Coffee Shop Etiquette & Pet Peeves
Working from home makes you forget what the real world is like. When you do venture out to a coffee shop or grocery store, all the human idiocy gets boiled down and amplified. You start to question how on earth we made it this far as a society with so many absolute jabronis walking around.
A recent coffee shop visit had me fuming, and naturally since I’m a huge pussy I decided to write a blog about it instead of actually confronting anyone. Below is a list of Coffee Shop Pet Peeves, many that occurred during this one visit:
Coffee Shop Pet Peeves
1. Ambiguous Order & Pickup Lines – 75% of the blame can be placed on the coffee shop itself. I’m sure you’ve seen this before at a small local coffee shop or bakery. There are just a bunch of people hovering near the register and you’re not sure if they ordering or waiting to get their order. These places are usually super busy, and understaffed, so I do have a lot of sympathy for the people that work there.
When you enter a coffee shop and see this ambiguous line has formed, I always assumed the SOP was to give the ol’ thumb point and, “hey, are you in line?”. If everyone is just waiting, then you place yourself parallel to the register far enough back so you’re not just hovering over the baristas, and make brief eye contact, so they know you’re there. Easy peazy lemon squeezy. As you’ll see from the image below the dude in the dark blue knows what he is doing, person in the white may be braindead, so I won’t say anything mean.
In my recent visit, this exact situation happened. But as I’m waiting not one, but two people cut in front of me without even a look to see if I’m there. One person did it with the guise of getting a re-fill (which you have to pay for), but then ordered more things. Get in line and wait your turn you donkey. If cutting and having zero awareness wasn’t good enough, they started chit-chatting with the barista. Which leads me to my second pet peeve…
2. Chit Chatting When Busy – Listen, I’m a big fan of chit chat. I like to chew the fat, shoot the breeze, and confabulate with the rest of them. We do have a podcast after all (which gets millions and million of listens, so check it out). I’ve actually heard that toll booth/security booth people don’t get talked to that often and it makes them super depressed. So you should say a minimum of 7 words to them or else you’re adding to their depression. So I typically go with, “Hey there, how is your day going?” and finish it off with a, “thanks a lot, have a good one”, that’s 14, so I’m doubling up in case the next person doesn’t say anything. I know that doesn’t make me a hero, but it’s a pretty heroic gesture.
Anyway, I’m all for chatting, but when it’s busy, get your order in and move along. One of the dudes that cut in front of me had the unmitigated temerity to start talking about the weather. The weather? That’s the lowest form of conversation. You’re literally just stating the obvious. It’s equivalent to the conversations I have with my 3 year old nephew, “It’s hot outside” = “This car is yellow”. The only difference is discussing Hot Wheels and their different colors is awesome and discussing the weather sucks.
3. Not Knowing Your Order – I get it, there is a lot going on with the menu. I don’t know what 90% of the things on the Starbucks menu, and once you start adding in the different sizes, forget about it. But it’s busy, we’ve been waiting in line, you’ve had a chance to look at the menu for an extended period of time now. There is no excuse not to be ready. We have people out here pulling an Elaine tapping on the table, telling anecdotes, asking questions. The Soup Nazi was right, these people should be banned!
Get to the register, fire off your order, and have your form of payment ready to roll. And by God, don’t be one of those people that has to dig around and tries to pay in exact change.
4. Yelling Out Names – Why do order numbers not work? I already wrote about how Starbucks spells your name wrong on purpose. But again, if speed is the biggest things, put the cup down, yell out the number and leave the receipt. Seems pretty simple rather than butchering some ones name, and having to continually call it out like you’re Mr. Garvey.
5. Not Getting a Snack with Your Coffee Order – This one is cheating a bit, I just couldn’t end the list on an even number. But really, not getting some sort of treat with your coffee is a psycho move. I listed out my top 5 things that pair with coffee previously, and I think that list still works well. But just make sure you know what you’re getting, aren’t cutting in line, and not chatting up the barista.
