If life hands you lemons, make COFFEE!

Sorry, peeps, I know I have been a little hit and miss lately. Now that I am “bona-fide” (haha, code for I actually know what I am doing), my hours are a little more extended and I am even working at other locations around Dallas. Well, okay, one other location…and I haven’t even worked it yet, but after tomorrow, I will be able to make that statement backed by complete truth.

The other day, I drove up to visit my sister and her family, it was a great break away from the job, even though I visited Starbucks twice to “treat” my niece and nephew to the addictive power of coffee (kidding- I got them vanilla bean frappuccinos with coloring to make them fun)… On my long drive, I was able to assess how my job has been going, what I am doing well, what I need to improve.

I went over my strengths, of which are many and this blog is not long enough to list them all… If you know me, you know I am not kidding when I make that statement and that I truly believe this blog is not long enough to list them all. Haha. However, I am not so proud to admit that even more so, my weaknesses would fill up a list just as long if not longer. I know that I can be moody and short sometimes, especially if I'm making mistakes consistently, like mismarking cups or wrong orders (a biggie that is SO FRUSTRATING!)…my short temper usually doesn’t last but for a second and I can mask my aggravation, for the most part, by just becoming rather introverted and quiet, but that, in turn is a very “boring” Kara experience, I mean, Starbucks experience, for the customer. Ha!

I also realized that I must have learned my communication skills from Survey 101 because I find myself asking every other customer, in my attempt to make conversations, “Are you having an above average day?” or I’ll tell them, “On a scale of one to ten, my day is a quickly rising eight…” and I will mentally beg them to ask me why…just so I can give them some off-the-wall answer like, “I finally found the matching sock to one of my favorite pairs this morning!” or “The apartment maintenance finally came and got the crocodile out of my closet!” and I can usually make people laugh pretty hard with the stuff I will come up with to say. I want to leave them with an impression that will not easily be forgotten and it usually works. Usually.

There was one lady today that I had never seen before, mid-forties, looked nervous, when we were very busy with a long line stretching way to the back of the store. She was trying to tell me her drink order in a strange, thick, and VERY QUIET accent. She was talking so quiet and I was all the way on the other side of the pastry case…I even walked down to be closer to her and nada…I couldn’t catch any of it…I can’t think of too many things more annoying than someone that is a whisperer and expects people to be able to hear them over a music playing, people talking incessantly, milk steamers steaming, coffee beans grinding, (and a partridge in a pear tree), and even after being prompted to “Please repeat that, ma’am, I couldn’t hear you…” twice, she still doesn’t raise her voice ONE IOTA. I mean, even talks quieter this time and kind of waves her hands. She even points at the line behind her. My face probably showed some annoyance because I was THINKING, “Yeah! There is a long line behind you, and you are causing everyone behind you to wait because no one understands what you are saying…” and I was increasingly getting more angry, so instead of taking it out on her or being impatient, I checked myself, thought, “If this was one of MY family members, I would want someone to be AS PATIENT AS possible and to take every necessary step to offer the best service no matter what and to GET THIS ORDER STARTED RIGHT!”

So, by default, I went into survey mode and said, “If you could raise your voice, maybe six decibels then I may be able to get your drink order started…” [which I have no idea what decibels are or even if raising a voice six decibels is humanly possible or if that’s like getting into dog hearing range…but it sounded good at the moment and it calmed me down and I wasn’t showing stress]. Right then, the lady pointed, lucky for me, I’m tall, I was able to reach up to our menu sign, touching each one as she shook her head…finally at “Strawberries and Cream Frappuccino,” she nodded excitedly. Right then, I notice a person had walked from a table at the end of the line where the lady had motioned to earlier and was standing next to her.
A light bulb went off and I touched my chin with my fingertips and dropped them down towards the lady, which is “Thank you” in sign language and the only thing I know. Her face ERUPTED into a smile. She was deaf. She hadn’t heard a word I said in the first place. I looked at her translator and told her I was sorry, and the translator said that SHE was sorry but she had been on her phone and yet she hadn’t wanted them to lose their place in line. I spelled my name in sign language and T-I-N-A spelled hers back.
It was a humbling moment and not one that I will forget soon, because I just about had BLOWN it and it would’ve taken a while to get over doing something that stupid and irreversible. An opportunity that led to me getting to visit with them for a second could have been me making that poor lady feel stupid and neglected. All because of my moodiness and desire to “keep the line” moving…

Thank the Lord that I knew better than to let my circumstances dictate my attitude. If there is one thing that I have learned the last couple years, it is that life is 80% what happens to us and 20% how we respond. Controlling our own little “checks and balances” emotionally helps our outlook positively affect our output!

I even taught Tina how to ask for extra whipped cream, well, actually, we kind of made up a signal for it but at least I’ll know it when she comes back next time.
When Tina and her translator moved on, the guy behind her said, “Actually, six decibels wouldn’t have helped you a whole lot, just for future reference." When he saw my skeptic look, he continued, "I used to study noise reduction techniques…”

Go figure…nothing surprises me anymore.