From today.com/food
Anonymous Server, as told to Joseph Lamour
For our series “Server Diaries,” TODAY asks anonymous servers, bartenders and other hospitality workers to record their innermost thoughts while on the job.
Here, we follow a barista/bartender in Long Island City, New York through three shifts.
This transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Shift 1: Riding Dirty to the Medium Place
3:01 p.m. It’s hot as balls out.
3:04 p.m. I have a bad habit of waiting till the absolute last moment to get ready and leave for work because I really don’t want to be there.
3:06 p.m. I rush, washing the pits, tits and bits in my sink, smearing deodorant in the former and rushing out the door. I ride my motorcycle there and am still late, walking in the door with my helmet and gloves on.
3:20 p.m. I work in Long Island City at a cafe/wine bar, and it has a nondescript, trust-fund-corporate-bro-investment kind of vibe. Grey isn’t just in the walls — it designed my purgatory.
You’d think we’d have much more foot traffic in a newly-built, fat-cat, fancy-feast-ass tower near the subway, but we’re camouflaged by minimal design and millennial grey aesthetics. It’s slow.
3:31 p.m. I’m greeted by the morning-shift girl, and she looks bored. She glances at me momentarily to say “hey” before continuing to stare into space. She’s summer-job young, and her shock-pink hair looks more excited to see me.
3:33 p.m. No one’s tipped since she got here at 7 a.m., she tells me. I look in our till, and there is a $5 bill, a quarter and somehow, a couple of now-illegal pennies. F--- this s---.
3:45 p.m. My life’s dream is not to serve coffee and low-ABV drinks inside of a hotel lobby business centre designed by a sentient pair of Allbirds. I work in advertising, but freelance jobs have been vampired by AI. Who needs Don Draper when you can make your compu-slave push out endless slop?
3:55 p.m. A friend got me this job. She was like, “You may as well pick up some shifts.” So, now, I’m making money while I’m pitching bigger fish. Ad jobs are infrequent, but cortado-thirsty people are not.
4:45 p.m. I want to be back in the game, working with annoying marketing clients who don’t know s--- about s---, trying to convince them that the bold creative idea is better than the blob-monster drivel their nepo-hire stepson used Midjourney to “paint.” Who knew I would miss making a logo bigger?
5:19 p.m. Basically, the only useful purpose of this gig is to spend my time studying Spanish, writing prose and applying to jobs I actually want.
10 p.m. I served an average number of people today, and yet I still smell and sweat like a roofer in Albuquerque. How, Sway?
10:05 p.m. Walking to my bike, I do a lil’ lesson. “Quiero que mi sueño se haga realidad,” a green, nocturnal animal says to me on my phone. “Quiero que mi sueño se haga realidad (I want my dream to become reality),” I say back. I think a vacation would be fun, but I’m not in a place financially right now. Even for a hostel.
Shift 2: Boredom, Even When I’m Busy
3 p.m. I say out loud, “Well, it’s a hot one,” and immediately sing the next line of that song as I make my way uptown.
3:30 p.m.. The usual scattering of young people greets my eyes as I enter my bar-fé; some on laptops listening to headphones and others silently nursing sweaty, half-finished matcha lattes.
4:19 p.m. Another start-of-shift mistake: There’s a person today who is probably walking around tweaking out of their skull because I used regular beans instead of decaf. Oops.
5:07 p.m. A couple of girls are actually speaking to one another out loud with nary an electronic in sight. Laughter and human connection? In here? Rare.
6:04 p.m. A mother with a Goyard bag — every well-to-do subway mom in New York seems to have one — remarks on how quiet it is in here, but it sounds like an insult. Her toddler is playing with her sludge-coloured skirt. Probably cost more than half my paycheck.
6:05 p.m. She orders a “SMALL cold brew with LIGHT ICE,” said like there is a sign on my head that says “idiot.” She watches me like a hawk to make sure the ice is light. I prepare for her to complain about how the cup isn’t full.
When you order light ice, you get a less potent drink in many cases. Maybe it’s what she wants, judging by her “busy but successful mom of two in yogurt commercial”-ass fit.
I don’t care enough about protecting the financial interests of the ownership class, so I just fill the empty part with more milk.
7:05 p.m. It’s so empty in here I’m learning Spanish out loud. The green bird teaches: “No me gustan los hosteles; son poco elegantes.”
“No me gustan los hosteles; son poco elegantes (I don’t like hostels; they are not elegant),” I say back.
9:33 p.m. A guy and his girlfriend come in hesitantly, looking around. “Is this … the same place as during the day?” he asks. “Or is this a different thing, a speakeasy?” she asks. I am f---ing elated.
Shift 3: My Pal, the Green Owl
3:07 p.m. Another hot-ass day. Temps in the 90s, maybe past 100.
3:19 p.m. As with any toxic relationship, I experience complicated feelings every time I walk through the front door.
4:30 p.m. This is a hobby business for the wealthy. Six people own it — more Injustice Society than Superman investing with Diana Prince.
4:32 p.m. The owners create inherent hypocrisies. It sucks. It’s slow here, so they only want to pay for one person to work the bar but then get pissed when they get a Google review saying the lines are too long. Vandal Savage behaviour.
4:35 p.m. I met one owner, an older woman, months ago. She was notable because she apparently does not know anything about coffee, wine or business. Once I saw her strut behind the bar to pour herself a wine from the tap. She sprayed liquid all over the bar — and herself — because she didn’t realize there was a stopper in the spout that needed to be taken out first.
7:50 p.m. Oh God, 10 people came in at once. Must be a museum field trip. A group order with significantly varying drinks can really throw me.
8:03 p.m. I realized I forgot to add caramel to one of the big group’s cappuccinos. F---.
I thought about running after them, but ennui is heavier than my compassion. Also, I don’t give a s--- about this job.
8:19 p.m. I turn back to the green, spectacled animal in my phone. “Tomas demasiado café,” it says. “Tomas demasiado café (You drink too much coffee),” I say back, adding, “Y vino.” I realize I haven’t learned from the bird how to say “wine” yet. This is irony.
https://www.today.com/food/restaurants/server-diaries-bored-bartender-wants-to-quit-rcna593804
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