The Old Geezer

This is Malaysian Dave's pet name for a regular customer we have called Pat. Pat's pushing 83 and wears the same clothes every single day. Because of that, his clothes smell like piss. So bad. So so so bad. He comes in about 3 or 4 times a week about half an hour before we're about to close up. He gets fruit bread and a grande americano. We keep a portion of fruit bread for him in the cupboard because he takes about 10 minutes to choose something else if we don't have any. He's the first person that I've ever convinced that the americano is pronounced ammerikkino rather than americano, if that makes sense (by the way, people coming in and asking for an ammerikkino and having someone on the till going "wtf...", is the funniest thing ever). Yeah so back to Pat smelling like piss. It's so bad. So so so bad. It literally stinks up the whole shop, and it even overpowers the smell of non-corrosive oven cleaner on the panini grill. Shit, it makes oven cleaner actally smell half decent.

We have timers in work to remind us when it's time to do stuff like change the drip coffee and when to plunge the plunger on the french press for coffee tasting and stuff. They've got three functions:

1. Timer - You set a time for it to count down by the hour/minute buttons, press the start button, and there you go.
   
2. Clock - It tells the time. Like a clock.
   
3. Count Up - It counts up. So you can count how long something takes.
   

When we realised that Pat's stench was making people leave, we decided to have a timer set to count up for the next time he came in. The idea was to start counting as soon as he sat down and see how long it'd take for everybody to leave. 7 minutes.

7 minutes.

The smell had already infiltrated most of the store by the time he'd sat down anyway be cause he was at the till, but fucking hell. The first couple to leave, left after 7 seconds of him sitting down. We counted the people in the store (just for facts sake), and there was 23. for our shop and the business that we do, 23 is a pretty full house for us. Pat cleared 23 people out of the store in 7 minutes.

Another thing about the old geezer is that nobody knows what the fuck he's saying. Ever. I kind of do, because I rule, but the full time staff are made up of a Malaysian dude, an Indian dude, a Japanese girl, a Polish girl, and me. Now these four have enough trouble understanding me if I get a bit too excited or giddy, how the fuck are they going to know what a weezy coffin dodger with a thick Dublin accent covered up in a hefty coat of old is saying? There's three part timers who are all Irish, and can probably understand him, but I don't work with them or care about them enough for them to count. He once called me Niall of the nine hostages and then started laughing. I don't know what that means so I'm not sure if it's funny or not, but the Polish girl got really scared when he said it. Yikes.

The thing that pissed Davie off most about him is that Pat wrecks our jax every night he's in without fail. As long as they've just been cleaned. Dave likes to get everything done before we actually close to the public so that our actual close is way faster, and not as rushed or cramped. The toilets are good to be cleaned an hour before we close because we don't get too many people in at that period, and if we do, hardly anyone ever uses the toilet. Except Pat. He spends about 20 minutes in there, doesn't flush, and leaves the place looking like the front door of a church after a wedding, except the confetti is actually snotty tissue paper. I don't know why he doesn't put it into the bog and I don't know how he gets the jax roll broken up into such tiny pieces, but he does it. Every time. The funniest thing is that he never seems to go to the toilet if it hasn't been cleaned already, and Davie goes mad about that. "HOW COME HE NEVER GOES WHEN I'LL HAVE TO CLEAN IT ANYWAY? HE ONLY GOES WHEN IT HAS BEEN DONE SO I HAVE TO CLEAN IT TWICE." Dave's recently been looking for ways to get him barred from the shopping centre, which I think is the funniest thing ever, because he's totally serious.

Realisticly, Pat's going to snuff it real soon and I honestly imagine Davie will be pretty upset about it. We all will.

Robb and Oisin

came into my store the other day.

Yo Robb and Oisin.

Fuck yeah

So much good news as of lately. I haven't encountered a dickhead in like 3 weeks, apart from one day where our dishwasher broke and some people were getting a bit pissy about not having mugs or plates, but sure fuck them, it's no big deal.

The manager who I was covering for came back yesterday. He's my old manager and he's the best. I've probably already posted this but fuck it: One time he got his hair cut and I commented on how sharp he looked, and he replied with this really serious tone and Indian accent: "You see Niall when I don't cut my hair, it grows too long and they end up looking like little noodles". I nearly shat myself, and he hadn't got a clue why I was laughing so hard either, ehich made it 17 million times funnier. He always gives me shit about being vegetarian, too. Like he used to hide a Mozzarella Cheese paninis on me before I'd go on a break and shit like that, haha. I once asked him what the deal with the cows being sacred in India and he was like "I couldn't give a shit. I'd eat you if I had the chance." Hahahahaha wtf.

Anyway, he's back and I'm stoked. I asked if I could stay in the Hughes and Hughes store for a while because I'm enjoying the chilling spree I'm on, and he asked if I'd like to come back permanently, so I was like "fuck YEAH", and here I am. Sweet. Today he asked me if I was interested in a supervisor position seeing as one's leaving because she's going to have a baba and the other, my good friend Hoey is going back to being a part time supervisor because of his English and Business course is starting back in March. So here I am, having the buzz. Doing way less work than the busier store, and I'll soon be getting paid a shit tonne more to do so, haha. I'm totally fucked if they see this blog, though. Sketch. I can't wait for when I'm being trained in for supervisor and my manager decides to tell me more stories about his childhood like when him and his two mates used to put on their best clothes and crash weddings so that they could score some free meals, hahahaha. Best dude.

Hopefully this dream doesn't fall through because I'll be heartbroken, innit.

So I'm halfway through

A 3 week stint of working in Starbucks Swords Hughes & Hughes (The quiet store). Since the new store opened up in the Pavillions, this store lost well over half it's business. I'd like to say that it was because all the regulars couldn't get enough of me and followed me down, but I'm pretty certain it has more to do with the new store being right beside the car park. I'm currently in H&H because the manager's away in India so I'm covering shifts, even though I have zero managerial experience whatsoever. I never thought I'd say this about Starbucks, but I fucking LOVE this store so much. We take in about €700 a day AT MOST. That's insanely quiet. Starbucks Swords Pavillions does about €3,500 or more per day (well it had been doing with the Christmas buzz). Because the store is so quiet, we start our pre-closes at like 2pm when they closing shift comes in. We're never busy in the last hour like the other store so we can hoover the carpet and sweep the floor. We have an hour and half to finish up after we close to the public. We never need more than 40 minutes between closing tills, mopping the floor, supervisor paperwork, wasting food etc. It's simply delish. And because of the fact that we're so quiet, the store is just totally zenned out. It rules. There's no dickheads anymore. What do they possibly have to complain about when they don't have to queue, the store is suoer clean and peaceful, the staff are happy to see somebody actually come in, and their drink is made pretty much before they even get their change put back into their hands?! It's truly amazing. I've been reading veggie cookbooks for about 50% of the time spent working over the past couple of days, seeing as we have a bookstore right down a flight of steps! Which brings me onto my next point...
Why oh why hasn't this store closed down, Starbucks Sos?
Well children, Starbucks have a 10 year contract with Hughes & Hughes to stay in business together, a sort of get the caffiends into literature and also give the bookworms a place to chill the beans during their first couple of chapters so they can get into the book.

Swords Hughes & Hughes truly is the mecca of Starbucks stores. Love you.

Suck my dick, work.

I'm off work til Thursday for some ridiculous reason yet again. Throw a text my way and let's get hiiiiiigggghhhh.

Negative Niall.

Basically I've been called this ever since the store at the back of Hughes and Hughes in the Pavilions opened up because we had a really happy-go-lucky manager and I'd always try to make her see the flaws in her buzz of bliss. I don't know why I did it really. I guess it just comes down to the simple fact that if something's not right, it needs to be corrected. So whatever. I don't think I'm that negative at all in work. Sure, I'll point out if a customer is a dick, and I'm not as braindead as some of the people who "are only making stupid mistakes because they're enjoying themselves", but fuck, I'm not a negative person. I do have the laugh with customers if they're nice, but I'm all about the mutual respect buzz, so if someone isn't lubing me up with the uplifting and gentle auro I deserve, they're not going to enter a world of white clouds and roses with me. Fair enough.

I remember one day in particular that I was in an extremely bad mood, and it was because I was working on my dad's 5th death anniversary. I didn't really want to tell my manager about it and ask for the day off because I thought I could weather it and it kind of pisses me off when people take a day off over stuff like that or go home sick when they're clearly not, so I didn't want to do that. I'm not saying that it's bad to take some time off for grievance, but at this stage in my life it's just another day. It just so happens that the date has some meaning behind it. Basically, on that day I kept quiet for my whole shift only talking when I needed to and nodding or shaking my head if that was feasible. I can't really explain, it was just as if I couldn't have been bothered being there and didn't want to give my full dedication or something. There were a good few idiots in that day and it really made my day a lot worse than it was already going and up until a couple of days ago I can safely say that it was the only "bad" day I've had.

Yesterday got on my tits a bit. Nobody's doing any of the simple things that take 2 seconds to do and generally make things 100 times easier, like rinsing the milk jugs after they're used, or changing the brewed coffee once the timer goes off, or bringing the shot glasses that are too hot to hold into the back so they can be cleaned and cooled so that when the replacement shot glasses get too hot, there's other ones there, or getting more take away cups when it's quiet and it looks like they might run out if there's another busy little burst of customers. Stuff like that. Stuff that annoys me anyway because I have to do it ALL THE TIME, but it's annoying me a shitload more because we're so fucking busy in the run up to Christmas. One of the lads who was looking like he was going to get the supervisor position ahead of me (before nobody got it because of labour cutbacks) is especially destroying my will to live, one tiny bit after another. He has this whole public humiliation buzz that's both failing hard and completely ridiculous. The lad's a bit of a flirt with ANY GIRL THAT HE TALKS TO. Anyone. You could be Rocky from "Mask" and as long as you have a gap between your legs he'll try it on. What he doesn't like is anyone else ever having the buzz with another customer when he isn't. I was chatting away to a couple of middle aged women just because they were pretty sound and bantering away and he just cuts in and goes "It's a shame he's a gayer ladies, isn't it?" and walks off. WTF. I kind of scanned the place to gather myself to see if I was in fact gay, realised I wasn't, and then I noticed one of the women looking at me with the "how the fuck does that guy work here?" eyes, and i met her with the "I hope his house burns down on Christmas day and all of his family is wiped out along with everybody else that shares his blood" eyes. He also does this to everybody, and that's only the tip of the iceberg but sure if I was to go into it I wouldn't have fingertips left. It really does blow that it's so hard to fire people from Starbucks because this moogy should have been out on his ear a long time ago.

So with all this, and the store being busy, I've been a whopper grump. Especially seeing as Christmas is a time for family and "reflecting on your life". My family has been shattered for the past 5 years with repressed grief from myself and my brother caused by way too much grief being put on the table from my mam, and my youngest brother not really being old enough at the time to have understood what was going on, so he's just there, getting caught up in the middle of all of us not getting along with each other. As for reflecting on my life, I'm working a really badly paid job and I've no idea what I want to do in college next year. My boss kind of noticed me being a bit shitty over the past few days, so he decided to give me a week off. That was really nice. Thumbs up. Merry Christmas.

Babyccino Update

I sold/made THREE BABYCCINOS the other day. All in the space of half an hour. It blew my fucking mind. High fives were had. I haven't sold or made one since.

I did a 12 hour shift today...

...and now I feel like dying. I woke up at 6am today to get showered and changed and get to the dart station so I could get to the other dart station so I get my bus to the bus stop outside the Pavilions and go to work. I woke my mam up when I was going downstairs to get breakfast so she decided to give me a lift to Sutton station, which got rid of waiting around for the dart. Thanks mam. I was working in the Hughes and Hughes store from 8 - 12 and I had to do pretty much the whole opening myself because my supervisor was late, so she literally only got in in time to get the tills sorted and run start of day etc. So I did all the important stuff. I felt class.

At 12 I had to go down to Swords Pavilions v2.0 and work until 5, but some new lad (WHO NEVER FUCKING RINSES THE JUGS WHEN HE'S DONE WITH THEM, BY THE WAY) started begging and pissing and moaning at me to cover his shift which was ending at 8pm, because he had to go TO HIS OLD JOBS CHRISTMAS PARTY. WHAT THE FUCK. And I said yes. WHAT THE FUCK. I really am too nice. So i only got a poxy 15 minute break, a half hour one later on, and then only another 15. I def thought I deserved a second half hour break what with how much I busted my nut for them today.

There wasn't that many fresh douches in today, and the minor ones that did come in didn't phase me at all because I was feeling so invincible from my one person opening skillz, and I was tote stoked on working with Rodolfo again, because he's got the best voice ever. He's from Italy, he's 29, and he says all the most nonsensical things in the best way possible, such as:
"Would you like some teabags in your teabags?"
"You want some fruit bread with the butter?"
"We don't have the hot chocolate but we can give you the hot chocolate instead."
"That's what I like about this job you know man..." (And then launch into 5 minutes worth of mumbling and words that don't make any sense together)
"Ah man she's so sexy man!" (When said customer had literally JUST walked away after getting her drink, but still completely in earshot)
"What I like about Italy is that there's no rules man, because when my auntie first went to Naples, she saw a man shit in the street."

Pretty much everything that lad says to me blows my fucking mind.
But I'm as fucking tired as an arse after a healthy dose of the scuts.

BABYCCINO!

Babyccino's are gas. Essentially they're just small cups of steamed milk, but they're not too hot or anything because usually they're given to babies/toddlers. The name though, fuck. HOW GOOD IS THAT?! I was working in Malahide over the weekend and I had the pleasure of working with Big Fago, Chris' older brother. We were having a discussion about how we've pretty much always only been on bar when a babyccino was ordered, and had never been on till for it, so it'd be a super rare occassion to sell a babyccino. Anyway, about 20 minutes after that, Steve was on till and someone ordered a babycinno! Steve just looked at me, grinned a little,and shouted "BABYCCINO!" and then we high-5'd and it was actually the best thing ever. Then it happened again the next day we were working with each other and now it's become a sort of game, I think. I was working in Swords today and Rodolfo sold a babyccino so I had to high-5 him. Savage.

I kissed a regular last night.

Fuck yeah.