I (F 27) am a barista.
I have been a barista since I was 15.
I love being a barista.
I am great at it. I know how to tell if my espresso needs to be ground more coarsely or finely based on how long it takes me to pull the shot. I know that a traditional cappuccino is served 20° cooler than a latte. I know the origins of different coffee drinks (frappes were invented in 1957 in Greece and were an iced drink made with instant coffee rather than a blended drink like a Frappuccino). I practice my latte art using soapy water and soy sauce in my down time.
I would happily be a barista for the rest of my life if I could make a decent living wage.
After twelve years of no benefits, no PTO, 39-and-a-half hours a week keeping me just short of full-time (where benefits and such would be required), being verbally abused by customers and not allowed to defend myself, and most of all, being surrounded by other people who don’t enjoy what we do, don’t want to be there, and as a byproduct don’t ever show up on time or do a thorough job, and being the go-to person to cover a shift when one of these other folks call out every other week—I am done.
Now I’m freelancing full-time and I work a barista job on the side. It is my “fun job” and the side hustles have become my main focus.
Isn’t that kinda fucked? My specialized skill that I spent over a decade honing and practicing, which directly contributes to day-to-day life for most adult humans, which has a history going back centuries, which involves creating something is basically deified as the Productivity Liquid that keeps out society running—is so under-appreciated that I make more money selling hemp jewelry and reading tarot cards.
I don’t want this to be true. But I had more money left after bills in my first month of freelancing than I have since before the pandemic.
My current coffee shop is a really new business, and the owners spend more time there than any of us, and they’re both really rad people; I’m not upset at all that they can’t give me full-time. I’m upset that in the last decade+ of my life I have never found an employer who doesn’t see their baristas as extremely replaceable.
And it’s not just us; some people love making spreadsheets and organize their entire life obsessively and would absolutely love to do data entry as a career—but there isn’t much room for growth and full-time data entry jobs are pretty scarce these days. Some people love cleaning and find it relaxing—but most employers who run cleaning services prefer to exploit undocumented people. Some people want to be doctors bcuz they value human life and are passionate about healing people, and I would MUCH rather have that guy as my doctor rather than someone who’s only in the field to make a lot of money.
“If doctors made the same wage as people working at McDonald’s, nobody would work hard to become a doctor.”
Yes, they would. And they would do it bcuz they care, not bcuz of the earning potential.
“If there was a universal basic income, nobody would want to work at Starbucks.”
Yes, we would. And why the fuck do you think keeping my job (my career if I had it my way) a low-wage, low-class and looked-down-upon craft is somehow going to motivate us to work harder? If we had UBI I would be able to work at a coffee shop full-time. I wouldn’t spend my entire shift stressing about how little money I’m earning compared to how much work I’m doing. I wouldn’t show up grumpy and hungry bcuz I ran out of groceries before payday. I wouldn’t go home feeling sad every day bcuz giving my 100% at something I love doing isn’t enough to earn me basic respect in polite society, much less a living wage, and I wouldn’t find myself having to drag my ass into work with less motivation than a tranquilized sloth because I know the day will beat all of the optimism and enthusiasm out of me.
I’m at a point where I don’t know if I should set my sights on opening my own coffee shop in an effort to stay in my field or just give up and accept that being a barista will always be viewed as an after-school job for teenagers which I have outgrown.
Edit: spelling