Tea and Sandwiches

As you could have guessed right now, the theme of this blog seems to be me putting the general public into teeny tiny little boxes. You might recognise yourself, or your friend? My dream is for one day, you to be ordering lunch with your mates and suddenly you see it! You exclaim: "You know so and so is totally a sandwich Lady!" That is what I'm hoping to achieve anyway.

So, what is a sandwich lady you ask? Oh, I'm sure everyone who has worked in a small cafe where the majority of customers are over 65 will understand this post. My colleague pointed this out to me the other day and I could have dropped dead it was so true. Sandwich people cause trouble. They are never easy. They are fussy and rude and rarely say hello when you greet them. They launch straight into the sandwich order like you are in a line at subway. Do I wear a viser? No. Do I just roll up and down a sandwich conveyor belt? No. I am taking your order, so please realise where you are. We are not Subway. So smile.

There is always a line of people ten deep behind them, and the café is full, but do you think they have looked around their surroundings to check out what it might be like.

They rattle off ten ingredients – and to be perfectly honest, it is usually elderly women – Avo, chicken, cheese, no beetroot. Wholemeal."

"Brown? We only have brown."

"So no wholemeal?"

I don’t know if what I said before makes sense. So I repeat it. "We only have brown or white."

"What about grain?"

I am a master of repetition. "We only have brown."

"I guess brown then."

I look up and smile. The people behind are restless, but know there is nothing I can do.

And then they rattle off the second sandwich whilst I am still writing down the first order. When I ask again what it was they look at me impatiently. Come on lady. You have lived a good 75 years, I'm sure you can take the time to repeat your sandwich order.

Now for drinks. You can see it, she’s been looking at the drink board, and you know they still haven’t decided when you get to the counter. It’s loud and the grinder is going full blast. They scream at you that they want a "POT OF TEA!"

"Tea?"

"YES TEA!"

"White or Black?"

She sighs. "I already said White Tea!"

I question her in my head. This plain out lie makes steam not come from the espresso machine, but out of my ears. I can easily put up with the no greeting and the brown or white grain crap. But when they plain out say they said something when they didn’t I want to slam down my pen and pull her up on it.

The grinder stops.

"White tea."

"A pot, not a cup."

"Yep." My smile has gone, and replaced is surley barista, with one word answers and sarcasm just etching to come
out.

After this exchange there are usually two or three more sandwich ladies per table. And when told they will have wait 20 minutes for their toasted sandwich they look at me with shock.

"Just letting you know in case you have some place to be."

I know they don’t have a place to be. They are 75. This is their place to be today.

They must accept this and they shuffle out of the café to a seat. Thank God their will be another 20 sandwich orders just like this one to come. Thank you sandwich ladies.

The Gay Customer

Every person within customer service has encountered one of these. The highly comical, highly gay, camp queeny homosexual man customer. I’m not being derogatory at all, I’m not homophobic - there is a stereotype for everyone, and believe me, I will get to all of them. Be careful, if you have encountered me, you might be reading about yourself.

This gay man customer syndrome is one of the funniest and bewildering of all customers. He walks in and takes a look at the menu, perplexed by the selection. His lips purse. Can you picture it yet? Try.

Me on the coffee machine says hello.

“What have you got?” he asks. It’s monotone and half-disgusted already. I know he’s been looking at the board for at least a minute, so he should already know. I don’t know what people mean when they ask me this. Do they want me to read them the board? Or are they expecting that that is not our real menu and I will rattle off a completely different one? I never know how to answer that question.

I look at my watch: kitchen closed fifteen minutes ago. I don’t want to bring it up lest he have a tantrum in front of me as I make a coffee for my other customers. I know I have to say it. “I’m sorry, the kitchen closed at three.”

He looks at his watch. I can tell what he’s thinking....'you can’t be serious’. He looks up for a sign and suddenly sees it written in large white chalk letters on the board below the food items. He looks at his watch again just to make sure. I must jump in. I must save this situation. The thing about a bitchy gay man is that they can make you feel the size of Tiny Tom Thumb, even though you as the barista are not in charge of the kitchen. You try not to go near the back. With all the chefs and knives around, things get messy.
“I can do you a cup of coffee. And we have some lovely cakes or scones for afternoon tea.” That’s it. I’ve thrown out the life buoy. Is he going to grab onto it? Or put it on and start dancing to YMCA? (I’m sure gay men nowadays don’t do that. That was an 80’s thing I think. Now I’m just being stereotypical.) They sigh a lot when things aren’t going their way. “So no food at all?”

“I’m sorry, only cakes. The kitchen turns everything off at three.” I could go on to say that we haven’t had a customer for a good half an hour wanting food so it’s impractical to be hanging around just for the likes of you, but I don’t. As a barista you learn to smile. Smile while you go ‘what’s he going to demand off me now?’ Smile while he looks in the cake cabinet half with disgust. He must choose something if he is to eat. He must suffer with cake.

“Well I’ll have a large latte, and that.” I love it when they don’t tell you the item, just wave their long fingers at it when you are no where near the cabinet so you cannot see.

I’m writing down his order. “A latte and what was that?”

“That!.” He sticks his sticky finger on the glass I just cleaned. What is he, a child? Kids touch glass. Adults can read.

I look through the misty back pane and try to see. “The Caramel Slice?”

“No…” He is very impatient with me. Obviously I’m a stupid person who probably didn’t even finish school. Hence why I am a café bitch. “The orange one.” His finger is still stuck on the glass.

"Oh the orange and almond.”

“YESS.” His slides his s’s out like a snake. I am pathetic. I finally got what he wanted. How slow must I be? How do I hold down this job? But, seriously, I must ask more questions!

“Would you like sugar in your coffee?”

“Ah, no.” Again answering like I should have already known the answer. But he is suffering, he gets no sandwich, only cake. And do you think, after you have done him the service that you get a thankyou as you hand over the take away – thank god he never eats in. The gay man customer who can’t get a sandwich would not sit around and pleasure you with his company. No, he struts out of the café in a disgusted huff, with only cake at 3:30 in the afternoon. I would like to know where he works and make demands he cannot fulfill. You swear after him as he leaves in a huff, big long feet striding out the door to his little Honda Jazz.