Fuck Dunkin’.

After years of toiling in my chosen profession I’m finally living the dream: working part-time in a Brooklyn cafe as a plate-cleaner, food-runner, order-getter, trash-remover, ice-breaker, heavy-things-lifter and general barista-in-training. The pay stinks but I haven’t been so happy in many, many months.

It’s a small, 15-chair cafe, independently owned by a former private chef (so the food is great–I used to come all the time even before I considered leaving my publishing gig). It’s also the only place of its kind in the area (Bed Stuy), and I think there was really a hole in the market here,* because it’s  packed for most of the day. A lot of Pratt students, but plenty of locals, too.

I haven’t trained on the espresso machine yet–we shop the lessons out to a local bean guy from whom we get our coffee–so don’t ask me yet if I know the actual definition of a caramel macchiato or just the Starbucks definition. (OK, that one I know.) But I’m sure I’ll be making my own foamed milk floral arrangements in the full-moon canvases of cappuccino mugs before I know it, rolling my eyes at every ridiculous flavor shot request.

My second week in, I’m growing less overwhelmed at the constant multitasking required in a barista. I’m definitely a novice, and still fuck something up every hour, on the hour. (I made at least 3 distinct health code violations today, all of which merited a strong reprimand from one of my supervisors. Joy.)  Everyone is very patient with me and the other new hires.

But I am now, at least, able to know what I should be doing at any given time, checking regularly on the status of our pre-made beverages (iced teas, iced coffees, juices), our milks, sugars, table availability and cleanliness, clean cutlery, what food goes where once it’s ready, pick ups and deliveries, 86s, food we need from basement storage, trash that needs taking out, answering the phone, taking drink/food orders of course. The hardest part of the job, I think, is just building that checklist in your head so that you can be constantly going over it as you do busywork.

I can tell that the experienced baristas–in addition to their ability to stay calm under line-out-the-door pressure–are great at what they do because they have automated a constant revolving checklist of Things to Do. It’s easy to get sucked into folding napkins and not notice the dishes piling up on the table, or that while you’ve been juicing oranges a panini has been sitting in the order window. You have to learn to keep your mind focused, but ready to attend to a more urgent task.

I like that the experienced baristas seem to have a very Zen-like approach to managing all this, and I’m looking forward to learning it as well. (And I mean Zen in the totally-co-opted-by-Robert-Pirsig-and-fellow-white-goons sense of the word.) In addition, all the counter workers I’ve met have been very low on ego (a necessity, I’d imagine), and none is a coffee snob, which is refreshing. Most Brooklyn cafes I’ve been to have suffered from a little of the hipper-than-thou syndrome.

* (About the title: a few months after my cafe opened, a Dunkin Donuts opened practically kitty-corner to us, and as far as I can tell is the closest thing we have to competition. So yeah, fuck ‘em.)