JOB TRAINING-GREEN APRON STYLE!

Steve teaches us pumps & shots in iced or hot beverages
by using the expresso machine as a 'cheat-sheet'

     The closest I ever got to entering any coffee-tasting experiences in my coffee passport was weeks and weeks later, when my shift supervisor, Katz, asked Kevin, a new hire, like myself, if we had entered anything in our small green journal.  We both responded “what are you talking about?”  And so it went.

     Katz was a wonderful shift supervisor.  Only 20 years old she was very kind and more mature than the 31 year old drill-sergeant, Noel.  Katz gave us brand-new passport journals (my original one was lost)….and told us to put our names on the front of and decorate in whatever way we wanted. She took time and taught Kevin how to create coffee from a French-press and then pair it with a particular pastry.  She asked us politely to describe the flavors and how they combine together to bring out the flavor of the coffee.  She explained how the French press demands a special type of grind for the coffee. 

      Katz told us stories on the evening shifts.  She was exceptionally warm, yet elected us to complete our work before she would allow us any conversation.  But when she was ready to share, she told us stores about past employees and how they came and left.

     She told us how Noel had it in for a past shift supervisor and kept pestering a district manager to fire her until the district manager finally did.  This woman, she told us, was three years with the company.  She was an excellent employee with stellar sales and sold pastries like there was no tomorrow.  She was great.  But she warned us, that once Noel had it out for you-- that was that.  I kept it in mind.

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     At the green apron, we are suppose to have on-the-job training accompanied with computer-based training all completed within a certain time frame from first being hired.  I did not know this until my own computer-based training was about a week over-due.  The surprised sergeant had to put me on the schedule just to have me to sit in the back room at a  desk to complete blocks of training from the  “My Learning” education portal.

     This would have worked if I could have logged on to the computer.  I asked Steve, the night shift supervisor for help, to which, he tried, and even called Noel, (who picked up her phone after dialing her incessantly)-- to remedy our training obstacle.
     It took Steve a great deal of time to help me,  because he was also the only Barista in the building.   So, there was long pauses where he would disappear to the front of the store.   I just got paid to play Song Pop and Candy Crush on my cell phone.
     However, upon his return to me, he informed me that Noel was angry and felt I should have remembered my password—to which I replied —I don’t have a password—to which Steve told me that Noel said—'you completed blocks one and two on the computer!'  And I said—no I didn’t –Noel had it open already and Lena, the pregnant supervisor, was ordered to sit next to me and give me the answers for learning blocks one and two.  Steve rolled his eyes.  He knew the truth.    

     A clearer explanation would be that Lena only helped me to fail the tests.  After several failed attempts at passing learning blocks one and two, I utilized the expert in the room, SIRI, on my IPhone, who searched the web to find all the correct answers.   Lena was quite comfortable finding the answers to these compelling coffee questions, through SIRI, because the answers she provided me only certified my failed attempts to pass--twice--and since the test never told you which ones were wrong--I asked my phone each and every question.
     All of the answers, by the way, can be found clearly on the web under coffee brewing information.   Throughout this ordeal I rolled my eyes (to myself) and, after it all,  graciously thanked Lena for helping me.  Lena replied by rolling her eyes at me and the complete waste of time spent on my education.  She searched the pockets of her green apron for her sharpie marker and walked away.  

     "And that is how I passed blocks one and two"  I said to Steve.
     He put me in touch with headquarters to set up passwords and pass-codes to portals and ...
another paid hour later, I was done.

     On Friday we got paid.  I couldn’t have been more excited.  It was my first paycheck and I made a whole $250.00!!  Each Monday we get our tips from the prior week.  My first week there I netted $63.00.  I tucked the wad of singles in to my apron pocket and set about amassing my fortune.

We were taught to learn to identify management
as you would a criminal.

MY FIRST DAY....

 
 That night I wept.  I openly wept, sitting  on my bed with my social worker daughter on the other end of the line.    Crying like the failure I was.  I used to own a business.  I once was an elected official.  I used to want to live.  Now….. I was going to start work wearing a green apron.  I have failed all that I could possible fail, including my dignity. 

      When I started with Noel at noon the next day I was given a coffee tasting guide—“my passport through the journey of coffee......”  My Barista Basics Learning Journal,  Some kind of Welcome packet filled with lots of information about benefits I could only hope to receive in the future—like the prized pony I had hope for as a child.

     I was given tiny little cards to give out.  Little cards to give to other partners that have made you feel “welcome”  or who were “considerate” to you.  I was appreciative of those cards—and excited that these were used…..it was a feeling that "you were at home among family"--in a corporation.

    In the book, “How Starbucks Saved My Life”,  I recalled how the nice manager in the story took the new employee by the hand and taught him  the difference between coffees like bold and blond.  And I was excited to become part of this cultured coffee world.  In this foray into connoisseur coffees,  I would become privileged and knowledgeable.  People would come to me with their questions that I would answer thoughtfully.  Understanding the differences between lattes and cappuccinos, between a machiatto and affogato style.  This would be mine.  I was excited to have arrived in this finely ground, dark roast, cup-by-cup world.  This caffeinated world,  complete with minimum wage (plus tips,) and vast knowledge of fair trade coffee.  I tied my green apron string in a bow in the front and pulled on my one-size-fits-all black cap to fit my small but starved-for knowledge- head, and marched up to the front of the store to start my journey.

     Noel lead me to the convection oven and promptly taught me how to heat sandwiches, how to  pull pastries out of the pasty case and clean the lobby.  I was taught “cadence”, which was how to brew coffee.  "Each of the four types of coffee gets brewed about every 10 minutes, she said.  That way every coffee is brewed about every half hour. Give or take….a few minutes...." She was shouting and I didn't know why.

      I was stunned and said nothing.  Like a deer in the headlight I bobbed and weaved to get out of peoples way in the tiny store.  This store did not have a drive thru.  So anyone wanting coffee had to come inside and shout their order over the grinders, blenders, convection oven and the ever-playing music of Adele.

     Noel's shouting was beginning to make sense.  Her normal voice was shouting. Her hellos to the customers sounded like a military command.  Her smile was fake and hard.  I soon came to discover that she hated her life as much as her job.  She never finished school, got knocked up young and then kept getting knocked up until she had a quadrant of offspring and a husband that worked at a local Publix.  Her anger scared me.  I assumed she could never be heard in her every day life, so she just yelled and yelled.  I used to be like that.  Therapy has helped me a great deal.

     I dreamed of the day when Noel and I would sit in the lobby together and sip the sample coffees together.  In my wondering, I imagined we sipped bold coffee and she taught me how to pair it with a pastry or, perhaps, a petite scone.  Following my training as a coffee connoisseur, I would write notes in my Coffee Passport giving descriptive comparisons such as bitter-sweet or mellow-chocolate.
     This never happened.

     Noel told me I was allowed a free beverage one half hour prior to work and another one for the half hour after work.  I took neither and typically hurried home to cry.

Here it is, Noel!!! The guide to teach me!

THE HIRE

     I explained to the ash-blonde, pony-tailed, Noel, how, she might be hesitant to hire me because of my age (52!) but, in fact, I get along well with teenagers and young adults, alike.  I explained to her that we had a Dairy Quen in my family since 1963--and that I ran it for the past 20 years!  No worries.  I was very interested in any starting position and available for any shift. 

She smiled and nodded.  I thanked her for her time, got my two Venti-sized beverages. 

(I was trying to be enthusiastically impressive)  and left with my hopes in my throat—choking me.  

I strolled back to my car in the Florida sunshine juggling the beverages...….Ah, Paradise.

     This was of course, the third time I had brought my employable self to Noel's attention.  Each time reminding her I ran a Dairy Queen, so that, if she forgot my name, it was traceable by the employment record.  

     What other Dairy Queen owner would be applying for Barista at the green apron?  None.  All of them retired comfortably due to their shrewd accounting formulas involving blue chip stocks with dividend reinvestment.   I failed accounting.

    I climbed in to the the car with Rhon, and told her my of my brief encounter with the hiring manager. She wished me luck.   Her business partner, Jacque, also wished me luck, she, in fact was going to a group interview to a green apron that very afternoon!  I remained silently jealous and distanced myself from Jacque.

     We walked from mansion to mansion and dropped our business cards into the pot at each home with high hopes to win the give away of the day.  Would it be a gift card?  Cash? Anything at all would make this career choice more bearable.  We probably wouldn’t even find out for a week.  And by then, we would have all guessed the drawing was rigged.  Friends of friends, as it were.

     I had gotten separated from Rhon and Jacque when they told me to climb a stairwell and go see the upstairs study, so I did, and that was when my phone rang.  I was hoping it was the United States Attorney for an interview for secretarial work (a different resume I had sent out).  It was not.  It was Noel, who in a few hasty sentences said, “look, I’m skipping the interview because I feel we have spoken enough, so I just need your birthday in order to do a background check.  I need you to buy black or khaki pants, a collared shirt, nonskid, black shoes and be here tomorrow at noon.  Are you okay with that?"

Was I okay with that?  Of course! 

Real income was waiting for me.....not the high hopes and promise of eventual "Realtor" income.

Real income. ......And Cash is King.

THE INTERVIEW?

Front Lanai view at beautiful Stoneybrook Golf &CC Villa
Newly listed! $324,000!

     I had stopped in the coffee shop on my way to meeting Rhon, my blue haired friend I had grown to be quite fond of in my very prestigious job with Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate. 
     This wasn’t just any job with Coldwell Banker.  This office was on Siesta Key!  Right in the “Village” where things were happening!  People from all over the word came in to buy property at one of the World’s #1 beaches, Siesta Key Beach.  And by all over the word, I mean Canada.

     This was a job I was most fortunate to get through a Realtor, named Pam,   Pam landed in that office, by what means, I have no idea. But, she liked the office, liked the broker, Steve, and thought I should come work there.  Of course!  Paradise!  
     The door was flung open each morning to allow us to hear the live guitar and steel drums  playing at the nearby restaurant, and to allow a passersby the golden opportunity to  search for visitor guidebooks, maps, golf magazines, golf handbook and golfing maps.  This allowed US the opportunity to strike up a conversation with them in the hopes they would also accidentally  purchase a half-million dollar one-bedroom condo they would one-day leave to their grandchildren that held they most beautiful view of the gulf of Mexico if you tilted your head a little to the left.

     Rhon and I became friends during our "Friday Office Training" with Steve, our Broker.  Every Friday, Steve was generous enough to invite the new agents in real estate into a conference room and discuss things we had difficulty in grasping.  Like contracts. Or, as  Urilenke put it,  "what is all this legal mumbo-jumbo?  I don’t get it,  Does anyone here get it"?  Her thick German accent caused me to strain in comprehension.  I couldn't imagine she was ever going to get it.  I actually took law classes in college and I was having trouble getting it.   

     When Steve wasn’t on the golf course, he was quite helpful.  Steve is a former lawyer who quit that profession to enter real estate. He started in Massachusetts.  Steve typically reminds all of us dejected Realtors "there is a lot of wealth out there" while tapping his pencil on the shiny cherry wood table he sat at the head of.  Then, would add,  "you can make a lot of money in this business," to which all of us would stare, silently wondering when, indeed, that would happen.  
     As the managing Broker, he collects money from his agents in the form of desk fees and commissions.  The number of agents in his office is nearing 100.  Steve is happy all of the time. 

     In real estate, they have a thing called broker tours.  Where, they will highlight an area and invite real estate agent to caravan around so they can see the unique features of the area (on the water!) or property (it’s a mansion!)  Rhon was kind enough to say she would drive to the tour of homes in the subdivision located at least 15 minutes away –so I told her I would get us coffee. I told her to text me her order.  
     While waiting for our order, I insisted on speaking to the manager of the local green apron for a few moments—if, of course, she wasn’t too busy…..