In January 2013, I was at my wit’s end. I’d applied for dozens of jobs and registered with temp agencies. I volunteered in house with a non-profit once a week and networked with a vengeance – to no avail. I’d been unemployed for six months and I saw no end in sight. Then, I got a call from someone at a coffee shop and bakery in Northern Virginia. I’d applied for the position after seeing it on Craigslist, never expecting to hear from them. I assumed my application and resume had been sucked into the same super massive black hole as all of my other efforts at obtaining lawful employment.
I was psyched that a coffee shop would consider me at all, especially one with solid Yelp reviews. I set up an appointment to meet the shop’s resident coffee expert. He was a typical coffee guru, which is to say: knowledgeable, affable and slightly counterculture in that his beard rivaled Grizzly Adams. The coffee guru was impressed with my eclectic service experiences. I’d worked behind counters and bars in Wellesley, London, Lund and Portland. I was relieved that he was intrigued by my travel and blasé about my education.
Ethical considerations, perhaps misplaced, have compelled me to include my education in small letters at the bottom of my hospitality resume. I’ve found that some retail and service operators are reticent to hire people with advanced degrees perhaps fearing their departure when something more aligned with their education becomes available. This train of thought is neither unreasonable nor unfair, but it does make navigating the service job market more difficult. I’d applied to service jobs before this coffee shop, only to be met with radio silence. Thankfully, I’ve found that independent coffee shops are much more receptive to everyone – regardless of education. In this case, both the coffee guru and the chef/owner liked me well enough and I began to work part time. I was thrilled to be employed again.
Five months later, my latte art looked less like a Rorschach test (it’s a baby riding a unicorn!) and more like deliberate design. I had a good rapport with the regulars and had eaten my way through most of the bakery’s menu. I was comfortable. That is, until the day my college first year roommate walked in. The shock of serving someone I knew from college was so stunning that I slipped into old timey lingo: “Jane Smith,* as I live and breath!” was my exact exclamation. I have never used that phrase in 31.7 years of life. We hugged across the counter and she told me she was spending her summer interning with one of DC’s top law firms. Fresh from an early morning spinning class, she picked up two large non-fat lattes.
The juxtaposition was stunning. She was earning more in a week as a summer associate than I earned in six as a barista. She woke up at 6:00 AM to spin. I woke up at 5:30 AM in order to get to the coffee shop by 7. I ran after my eight-hour shift, reeking of espresso and grease. Jane no doubt wore nice business attire to work, perhaps donning a Hillary Clinton-esque power suit. By contrast, I found a kindred spirit in Macklemore (and Ryan Lewis). When I barista, I excel at popping thrift store tags because espresso grounds and bleach stain like nothing else. Our differences were especially acute in light of the fact we’d attended the same college and had both chosen to enter the legal profession.
When I reflected on our interaction after she left, my initial feelings included slight embarrassment and self-consciousness. What must she think of me? Nine years of post high school education and working at a coffee shop? Barista-ing is great: I love the process of making a good espresso drink, even when there is soy milk involved. I also generally enjoy people, especially when I am paid above minimum wage to interact with them. However, barista-ing was never where I saw myself post law school.
My embarrassment and self-consciousness faded as I remembered the lesson my mother has worked so hard to instill: All work is honorable. I have to work because it gives me purpose. I also strive to draw value from my work, no matter what it is. Barista-ing may not have been what I wanted for myself at this stage in my life, but the experience was still worthwhile to me. In fact, it became a vehicle for my optimism because someone wanted to hire me for something I was good at and they would again. As Churchill said, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”
Have you experienced a millennial mismatch?
If you enjoyed this series, Shannon has other blogs in this series including Millennial Mismatch, Maligning and Misadventure.
*Name has been changed, obviously not in any creative fashion.
photo credit: Linh H. Nguyen via photopin cc