thick skin.  Here I must state that nine out of ten customers I deal with are splendid, polite, wonderful people.  But there is always that one.  The one who is never pleased, who constantly makes unreasonable demands, who treats you like something sub-human -- some machine which exists solely to dispense coffee.  And there's generally nothing to do but take it -- and mimic it to your friends later, which does actually help.  Also, a side note to #5, owing to a growing number of "bikini stands" and "barista babe" Halloween costumes, it has become fairly commonplace to frequent coffee shops with the purpose of ogling the girls.  This is rarely, if ever, pleasant for the person being ogled, especially when accompanied by creepy remarks or invitations to join the ogler at their "ranch".  Of course, I am not referring to harmless flirtation, which is just that, but there is a huge difference between appreciation and the drooling of a lech.  How to deal with this sort of situation has to be figured out on a case by case basis.  Sometimes you can laugh it off, treating the whole thing as a huge joke.  Sometimes the only solution is to turn on what my sister calls "Ice Queen".