Sometimes I think back on the time I spent working as a barista, and it seems SO STRANGE to me that “coffee shop AU” has become synonymous with narratives that are low on conflict, high on wholesome romance. During the year I spent working at a coffee shop:
A coworker of mine took a bunch of psychedelics, walked through some strangers’ plate-glass door, and threatened them with a bowie knife, leading to his arrest and imprisonment (and, needless to say, a late opening for the coffee shop that morning).
Another coworker, an ex-military type with a young wife and a new baby, decided to smoke up for the first time ever with two other mutual coworkers, in the back of one of their trucks; and ended up having a three-way with them which ended his marriage.
I had a nervous breakdown, stopped being able to eat food or hold conversations, and ended up sleeping on my coworker’s couch for three weeks before she finally called my parents to come collect me.
Multiple store managers were fired for embezzlement. (Reminder: this was within the space of a single year.)
Yet another coworker, who was seventeen at the time, started dog-sitting for a couple of regulars in their (I’m guessing) early 50s, and ended up in an ongoing creepy and incidentally illegal ~relationship~ with them both.
Various employees discovered, in the course of cleaning the bathrooms: couples fucking in the bathrooms; junkies passed out in the bathrooms; drunks puking in the bathrooms; both adults and children weeping in the bathrooms; a woman bleeding all over the bathroom from a gash in her throat (??); a dude standing in the middle of the bathroom floor and pissing in the opposite direction from the toilet, so that when the employee opened the unlocked door she got piss all over her (????).
The owner of the bridal shop across the street was exposed as both abusive toward her employees and also cooking the books, which led to my coffee shop taking on a couple of untrained and weirdly conservative bridal shop workers for a few months while the bridal shop was shuttered and sold to new owners. Later the larcenous former bridal shop owner came down with some horrible disease which caused her to lose both her hands.
There was a regular universally referred to as “Sketchy Steve,” who came in at 7am for a three-shot latte with room for Seagrams 7, and dealt drugs to all us baristas. I actually, at one point (I cannot believe I was this stupid), went inside Sketchy Steve’s house, and allowed him to spend like half an hour showing me his collection of découpaged outlet plates and also soliciting me for sex while I uncomfortably yet studiously declined.
Right before I started, the store manager had walked off the job in the middle of a shift, and ¾ of the employees had walked out after him. None of them ever returned.
Like, working on the front lines of food service was the most operatically sordid professional experience I have ever had, and one of the most surreal; and it is hilarious to me that THAT, of all jobs, is the one that has come to stand for soft-focus domestic romance in fandom circles.
Weirdly anti-millennial articles have scraped the bottom of the barrel so hard that they are now two feet down into the topsoil
its so wild like “this generation with no fucking money is learning to prioritize essentials” and all these chucklefucks can write is advertisements for these companies
at least our jeans won’t tear at the seams after two washes
FUCK FABRIC SOFTENER IT’S UTTERLY POINTLESS
AND FUCK DRYER SHEETS LITERALLY NOBODY EVER HAS ENOUGH OF A PROBLEM WITH STATIC TO WARRANT PAYING OUT THE ASS FOR THAT SHIT
DO YOU WANT CLEAN CLOTHES? YOU DON’T EVEN NEED TO BUY FUCKING DETERGENT JUST MAKE YOUR OWN* IT’S SO GODDAMN EASY AND 80X CHEAPER
FUCK THE ENTIRE LAUNDRY INDUSTRY
*Fuck The Entire Laundry Industry Recipe
1 cup Washing Soda (not Baking Soda. Different things.)
1 cup Borax (not Boric Acid. Also a different thing.)
½ cup – 1 cup grated bar soap (you can use literally anything. I often use Ivory because it’s easy to get and I find it works well, a lot of people like Fels-Naptha, which is an actual laundry bar. Some people use Dr. Bronner’s. Really does not fucking matter.)
After grating your soap, combine all ingredients. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. Use maybe a ¼ cup per load.
^^^ I’ve done this for years now and it works as well as any store bought detergent
WHAT Thank you, tumblr user awfullydull! Your URL does no justice to the good advice you give!
Also you can MAKE your own washing soda very VERY cheaply.
Step one: acquire $5 bag of baking soda from Costco.
Step two: lay that motherfucking baking soda out on a baking tray.
Step three: bake the baking soda on a tray in an oven at 400° for 1 hour (to make the moisture evaporate, leaving washing soda)
Step four: revel in how easy and cheap it is to make your own washing soda, and maybe take a moment to be angry that the industry upcharges the fuck out of something that is so easy to make.
I see some of y’all complaining about static and/or wanting nice smelling laundry. Go to a craft store, find 100% wool yarn balls. If it doesn’t come in a ball, ask an employee to make it into a tight ball for you. Wash in the washing machine to make it felted. Remove from washer, add a few drops of essential oil to the ball, allow to seep in. Dry with clothing. Doesn’t need to be rewashed ever, and if it stops smelling, add few more drops of essential oil. Bam, reusable dryer sheets.
“PLAYGROUND: THE FINAL FRONTIERTNG introduced a lot of new things onto the Enterprise: the ship’s counselor as a member of the senior staff, androids, and kids! Thanks to new Starfleet practices, personnel were finally encouraged to bring their families aboard, and we got to see the interactions that would occur between Starfleet officers and very young citizens of the Federation. Not that it always went swimmingly – case in point: “Shut up, Wesley!“For every little girl who dreams of flying aboard the Enterprise as a member of Starfleet, we now have an appropriate uniform for her! Stretchy, comfy fabric decorated with a glitter tulle skirt, she can choose to join Sciences, Operations, or Command and start earning her pips right away. Move over Ensign Crusher – there’s a new youngest member of the crew!”
Product Specifications Star Trek TNG Starfleet Girls’ Tulle Dress – Exclusive Officially-licensed Star Trek: The Next Generation merchandise A ThinkGeek exclusive! Perfect for conventions, Halloween, Trekker family photo shoots, or taking command of the classroom Choose Blue (Sciences), Gold (Operations), or Red (Command) Available in sizes 2 – 7 Materials: 95% cotton 5% spandex Care Instructions: Machine wash cold. Tumble dry low or lay flat to dry. Imported
simon: how can clary not know how I feel? I mean, the things I do for her, the way I act around her, it’s so obvious isn’t it? wouldn’t ANYONE notice if someone was IN LOVE with them?
what i do is not up to you 