Yes, as you can see, for a short time in my life I was a coffee shop barista. Dark lord of the roast… monarch of mocha and duke of demitasse, I ground, brewed and frothed many a latte for almost an entire year on evenings and weekends.
I suppose it was need for a bit of “comfort money” that drove me to look for a part-time job in the first place. I was already working full-time as a graphic designer at D&H Distributing in Harrisburg, PA. And though it wasn’t a bad-paying job, I had found myself struggling to keep up with bills and still have a comfortable amount of money left over at the end of the month. If anything major would have happened at the time, like needing a big car repair or medical emergency, I would have been SOL, since I was just squeaking by.
That worried me. So I decided to snag a part-time job to occupy my time after work and on the weekends, when I was just sitting around doing nothing while Jamie was at work most weekends, anyway. So after a couple of failed attempts at finding employment (even Lowe’s didn’t want me… and you should see some of the people that work there) and a couple embarrassing interviews later (being on an interview for teenager-type jobs when you’re 25 is humbling) I was finally offered a job at the Mad Hatter in Cleona.
After I got the hang of things, I was running the place by myself. I had regulars that came in and knew me by name. I knew what they wanted before they did. And I was good. Never had a complaint, never had a return. Maybe they were easy on me… I mean, we are in central Pennsylvania and not in some posh city scene where someone would complain about a 10 degree difference in the milk. But still, it was quite an interesting time, working with the ‘public’ again. If you close your mouth and just listen to people, it’s amazing what you’ll learn about them, even if they’re not trying to give anything away.
This photo is one of me in my typical ‘at-the-ready’ stances, clutter and controlled chaos all around me. I was probably waiting for a customer to come in while brewing a fresh batch of coffee or waiting for raisin scones (made from scratch, mind you) to cool. If I didn’t have to work full-time now and could actually make a good living serving coffee, I’d probably still be doing it.
Though I do like my sleep-in Saturdays…
There’s a book identified as “Avoid Retirement And Remain Alive”. The concept could be the truth that retirement has no location in current society. Should you have the ability to make operate enjoyable by balancing it against the other points you’d probably like to try and do, then you definitely are able to reside like you’ve got every one of the time within the globe.