Tag: barista

It’s Just a Competition… Right?

“And the winner is…”. There I am, standing between 8 other competitors. As second and third place was already announced and I’m still waiting to hear if my name will be called. My heart starts beating faster and faster, despite already doing my presentation a while ago, my anxiety just suddenly kicked in without a moment’s notice. What’s about to happen? Is this my moment?

The Beginning

In my line of work, I’m a barista… but with a little extra flair. From all my past experiences and mistakes that I’ve made, I almost always tend to in a way evaluate myself and what I could do better or differently. In other words, I can be pretty hard on myself. And when I first started out as a barista, it was no different. I was not great, but it was also because I didn’t have enough experience from the work. Oftentimes I would be the one that just connects with customers more than anything else. As I finally began to put in more hours at work, I was given time to bar and make fancy lattes and whatnot. Eventually I got in a rhythm of my own and the speed progressed with it and now I’ve been considered dependable no matter what role I’m given. And that’s what it’s all about for me really.

The Competition

This year alone has been more about praising myself and acknowledging that it’s okay to mess things up or not beating myself up too much if I don’t stay on task. Like my bingo card, it’s actually a lot. I see it every day and have to know it’s more up there as a guide. I’m okay if I don’t complete everything I set out to. With that, I decided to take a chance on something new. I saw a posting within our company website about a barista championship competition. What’s funny is I didn’t notice this post until the very last day to sign up. So, I thought, “why not!?” Let’s try this out!

Overall, this competition has 5 levels you have to compete in, advancing from one level to the next. Let’s just say, if you found yourself at the very last level, you could be competing in front of potentially thousands of people on stage. Sounds nerve wrecking? It is, but I had no fear… at the time.

And Here We Go

The first level was going up against any other fellow barista within your café. However, in my situation, nobody else signed up. So… I moved on! By a technicality. And once my boss figured out what the next level was going to be, she helped me out every step of the way. Supporting me through it all to the very end. What we had to do was practice making latté art and work on connecting with the judges, making conversation.

I practiced so much leading up to that moment, and seriously there’s a whole science behind latté art and to this day, I feel like if I make a good latté art, it’s strictly out of coincidence and luck. When that time came, I was with my boss, her kids and a fellow colleague to cheer me on. When everything started, to me it felt like nothing was what I imagined it would be. Like one of those reality vs expectation type of situation. My heart was racing the entire time. I did not expect this feeling. My anxiety may have peaked more than I could imagine.

We were given 3 rounds and on the second round I felt like a ghost. I made no conversation whatsoever with any of the judges and knew this was it for me. My break in-between the final round I just told myself I would just tell my story of how I became a barista and did exactly that. Plus, my latte art in that last round looked like a mixture of the Michelin man and marshmallow man (accidentally).

At the end, when they announced the winner, I’ll admit I still accepted I had lost but deep down felt maybe there’s a chance. I still had hope. And then it happened, my name was announced and I just stood in silence for a moment not sure what had happened. I was moving on!

By celebrating, my boss took us all out for ice cream. I pooped later that night!

Let the Games Begin

In that last level, I found out I barely won. But I won which is all that matters. However, even for this next level, I still had the mindset to just do my best and to only focus on my own craft. That was not the case, just like that last level, I had conversations with other competitors leading up to the competition. Just a bunch of baristas from around the nation getting to know each other and a little bit about our stories, which I tend to be more fascinated by. In this particular competition, we had to do a coffee tasting. For that, you get to choose your coffee of choice and essentially describe its’ origin, history and talk about the flavors and what your story and reasoning for choosing it.

There’s 9 of us total and I was right in the middle of it all through random drawing from a hat. So, once we broke away and the competition began, there were 5 minutes interval between each competitor that was given 10 minutes to do their presentation. At the beginning I left those that came to support me, but only to the back of the café to run my presentation over again in my head. I really wanted to get it right and make sure everything flowed naturally. Typically, when I go thru these story tellings, I like to have a good transition from one topic to the next.

Honestly, everyone that I interacted with could not be more supportive and helpful. This was more than just a competition. After seeing how some of the other competitors did their presentation, it gave me an idea of how I would showcase mine. And before you know it, I went and did my thing. Overall, it felt like a solid performance. One of the competitors I talked to I actually helped him with just a few things here and there. Afterwards, he did his thing and ended up taking the bronze metal.

So, here we are… in front of 8 other people competing to move on to the semi-finals. And the winner… was not me. The room fell silent, at least in my head. I remember applauding the winner, but the feeling was seriously like something you see out of a movie or TV show. As I stood exactly right in-between the top 3 finishers giving each other high fives then when the winner held her hand out for a high five to me, honestly, I didn’t even realize she was doing it. Eventually I did. I didn’t leave her hanging.

Au Revoir

I studied; I practiced and kept working on my storytelling like I was rehearsing because the way that I saw this felt like it was a role and I didn’t get the part. Now, I will say I had about a solid 4 to 5 weeks to practice which I did a lot of studying but only until about a week prior, I started my story like it was my lines. There was a lot of information to know and remember, and I did the best I could, but you can only ask so much for someone with A.D.D.

When the top 3 were being announced, all I was hoping for was to be a part of that. To be on the podium. That’s why when second and third place was announced and I still haven’t heard my name; it really did feel nerve wrecking. And where does that leave me? After having some time to let it all sink in… I was sad. Maybe even depressed (but honestly for about a day and a half). Like to the point where I’m uncertain if I need cheering up or just to decompress what I went thru on this little journey.

Overall, I know I could have done better. Absolutely. What I was still trying to work on was fine tuning my craft. I believe the story telling was great but after a little more reflecting, I rushed myself and didn’t open up opportunities to connect with the judges as if they were just any other person. I know those that came out to support me let me know I did really well and thought I should have at least placed but these things happen. I’ll learn from it. But I told myself that this here was just a one-and-done type of competition just to see how far I’ve come. And honestly, I have come a long way. I’ll take this as a learning curve and will continue to better myself every day. For me.

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I’m not a player, I just crush a lot

Unless you work from home and see nobody but maybe your pets, you’re going to have a colleague you become attracted to. Also, not to get things mixed up with having a thing for your pets. Uhh, anyway, could be right away or maybe it takes a little time first. Then again, attraction is one thing but developing a crush is another. If you asked me about all my work crushes, I would be a wh*re… without pay. In the many jobs I’ve had… and current, there’s been one or multiple for each job where I find myself crushing over someone. But the longer you work at one place, the more crushes you will find yourself having. At least, that’s with my situation.

Barista

Let’s take my current job for example, especially while my memories fresh! But for me, I have two jobs so we’ll start with the first. Been working as a barista now for three years and I love it! The vibe is great, customers are wonderful (for the most part), and my colleagues are just incredible. I will say, I do work with mostly women, in both my jobs actually, which explains the many love interests I have. But honestly, when I first started working here, I felt like my teenage self again back in high school. Everyone just so beautiful and me, just this quiet kid hoping not to make a fool of himself. I was mostly known, and still am to this day as having these one liners that makes everyone laugh. It really did take me a while to be a little more open just because everyone else seemed like they just connected with each other so easily, all while I’m just observing and taking it all in. It was a fast working environment as well, so I did my best just to try and keep up. Some things took me a lot longer to figure out, but other things were just natural.

Of course, during my time learning something new like this, there’s no denying I started catching feelings in the process. One individual (I won’t name names this time), just had something different about her. Something new that I had yet to experience. As always though, there was “the look” that you just have with certain people and it’s more than enough to put a smile on your face. With that, she almost knew what I was thinking half the time. On multiple occasions, she actually finished some of my sentences. And on top of that, this one time around the holidays, we were both randomly singing the same Christmas song. Once we caught ourselves singing when we crossed paths, our eyes locked for a moment… right before we went back to work. The best way to describe, whatever this was between us, was the chemistry we shared.

Unfortunately, despite all the chemistry, we also had different religious views. Me personally, I just like to consider myself spiritual (something I talked about from a recent post). She on the other hand was very religious and was only interested in someone that was the same. Even with that, I still had this feeling she felt a certain way towards me. But hey, I’m not going to judge someone just because they have specific standards in a partner of what they’re looking for. We all have them. It’s just too bad because of our chemistry and only for it to be disregarded by this one particular thing. That’s okay though because life goes on, and you got to keep moving forward.

Nurses

Right around the time I had accepted it wasn’t going to work between this other barista I really liked… and also, because she was leaving this job to move in with one of her siblings out of state (no, I had nothing to do with it. I promise), I came across a second job working at the hospital. I wasn’t a nurse or anything, just because a. I never considered it an option and b… well, I guess that’s just it. I thought I had more. But my primary role here would be to help out the nurses with any non-medical needs and tasks. A completely new program that I got to be a part of the new pilot. With me like pretty much every new job I start, I like to observe as much as I can so I could understand what my role would be and get a feel for the vibe. Whatever the energy is, I’ll try to match it. At least when it comes to the work itself. Again, being in the hospital setting there are not just female nurses, but doctors, secretaries, physicians, and many more. As I always tell myself being somewhere new, “David… be on your best behavior. But also, don’t be afraid to crack a few jokes every now and then.” Just to keep everyone on their toes. That and to see who’s actually paying attention to me.

Like this one time I was talking to one of the nurses about why my eye was itchy. For a moment, I really thought I had gotten pink eye from the night before. Well, it was more or less from when I was sleeping in the middle of the night. I was really gassy and every time I would wake up, I let out a fart. It was this on top of my fan blowing towards me with the gas, so I’m soaking in my own stench and whoo! It was quite pungent. Hence, the reason I thought I had pink eye. Also, I really liked working at the hospital because yes, I help out whenever I’m needed or anything I can do to alleviate the workload from the nursing staff and anyone else in the department. But if I feel like I’m having issues with myself, I’m getting a free diagnosis… in a manner of speaking. Or rather a consult.

Anyway, it wasn’t long after I started this new role where I found myself wandering towards the beauty of the staff. Knowing that I am in a work environment, I still know to keep things professional. But there was this nurse that just stood out to me, where she had this aura of lust. And something almost immediately told me that she was special. Throughout the year that I was working there, I could just hear her voice and how she was with patients. She had such an amazing and positive energy. And her laugh, wow! I mean, it was so affectionate. With all that being said, whenever the two of us would bump into each other, I would strike up a casual conversation just to be able to get to know her more on a personal level. And there were also times when she would ask me personal questions as well. Even though we would maybe see each other once a week, sometimes if I’m lucky enough, I get to have these little conversations with her. Despite the short amount of time we do talk, it’s still a moment that we got to share with one another. And that alone just made my day so much brighter.

Sadly, so many good things tend to be almost temporary. My work there changed so much. At one point, I was only helping out on the weekends considering my other job I had. Then, another moment I had switched over to weekdays with an opportunity that only lasted so many months before it was gone. But not only that, this nurse that I was so into ended up switching to another department and rarely do I ever see her again.

Something that I wanted to add to why nothing ever came to fruition with these two individuals, is because we worked together, and I just couldn’t do that. Like I mentioned earlier, I do keep things professional. Almost like dating in the workplace is not allowed. But I see so many people do it all the time… which is just my excuse.

Truth is… and I’m sure you already know this, but I’m afraid. I’m afraid of what might happen if things don’t workout or if I get turned down. What that will do to our work relationship and how it might affect things. Could I stay professional after the fact? I’m not sure, but people meet their lovers so often from work. Maybe it’s time I change it up. I mean, why not? There’s this scene from Ratatouille between Remy and his father when he shows Remy the dead rats. His dad mentioned to him that the future is only more of this, and that you can’t change nature. Remy refused to believe that and told him, “Change is nature. The part that we can influence. And it starts when we decide.” And where I’m getting at with this is, well, if you’ve followed along the journey throughout my love life, you’ll know I haven’t really made a whole lot of changes. So, when I choose to make that change, then we could finally have a plot in this story of my love life. Let’s find out!

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