Another Pictureless Post

Before I begin, you need to know that it is 8 pm on Tuesday evening, and I am at this moment exhaustified. I have no guarantees that what I write from here on out will be legible, entertaining, and not exaggerated. But I'll do the best I can.

It's been a whirl-wind couple of weeks!

After Brent's cousin's wedding on July 3rd, Brent and I took a couple days to sit back, relax, and make plans for taking some action this summer. Those plans resulted in me applying for a job at a company at which I would not have seen myself at this stage of life.

Basically, I graduated with a degree in Physics in December of '09, and have been looking for work in my field ever since. There have been a few almost-jobs, and there are still two positions in my field for which I am still under consideration, but who knows how long it will take for me to get hired (if they end up choosing me), and it has come to the point where Brent and I decided I need to be working. If God doesn't want me to be working in my field right now, then ok. I'll work in another field.

Therefore, on Wednesday, July 7, I drove around my area and gave my application for employment to the five closest Starbucks to my home. Two of the five stores were hiring at the time, and thankfully both of them scheduled interviews with me. I interviewed at one of the stores the subsequent Saturday and was hired on Sunday. Praise God!

I started my training on July 12 and have had 4 days of in-store training since. Here's another praise God-statement -- I am L*O*V*I*N*G it. The people in my store are fun to work with, the manager is really encouraging and attentive to my needs, and I've been assigned a "learning coach," a Starbucks veteran, to walk me through my training and answer my every question. She is extremely helpful and NEVER gets annoyed with all the questions I ask, and makes it clear to me several times a day that my training is her priority. Her attitude helps me to feel less like a burden when I botch a batch of steamed milk and have to start over....or when I knock a glass sugar canister off of the condiment bar and it shatter into a million sugary pieces. (You think I'm lying?) I did it right in front of my manager too...he just laughed at me and told me it's gonna happen. My learning coach was so sweet and turned it into a training moment, showing me the proper and safe way to clean up shattered glass, and then she went about wracking her brain for all the glass she's shattered during her time at Starbucks. :)

Today I spent 2 1/2 hours learning how to make espresso beverages, coffee beverages, and non-coffee beverages. That meant 2 1/2 hours of TRAINING at the espresso bar, making drink after drink for practice, then throwing them all away, all while the trained baristas are making customer-ordered drinks around me.

THEN - then - it came to the point in my training where I had to practice preparing drinks for customers. My learning coach started with me and walked me through the first couple of drinks. Then the line started getting longer and drink orders were piling up and I had to start doing more and more on my own. Then the line and drink orders grew even larger and it was time for my learning coach to go home, so my manager took her place...talk about nerve-wracking! My manager told me to be in charge of putting syrups in the drinks and he would take care of the rest. BTW, putting syrups in drinks is no easy matter when you're new...understanding how many pumps of what syrup goes in what is a matter of memorization and repetition (and being able to understand customers' custom orders), and I'm going on nothing but hours of experience here. But I made it through...only having to throw a few botched drinks away. :)

Soon the line and drink-orders built up so much that it was a full-fledged rush (in my humble opinion) and I wanted to shake in fear, roll up in a ball and cover my neck, but I didn't have time to. I just had to pull every resource in my brain to concentrate on what needed to be done to what drink at what time. Eventually things got so busy that my manager told another of the employees to come help him with frappucinos, because that is one thing I have NO experience with yet and I could offer him no help there. So there was three of us working on making drinks in that tiny little bar area. CRAZY.

Eventually, the rush died down, and I was thankful for some relief and the fact that less of a rush meant that my manager could coach me a little more.

Soon after that, my shift was over. I got a decaf Sumatra and a cinnamon coffee cake (complementary flavors, fyi) and chilled for a bit before I went home.

What I've found is this...getting home after working at Starbucks is kind of a shock. You get home, and you think, "It's only 4:30! I have the rest of the day ahead of me! I can do all my chores and complete all my paperwork and have a nice dinner ready for my husband when he gets home!" But then, as you move about your home getting your business done, you realize that your limbs are dead and are begging and screaming for you to lie down.

I gave myself some chill time at home to play my guitar and shower, and then it took every ounce of my strength and willpower to NOT curl up on the couch and fall asleep to a romantic comedy, but to instead sweep and mop, clean my bathroom, vacuum, and then get started on my never-ending pile of paperwork.

God was gracious to me today in that I didn't have to make dinner for my husband...he'll be home late from work and will bring dinner with him. But yikes...I'm nervous for the day when I work at Starbucks, do chores AND have to make dinner. I'll pray for strength.

There's plenty more to say about everything in life right now, but this post is long enough. The funny thing with me is that the more tired I am when I write, the more I write because I lack the brainpower to keep things short and to the point. So I just write what comes to my head and fingertips.

Ok, I'll stop writing now.