Throughout history the coffee house has symbolized a place where big ideas happen, where artists, writers, business people, friends, significant others, and families come to gather their thoughts over a hot cup of coffee. Somewhere where the creative process thrives, it’s almost a provided medium for artistic expression. When you close your eyes and imagine a coffee house, like Starbucks, you see a meeting place for people from all walks of life that come to engage in delightful energetic conversations. Although the vast majority of today’s society perceives Starbucks this way, I can assure you with every fiber in my being, that societies perception is widely misled. I work at a Starbucks, spending over thirty hours a week in a place equivalent to a circus-mental institution love child, with no shred of relevance to what a coffee house is supposed to be. But as much as I would love to be in denial of the reality of the customer base at my store, I can say in full confidence that societies views on Starbucks is very much distorted and in dire need of a reality check.

But don’t worry, before I landed the job I was under this perverse impression as well, because Starbucks is a place where happy people come to socialize and drink coffee right? No. After spending countless shifts people watching as opposed to actually doing work, I have categorized the coffee consumers into three distinct groups based on time of arrival and drink order. There are the aggressive business men and (what I like to call) the ‘zombies’, the pretentious hipsters and shallow soccer moms, and last but not least the drunks, druggies, and homeless.


So to start, the morning people, (aka) the aggressive business man and ‘zombies’. These are people, although categorized in the same group, have very contrasting personalities. ‘Zombies’ on one hand, minus the human flesh eating, are very literal in the definition of the word zombie. These people are physically and mentally incapable of functioning with the current lack of caffeine in their system prior to coming to Starbucks. If I had a dime for every time I’ve watched a ‘zombie’ struggle, attempting to pull open the push door, I could probably purchase a bigger sign that says ‘PUSH’ but then all the mystery would be lost for them. ‘Zombies’ hobble in and bluntly point to one of the three kinds of drip coffees we have directly behind the cash register pay and leave. This, aside from arrival time, is the only commonality with the aggressive business men. But the aggressive business men do it in a completely different manner, hence the title; aggressive business man. They don’t struggle with the push/pull door, they barrel in like they own the place, talking in harsh tones on their bluetooth headset to some very unlucky person. They especially don’t bother to make eye contact with the barista taking their order. It goes like this: they point at a drip coffee urn, grunt a size, pay in exact change, and bolt out the same way they walked in. God forbid anything go wrong in that sequence of steps though, and you’ll forever regret it, unless getting a lecture on how to do your job at 5 o’clock in the morning is something you’re in to.



Except I get lectured on how to do my job by the pretentious hipsters and shallow soccer moms in the afternoons anyway. This group solidifies the fact that I selectively despise my job but are just as well the asshole subgroup that keeps Starbucks in check. Both of these types of people I can identify purely by looking at their drink, because the more foo-foo the drink the more pretentious shallow (foo-foo) the person. These people make me want to write a public disclaimer explaining that: “if your drink takes longer than 6 seconds to say you lose every right as a human being in my eyes, you are not allowed to speak to me, or ask me if I’ve added one of the components of your drink, I’m not a chimpanzee, I am a person and am capable of reading the (five too many) letters on your cup. Have a great day.” This would have come in handy before I got yelled at by my manager for kindly asking a shallow soccer mom if she wanted to come behind the bar and make her damn drink herself. Since, ironically, she was super awesome at telling me how to do my job, and I had only gotten 2 hours of sleep the previous night. As well, both of these people tend to talk to us about their lives more than anyone even cares, I’m still uncertain if it’s an ego thing or if nobody else listens. Especially pretentious hipsters, they will never realize that making your drink order sound complex and interesting doesn’t make you cool, we don’t care about your record collection, or how Peet’s Coffee has better quality espresso than us. Because, news flash, you’re currently standing inside a Starbucks where mediocre lattes rank supreme and there’s a 48% chance the drip coffee has grounds in it. All I want you to do, valued customer, is take a shower for once in your life and get out of my vicinity.

Speaking of people I’d love to get out of my vicinity: the drunks, druggies, and homeless. The convenient location of an adjacent liquor store to my Starbucks, manages to reel in quite the array of coffee consumer, the kind that constantly hangs around the premise from the evening on. All of these people order iced coffees (adding their own personal fixings) because iced coffee is the cheapest and has fifty-cent refills. It’s not uncommon to collectively have about 5 refills per person per night. Another common occurrence is having to call the cops because of highly intoxicated people viciously fighting on our patio; at first I was scared, now I’ve just learned to accept it. Closely linked to this group are the adolescent skater-druggie kids that have made Starbucks their second home, since apparently they were kicked out of the first one. They spend their evenings getting high, getting refills, and skating around the parking lot. With all these goons hanging around my Starbucks, it’s perfectly natural for crazy homeless people to join the party as well. Among many crazy homeless that tend to linger at my Starbucks, the most entertaining is the crazy gypsy lady Dinka. She’s about 4’9, missing all but three teeth, and comes in quite frequently to let me know that I stole her car but she only wants the license plate back. At one point she was yelling at me across the counter, flailing her arms about and wearing a low cut shirt, when out came her saggy boob. Right onto the counter, and in that moment I decided I was done working at Starbucks for the day. Especially so after eventually figuring out she was only asking for nonfat milk.


Sadly, the reality of a coffee shop today is not societies preconceived notion of one, and the shortage of happy people socializing over coffee is at an extreme. There’s a vast majority of people that come into Starbucks close to none of which meeting any social normality. There’s ‘zombies’ who cant even speak their order due to lack of caffeine, rushing angry business men, as well as foo-foo people who order and demand perfection on their equally foo-foo drinks. And the cute guy in the corner on his laptop is not writing a screenplay; he’s probably online gambling and lives in his car outside.