Monday, June 23, 2008

The end of an era.

So yesterday I worked my last shift in Malahide. It was horrible. It was really busy and really packed behind the bar because Mike was showing 2 n00bz how to make the Frappucinos. It was really annoying that he only seemed to think it was appropriate to show them how to do stuff when we'd get busy in the shop. It was his last day too. I think people cared more about me, probably because I've made it known that I don't want to go to Swords and that I'd rather be there. He was just flat out leaving, while I was being pushed away into an unfamiliar territory. Just as I'd been getting to know the customers well enough to know who's sound and who's a prick (i.e. who deserves to have their drink made properly, and who deserves to have me pick my nose and rub my index finger on the inside of the mug before I make their drink). Although I've only really posted about the things and people that I didn't like, there have been an awful lot of really nice people that come in and make you get through your day a little bit easier. I guess they've finally got the minimal mention that they deserve.
It's really shit that I won't be working with Chris or Rita anymore. Mainly Rita, because she was like that dude in prison films that shows the protagonist how to survive and shit, if that makes sense. Except instead of keeping me from getting killed, she just showed me a whole load of shortcuts, which gets a thumbs up. With Chris, sure I'll see him all the time anyway so it's not that bad, but it's going to be hard to find someone like Rita in Swords because you don'treally want to risk asking someone how strong their work ethic is, because if it's really strong they'll just tll on you and you could get fired. Fuck that noise. I want to stay in Malahide.
Some jerk came up yesterday complaining about his cappucino being too foamy. It's a shot of expresso and foamy milk. It's a cappucino. People are idiots. We also made about 20 drinks that just didn't get collected at the end of the bar. How the fuck does that happen? "Yo, I'll spend a fiver on a coffee and then just not drink it. In fact, I just won't even acknowledge its existence." WTF.
After my shift, I headed off to the pub with Chris, who was also closing with me. We met up with Rita and then her friend and her friend's boyfriend showed up. THE DUDE TURNED OUT TO BE THIS GUY WHO USED TO BE A FEW YEARS ABOVE US IN SCHOOL. IT WAS THE BEST THING EVER. Chris bitched out of the buzz and left, but gave me his pint on the way out, which ruled, and then we stayed having the craic for a while until we went to one of Rita's friend's house. I gave her the key to the locker we shared and it got all Armageddonesque emotional. I probably should have done something of a greater gesture than just give her the nod. I'm going to fucking hate Swords. .

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Working on the till...

...is the worst thing ever. Everyone says it's easy and everything but I hate it so much. It's just unnecessarily mixed around (You have to go into all these ridiculous subsections to find what you're looking to charge for etc), and the fact that I've consistently been on the crap till with the dodgy touchscreen isn't much help either. I've made a few mistakes because of that alone, but they were all corrected so it's grand. It's not that it's hard, it's just shit and annoying. And you can literally be looking for soemthing for 10 minutes if the customer doesn't tell you exactly what they want (We've got like 400 belgian chocolate products for example). And it just gets fucking boring. "Hi sirrrrr, how are you today?!" / "Helllllo miss! What can I get you?" will start to eat at your soul as soon as you realise that you've been saying it for the last 2 hours straight.

I'm sure anyone who's been working here for over a certain period of time gets to like it, but I just can't find anything good to say about it. I don't want to be taking an order for €20 and be thinking to myself "Holy shit, these people are going to consume in less than 15 minutes, something that would take me over 2 hours of work just to afford"... That kind of breaks you a little. Thank fuck for the free drinks and 50% off food for employees, because if it was normal prices for us, we'd actually be spending like half of our salaries in Starbucks on our lunch alone. Scary shit.

But yeah, I've just realised that I did make an entry about hating working on the bar a while back, and now I fucking love it. Some lady came in earlier and goes to the girl on the till "How fast can you guys make a hot chocolate for kids?" and I just screamed "MAADDDDDD FASSSSTTTTTTT" and started making it. It was hilarious looking back on it, as I had it pretty much in her hand before she had even gotten the change. Fuck yeah. Hopefully till will improve like that.

The coffee prick...

Okay so first off let me say that I'd have def updated this blog sooner but my band have been doing a lot of work on demos and I've had a good few shifts to boot, resulting in me just being way too tired to post. I've got a nice hefty dose of insomnia now (and then next 2 days off work) so Ican make a few new posts. Yay for me and for you.

Well. The coffee prick was some lad that came in last week with a big fuck off group of people who I can only assume were his family. The whole shebang now, I'm talking oldies, normal people, babies, kids, teenagers etc. About 8 in total I'd say. Firstly, I hate when there's large groups in, because not only does it fuck up our floorplan, but you're also going to get like 8 drinks called to the bar at once, and they're going to expect them to be done quicksmart. That doesn't bother me too much these days as I'm actually quite savage on the bar now and I can mill through the drinks.

But yeah, the coffee prick. The real reason why he's a prick is because he legitimately did not deserve to be alive. Like this dude was properly past it in every sense and he was giving it loads thinking he was the business and just doing my head in from being mad loud. I'd def prefer him to be giving it loads 6 ft under. But yeah, as there was like 8 people in, they took 2 tables and brought them together which is fair enough, and they all pooled their coffee and food onto them. There was a table close by with a whole load of empty drink and half full mugs that I decided to clean up and collect all the shit for washing, and as I took hold of one of the half full cups, some old bitch goes "Andy, he's taking your drink!", at which point I put it down and apologised, explaining that I thought it was okay to be cleaned because it was left on the table with a whole load of empties and mugs like that. And then the fucker goes to me "Doyou have life insurance, pal?". I was like "DO YOU HAVE A COFFIN PICKED OUT YET, YOU FUCKING GRAVE DODGING PRICK?" to myself, but decided it was best not to say that in case it did cause him to have a death. And it'd be pretty bad if he didn't actually have a coffin picked out yet. But seriously, what douchebags leave their coffees on tables that are waiting to be cleanes? Coffee pricks, that's who.

I seriously hope he snuffs it soon.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

The coffee bitch.

Who orders a coffee and complains about it being too cold, only to ask for a refund when the coffee is made again but turns out to be too hot? The fucking coffee bitch does. OBVIOUSLY IT'S GOING TO BE MAD HOT IF YOU COMPLAINED ABOUT A PERFECTLY FINE COFFEE BEING TOO COLD. Some people need to get their head in check. I hope she bought a mouse trap with the refund for some reason and then got her fingers caught in it. Fucking dope.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

48 HOURS?! NO.

So I just checked the roster to see what days and shifts for next week got changed around, and I find out that I'm put down for a 48 hour week! I'M ONLY CONTRACTED TO WORK 20! I'm going to fucking hit someone. Or just sort it out on Monday. More than likely the latter.

There'll be an entry tomorrow about the fucking mental day we had today, too. Stay tuned.

The hottest fucking day.

Was Saturday just gone. Fucking titting hell. And Radiohead were playing another show that night, so the shop was so packed and so busy. And so hot. I was afraid of slipping because my bollocks were sweating so much. Fuck. Anyway, we didn't have another power outage or anything of equal levels of excitement but we a whole load of other stuff happen which might be worth writing about. I got to stare someone down, and it was fucking class. Like I felt so good about myself knowing that he felt like a tit. I was checking the toilets to see if anyone had shat on the walls or anything like that, and because it was a mad hot day and because we were so packed, the queue for the jax was ridiculously long. Anyway I head to the top of the queue and ask the girl if it's alright if I check the toilets to see if the roll needs to be changed and whatnot, and out of nowhere some fucking mongobiscuist goes "Ah here now, don't let him be skipping you..." and straight away I just look at him. The sort of look that asks the questions "Are you for fucking real?", "Do you not realise that I have a brush in my hand?", and "Would you like to repeat that question so I can ram this brush stick down your japper?" all at the same time. And the dude looked like the sharted himself. It was so good. He just stopped smiling and looked at the ground like someone would do if they were getting grilled on some sort of TV show where the presenter just decides to ruin someones buzz. Fuck yeah.
The toilets didn't need to be cleaned.
Something else that happens when the sun comes out, is that pretty much everyone in Malahide comes out into the sun. I've never witnessed a community more responsive to good weather. It's as if they don't have the internet or something. There was literally 200 people in the field accross from our shop just having the buzz in the sun. Pretty much everyone was having a can. I fucking love cans. That was the worst part for me. Some people would come in and buy coffees and sit outside with them and drink a can with their coffee. Fucking badass. Granted, they were probably alllllllll pretentious dickheads who were heading off to the Radiohead gig, but they were still having cans. And I also know how pretentious it is of me to wiriting about my experiences in a coffee shop from a laptop. Get fucked, everybody. Anyway yeah, there was one ridiculously drunk couple that couldn't really speak but still wanted coffee. I think we just gave them whatever whoever on bar wanted to make, which is grand. Anyway, the girl must have been a total headmelter because the dude just got up and left while she was talking. She followed. Bitch forgot her phone. We had to ring her "Mam" in the contact list and get her to collect it. Even though she looked about 20ish, I hope that drunken slut got grounded by her mam for the inconvenience.
Oh, another thing about summer / hot weather... CLEAVAGE. JESUS HOLY MOLY CRAZY DUDE ON A BIKE AH YA FUCKIN NEARLY KILLED ME TYPE OF CLEAVAGE BUZZ GOING ON IN MALAHIDE. For real. We're meant to make eye contact with these ladies but it's actually pretty hard. I know it sounds like bullshit, but when you're serving drinks to women who are most definitely wearing tops like these so they can be scouted for porno or some shit, it's pretty hard not to have a little peak. And before anyone tries to judge me, EVERYONE FUCKING DOES IT. GIRLS INCLUDED. IF YOU DON'T YOU'RE EITHER BLIND OR LYING. Don't want me looking at your jiblets on the sly? Cover up.
But for real, it'd be so good if it was really hot any everyone came out and had the buzz/cans, and then it started lashing rain. Ooh yeah.

Fuck.

It's 3:30am and I'm in work tomorrow at 2pm. I've spent the last while updating this. I need sleep but I can't stop typing. AGHHHH. It's like blogging OCD or some shit.

Multinats are POWERLESS!

Today we had a blackout. Everywhere in the village was affected by it, so pretty much everywhere closed. People were speculating that it had something to do with the Radiohead concert in Malahide castle. In fairness, it's a very plausible reason, seeing as they're artsy fartsy pricks who go on about keeping the world green, but then decide to use up all the power in Malahide. Cheers, Thom. Anyway, I'd just come back from my half hour break when it happened, and then we got to chill the biscuit for another hour and a bit on top ofthat until the power came back on. We were all mad afraid that the lack of power would bring the fridge temperature down and we'd have to waste all the food, but that didn't happen. Grand. Myself and a girl Rita who works there went outside and just had the buzz browsing through each other's iPods, looking to find any ropey stuff so we could slag each other about. She had some whack shit on it, but I let it slide when I saw that she listened to The Academy Is, 30 Seconds to Mars, and some other stuff, and she tried to slag me over having Jack's Mannequin and Pendulum on mine, which I guess is fair enough. I think she's cool, seeing as I have the most buzz with her because everyone else is really worky worky or just not up for the buzz, resulting in them being worky worky.
A while after the power came back, we opened up again and did the biz, and then a while after that, I went home. I was working 7 til 3, and the time someow flew in. Probably because of the hour and fifty minute break I had. I wish the power would cut out more often, seriously. But Radiohead are playing the next two days here I think, so fingers crossed.

Working on the bar...

...Is probably the scariest thing ever in the whole Zach Wylde world. As I'm only a n00b, I'm pretty much guaranteed to be totally shit and pathetic at it. People need to stop ordering custom drinks. They put me in the deep end a few days ago. An hour on my own at the bar. It was seriously so fucking hard and terrifying. At one point, there was a tailback of about 5 or 6 drinks. With people paying that much for coffee, I imagine they'd want it fast. So I decided I'd let them know what's up and told them that I'm only a trainee and that their drinks would take a bit longer than usual. Most of them didn't mind. I fucked up one or two. They didn't notice. Success. I was really fucking nervous whenever people would be looking at me with eyes of anticipation, but after a while I decided to say "fukkitt" and just took my time doing the drinks to the best of my ability and after a good while I gained a fair bit of confidence and the day started flying in. But people seriously need to stop ordering customs. As I was chatting away with some customer, she asked me if I was new here because she hadn't seen me before and I told her that I was doing my training here and that I'd be going out to Swords as soon as that store opened up. I also told her that I was friends with Chris, but she didn't know who he was, so I described him for her. The skinny dude with dark hair and the questionable (but lovable) facial hair. Then she was like "OHHHHH, the boy with the amaaaazing eyes?!", and I was like "Em, I guess so. I've never really thought about it that much...", and then she proceeded to tell me that one could get lost in my best friend's eyes. Hahaha. That brought my day up loads. She was probably only messing though, as I've know Chris since I was like 14 and I've never thought that his eyes were even slightly enchanting. I don't know. I'm sure he'll he chuffed though. She was decent.

Update:

Starbucks do sell yoghurts. They're probably shit though and only mams will buy them for their kids so they shut the fuck up for a few minutes. Pricks.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Washing up (BAAAAAD NEWS)

Washing plates and mugs is just straight up bad news. I usually have to do it for like one third or one half of the day, so it becomes more than just washing dishes and mugs, it becomes bad news. You get to notice waaaaaaay more bad news about with every time you have to wash them. As a result, there's two things I fucking hate about washing up:
  1. THEY GET SO HOT. THE MUGS AND PLATES GET SO FUCKING UNCOMFORTABLY HOT. We put them in a hot wash after they're rinsed off all they ewwie stuff in the sink. It should be called a really fucking hot wash instead of a hot wash. For real. My hands are going to be worn away so quickly from doing this on a daily basis. Fuck. Everyone's probably thinking why can't I just leave the mugs and plates to cool and then bring them out when they're not hot anymore. Well I fucking can't. We always need plates and mugs and if I leave them in the back to cool down we won't have any to use out front. FFS.
  2. EVERYONE IS A PRICK. PRETTY MUCH EVERY SINGLE CUSTOMER THAT COMES INTO STARBUCKS IS A TOTAL FUCKING JERKOFF. That is, everyone who orders a drink and drinks it inside, and then puts all their shit into the mugs when they're done. Napkins, yoghurt tubs (I'm not even sure if we sell yoghurts?), suger sachets, broken mixing sticks/plastic spoons/plastic forks/plastic knives, drink lids (just leave it on the drink, yeah?), receipts, etc. EVERYONE WHO DOES THAT IS A SHIT MORON, AND EVERYONE WHO KNOWINGLY DOES THAT IS A HEARTLESS CUNT. We have to pick all that shit out with our fucking fingers and lob it into the bin. Sometimes it sticks to your hand. SO GROSS. Do these people think that they're helping us by putting everything into a compact space that we have to wash after they're done using?! "Hang on, do you want your broken spoon and suger sachet cleaned as well in the reallyfuckinghotwash, yeah? Ok, cool." What jerks.
Seriously, these two things are the worst things in the world. I'm going to ring the Oxford English dictionary and ask them if they need a new definition of Bad News.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

The Starbucks Experience

So on Saturday, I had a sort of class type thing in the basement of a Starbucks in town from 10am til like 1.30pm. Apparently it was meant to last for 8 hours but the girls who were doing it were sound so they lashed through it and we got to get out of there like millions of hours before we were meant to. We learned some kick ass shit, like that we're allowed to sit down and have the buzz with a customer for as long as we want if it's not that busy. That's so you can form bonds and they'll want to come back or something, but for me it means that I can just text my friends if it's quiet and when they come in I'll still be getting paid for hanging out with them. Speaking of getting paid for doing nothing, I think we got paid for that class. For the full 8 hours. Wahey. We also learned that you can get more of a taste if you can actually smell what you're eating, and we were told to hold our noses and pop a few skittles into our mouths, chew for like 10 seconds, and then let go of our noses. A huge blast of smell and taste came through, and it fucking ruled. I'd seriously advise everyone to do it. Anyway, we got shown a pretty cringeworthy video of how to be a good employee and such. I thought it would be pretty brainwashing, but it was just a video of how to be sound, I guess. Then we got educated on how to deal with assholes. This part fucking kicked the tits because it was all like "you have to stay calm and be nice to the customer" type of stuff, which is usually pretty degrading if you're in the right, but I reckon I'm going to love it, as it'll give the chance to be completely condescending and patronising to people who really deserve it, and I'll also get to write about it. And if that doesn't work, I'll still get to write about it. Wahey.
Since that class, I've been off work. I'm back in on Wednesday. I find it pretty odd that I'm completely indifferent to being off work for 3 days. It's like you have those gits that are like "Ugh, I'm off work for a while, what will I do with myself?" and you have those gits that are like "Oh whoooop! I'm off work for a while, let's go drink an unhealthy amount of bloody marys!", and I'm not really anywhere in any of that. For me, it's like "...Grand". I'd like to say I'm in the middle of those 2 extremities, but that would make me a git who loves both his job and questionable drinks. I don't know.
Back to the experience, I forgot to mention that there were like 9 other people there. A girl from the Malahide store called Magda was there, and a dude called Manuel who used to work in Malahide was also there. He's working in a store in town now. I was hoping to see some people that were being trained in for the Swords branch, but none of them were there. I'm starting to think that I'll be alone in there for a good while until some knackers in the pavillion ask for a job and then get hired. For fucking jaysus sake. But yeah, 9 other people there. Only one other dude from Dublin there. There were people from Spain, Greenland, The Czech Republic, Brazil, China, Mexico, and fucking MAURITIUS! I think myself and the other Irish lad were thinking that we got the raw end of the deal. Even though I burn like toast, it'd still be pretty badass to say you were from Brazil or Mexico or Greenland or whatever. I don't think you can get sunburned in Greenland anyway. Cool. Anyway, most of them were either training or transferring for a new branch in the IFSC. I really wanted to ask one of them if they wanted to trade for a move to Swords, but I wasn't ballsy enough. I rolled a smoke for Manuel and we had the buzz talking about the Fagans and our fondness of them. I've only met him twice (the first time was on my first day in Starbucks), but it's a fair old bad buzz that he's moved because he's a top notch dude. I didn't even know he wasn't working in Malahide anymore until Saturday. Ah.
But overall, I had an experience. I'm not sure if it was the one that they wanted me to have, but I had one anyway. An experience of satisfaction for getting 8 hours pay to watch a video and eat skittles.