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Monday, August 08, 2005

Sex will help the world...

Ok ok calm down. I know you're all excited because this is my SECOND post in one day, but I decided to grab hold of my literary (pfft) inspiration before it slipped from my grasp, never to return again.

I just returned from the cafe down the road, where my original intent was to buy my first ever Trim Latte (A.K.A Skinny Latte, for you Americans). As I was walking down the road, I was filled with trepidation and excitement, but most of all anxiety. Do I ask for a "Trim Latte"? or do I ask for a "Low Fat Latte"? Perhaps a "Skim Latte," as we in New Zealand have Skim milk, not Trim milk. So lost in my thoughts was I that I found myself outside the cafe before I'd even gotten halfway through my B&H. Surprised by the speed in which I had arrived, I stubbed out the cigarette, put it in the bin (ever the tidy kiwi), and marched inside, hoping that 'Usual Guy' had switched to the afternoon shift. I'm sure you can all guess that he hadn't, and thus I was left with the 'Afternoon Barista'. I've never had coffee by 'Afternoon Barista' before, so I stood by, ready to take note.

In the afternoons, the cafe appears to reduce floor staff to the minimum possible, so 'afternoon barista' was also 'afternoon cashier', and took my "Fifth Coffee Free" card with a grunt, and motioned me to the other side of the bar to wait. So wait I did.
And wait I continued to do, 10 minutes later. Luckily I had printed out the 'Artemis Chronicles' from Biz-girl's blog to read just in case, and so I read, while Afternoon Barista continued to bestow his manly eloquence (read: grunting) upon the other hapless customers, without so much as a glance at the espresso machine. I wasn't the only person miffed by this, and soon one of the kitchen staff had come out to man the cash register. Hallelujah! We would have coffee at long last!

After this excruciating display of poor staffing skills, I watched with baited breath as A.B made my coffee, comparing his skills against that of Usual Guy and every other barista I bought coffee from, ending with the ultimate comparison against my own skills (I made a mean cap' back in the days of the Northlands Mall Food Court). He was a 'temperature by touch' kind of guy, which was a good start as I can't stand when a barista uses a thermometer for their milk, and he was also of the 'double shot by default' school of coffee makers, which pleased me to no end. Satisfied with the preparation, I was ready to pronounce him a competent barista, until he put the coffee together...

Coffee in the cup, good, then the milk, followed by a touch of - hey, hangon a minute - where's my sugar??!?!

[At this point, you'll note the fact that I requested sugar in my coffee. Not having experimented with sweeteners yet, I wasn't sure how many sachets I would require to bring my coffee to its required taste, so I caved and ordered a normal 4 point latte, as a trim latte would be redundant after adding sugar]

He added my sugar at the very last moment (instead of mixing it in before the milk), gave it the tiniest of flicks with a stirrer, put the lid on, and handed me my java delight - which I now refer to as my 'java disappointment' - and then continued his sins against coffee for the other customers.
And I slumped away back to work, gently sipping the 'latte', lamenting the "hire now, train later" mentality of human resources departments these days...

[nb: you may notice an addition to my blog titles, in the form of a fire exit sign. Click on this to be taken to a work safe website in the case of the approaching boss, consider it me looking out for you all. Oh also, the title "Sex will help the world" is such because I was originally going to blog about my latest read, 'The Daughters of Freya', an email mystery. As you can see, I forgot. I'll try to remember tomorrow]


So, with that, my food intake today is: Two slices of unbuttered toast with one sliced banana (3 points), 1 apple (1 point), a badly made 2 sugared latte (estimate at 4 points) - resting at 8 points, with 12 left to spare for the day. Not bad!