I’m a barista and the bar manager for what is known as one of the best and most loved coffee shops in my small southern state. It’s not even the coffee part of my job I love. It’s the coworkers, these outrageously fun people I get to work with that are just so lively and excited. It’s these customers that I’ve seen grow up, get married, have kids and move away, only to follow me on social media JUST so they can stay in touch with their “favorite barista.” It’s the special community that can only be built in a coffee shop.
I lived and breathed that community for years. Worshipped the hardwood floors and exposed brick of that shop. Who cares that we had decently absent owners? My general manager is a godsend of a person who has taken care of us to the best of her ability. I’ve been promoted to bar manager and training people to taste, brew, and sell coffee is just plain fun. I was FINE with the owners not being present because the shop, at this point, was self sufficient and we ran it with ease. I put countless off the clock hours in, just because I cared about the success of my favorite place. It became so much of a home to me, I would reach for the shop key to unlock my own front door.
Then Covid hit us, as it did the rest of the world. And for over a year, of the 4 owners we have, one of them asked how we were doing. The few baristas we had left, the ones that stayed behind when the rest of us moved back home to be with family, or decided (fairly so) that making coffee shouldn’t have been the essential business we were made to be, we cried together. We fucking broke down together almost every day because we were unsure of what the next week held for us. And one of the owners, the one who signed our checks, just one had the decency to check on the little people running their shop.
We got on unemployment because we did see a decrease in our hours.
For the first time in any of our lives, we saw a comma in our bank account. We saw money. I managed to have a surgery that I had to put off for years because I could never afford insurance, but I could FINALLY afford to have it. Because of unemployment.
Things started to return to normal. And we saw even less of the owners. Business was harder now. We had seen this evil side of people. They yelled at us and cussed us out for even daring them to wear a mask. These customers that had been our friends just a year before screamed in our faces because we didn’t have inside seating. It changed something in all of us. The service industry became a little less about making customers happy, and a little more about surviving the day.
I started doing research. “What does the average barista’s starting pay look like?” I called countless coffee shops in my city. in my state. In the south. Before tips, the average starting wage for a barista with no experience is $8.50. Low, still of course, because a human shouldn’t have to rely on the generosity of humans and their tips to survive. But compared to my shop’s starting wage of $6.50, it seemed nice.
I gathered all my information, made a couple graphs, decided to throw in the average cost of living in our area and how not one of their employees could afford to live off of the measly checks we were receiving. And you know what they said? “We’re actually going to lower the starting rate to $6.”
Dumbfounded. I’m a “manager” and I make $11. Abysmal. I can’t wait to work somewhere else. Somewhere where I won’t have 9 hour shifts and no breaks or a lunch break. I’m tired of being on my feet for 9 hours. I’m tired of all my coworkers working their asses off for 6 fucking dollars.
Amongst other problems involving my shop’s kitchen, where we’ve had three kitchen managers leave because their problems echoed in a vacuum chamber, I just don’t get how business owners can have such little regard for their business. Oh, and since the beginning of 2022, only two owners have even stepped foot in the shop.
I am epitome of working my wage.
Thank you for reading. It feels good to write all this out.