Someone Paid It Forward For Me!

I think I'm burying the lead, but I want to highlight the silver lining as well as the dark cloud, even though the dark cloud really isn't that dark.

I am at my usual morning coffee place, Caribou, the one where my long-time barista left after, like, a dozen years.  I have no close relationship with any other person working there (as close as a customer can get with a barista), so I was really scared that I wouldn't feel as welcome at Caribou as I would with her working there every morning.  In fact, I have started to think that I would need to find a new coffeehouse to spend my non-employed mornings, just in case.

Everything is fine, for now.  I haven't made any personal connections with anyone there, but my deepest, darkest fears that I'll be made to feel unwelcome here at Caribou have been, so far, unfounded.  However, this morning there was, you can say, a clusterfuck.

It was kind of busy; there were people waiting to order and there were people waiting to get their drinks.  There were three people working there.  When it was my turn to order, none of the three were at the cash register.  Instead, they were all at the espresso machine.  Now, it seemed as though they were all concentrating on alleviating the backlog of people waiting for their drinks.  But the fact that none of the three even saw me, let alone saying something like "I'm sorry, please give me a second," confuses and bugs me.

Eventually someone came up to the register and began apologizing -- I think she said something like the espresso machine was broken, but someone was looking over her shoulder while she was preparing drinks, like she's new or something.  Anyway, this wasn't the first thing she was going to apologize for.  Caribou has this deal where, on Tuesdays and Thursdays in July, a medium coffee is only $1.50.  All I have to do is mention it.  I did, and my barista said that it costs the regular price of $2.30 or something.  I told her I got this damn deal the last time I was here -- on Tuesday.  I got some ... perturbed that I stepped out of line in order to open up my Safari on my smartphone, go to the Caribou website, and show her the deal that her company says is going on right now.

After I got back in line and showed her the deal, she, well, said sorry profusely, again.  The barista didn't really get it together after that: She gave me the wrong price for the chocolate chip cookie I wanted, so she needed someone else's help for that.  And after I gave her my money, she took the order of the person behind me before getting me my cookie.

I'll be honest: I want to think that this person's an idiot.  However, it helps a lot that she was honest that she didn't know medium coffees were a buck-fifty.  Plus, customer service can be crappy both ways: As bad as I've received shitty service, I've been on the other side where I've taken a lot of bullshit, too, and I don't want to contribute to that.  And, hey, if the espresso machine is broken, all three of them needed to put out that fire first.  Finally, although I do have other options, I don't think it's safe for me to go anywhere else in the mornings because my parents might go to areas close to those coffeehouses.  In other words, losing my temper and mentioning that she's an idiot isn't going to benefit me in the long run, no matter how good it would feel to say it at the time.  So, to try and show there are no hard feelings, I threw all my change in as tip.  I would probably not throw in as much money if this were a clean, normal transaction.

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So, to the point I allude to in the title of this blog post.  As I stepped away from the line in order to show this new barista that medium coffees are indeed $1.50 Tuesdays and Thursdays in July, someone placing her order hollered at me.  "What is it that you ordered?" this woman asked.

Not totally comprehending what is obvious to you guys, I said I had ordered a medium coffee, still waiting for my iPhone 4 to load up the Caribou homepage.  The barista interrupted me to ask if I wanted a light or dark roast; like I told her when I initially ordered I wanted a dark, but still I was concentrating on showing her I was supposed to get this discount.

It was somewhere there that it dawned on me: This woman is going to pay for my drink.  Oh, great!  Except that I don't feel ... worthy of being given a drink.  I always feel weird when someone does something nice to me.  Don't they know that I'm an asshole?

Nevertheless I said thank you to the person while she was on her way out the door.  I do feel bad that she probably paid full price for the medium coffee when she shouldn't have.  But she probably bought my drink because she didn't care.  That was really nice of her.