Damn Teenagers!

Today in the afternoon it was crazy in Starbucks. We had what seemed like classes of teenagers coming in, taking up all the room and screaming their lungs off. There was a very loud singing of the birthday song, complaints from other customers who, like us, couldn't hear anything anyone was saying and lots (and I mean LOTS) of mess for us to clear up after these teenagers finally left.

We did periodically tell these kids to quieten down which would initially work, but not so long after the noise level would return to its previous levels. It seems the school holidays have begun.

Happy

I may not be doing quite so well with my uni applications but i'm happy to say that my sister is. Today she got into one of the unis she had an interview for (and one of the few she applied for and actually liked)! So i'm really happy!

Rejection

Got another medical school rejection today. This time it was from St. Georges.

Heres your white chocolate milk!

I made one mistake while making drinks today. I was being watched by one of my partners whilst making a white chocolate mocha for the first time. They showed me that I should add one shot to the white chocolate syrup and so I mistakenly thought they'd pressed the button. I was wrong. I poured the steamed milk into the mug and topped it off with some whipped cream. The customer happily took it and went to add some chocolate powder to it. Then the 'partner' asked if i'd actually put in the shot. I told her I thought she'd done it to which she replied she hadn't.

I quickly went over to the customer, told her what had happened (ie. that i'd served her some white chocolate milk) and apologised before remaking the mocha, shot intact.

Drinks

Today was meant to be a day off but one of the staff members couldn't come to work so I was called in. And it ended up being pretty cool as I got to make some drinks!

I can now make lattes (and the syrup variants), cappacinos, hot chocolates, white and normal chocolate mochas and caramel macchiatos. I'm still a little slow as I have to think about what i'm doing but I can make some of the drinks! And everyone is slow at first (or so i'm told, who knows if they just feel sorry for me and want to make me feel better). So when things got busy one of my 'partners' took over from me. But i'm just happy I can now do it.

Frappacinos are on my 'to learn' list although i have a rough idea how to make them and have made myself a chocolate cream frappacino with whipped cream (which of course tasted really good, but then that was to be expected as it contains chocolate).

Its too much!

Starbucks offers a lot of choice with their drinks (you can customise the drinks to the extreme it seems). Many people seem to love this and come up with ridiculous orders. But for some its all too much.

I served a man the other day for which this seemed to be the case. He asked for a tea. So I asked whether this was to drink in or to take away. He looked a little confused by the question for some reason and just said whatever, I don't know.............to drink here. So I then asked what size mug he wanted his tea in. He said small. So I asked therefore if he wanted a tall (as this is what most people seem to mean when they say small even though there is actually a smaller size which is short). His confused expression morphed into an expression of anger so I pointed out a tall sized mug. He said whatever, I just want a tea. So I took the mug (and bracing myself) asked what tea he wanted. He shouted out, 'I don't care, I just want a tea!' So I asked him if he would like an english breakfast tea (since thats what most people decide they want when they say they want a tea). He then calmed down (thank god) and said he would. And after I gave him the tea he apologised which was nice. The amount of choice had just all been too much for him.

There are some though that see the variety of drinks on offer and extent to which you can customise them and abuse this fact, taking their customisations too far. They ask for things which we can't do and then, when we inform them that we can't carry out their request, get angry and are rude to us. There was one man I had to serve who exemplified this (I can't remember what ridiculous drink order he came up with) but I asked the 'partner' who was making the drinks whether we could make the drink (I didn't think we could but I thought it better to check since i'm still new). When my 'partner' told the man we couldn't do it he just said, 'fine' and proceeded to storm out. The partner tried to inform him of a drink we could do that would be similar but he refused to listen and just swore at us.

If he intended to make us look stupid he failed (as shown by the customers behind him laughing at how ridiculous he was acting as soon as he'd left).

What a waste!

Yesterday I served a man who ordered a large drink and a panini. He let me warm up the panini and my 'partner' make the drink. But when it came to paying he said it was for is friend who was just around the corner in the bank and who would be just a second. She would pay when she came. So we waited (he stayed in Starbucks waiting for this friend also). And we carried on waiting. And then I served some more customers. There was a bit more waiting. The man then said he'd go and check on the woman and would come back with the money. He even asked if we could warm up the panini a bit more so it was still warm when he returned. He never did return. The food got stood up.

This of course had to get reported to the manager as food and drink had been wasted. She then informed me that it wasn't the first time it had happened. In fact it seemed a man sounding remarkably similar to the one I had served had done the same thing the other day. However he had said he needed to pop out to the bank to take out some money.

What a waste. And more importantly what was the point?!

Children

We get a lot of little children (with their parents) in our Starbucks and the parents seem to see it as an opportunity to relax. This is all well and good but unfortunately it means the children are running around trashing everything, holding doors shut so people can't actually get into Starbucks or the toilets and, as was the case the other day, sticking stickers everywhere. When doing my usual rounds of the shop, cleaning up the dirty mugs, plates and whatever other random things people have left behind I kept finding stickers stuck to the tables. Then I started to notice them stuck to the floor, coffee mugs and plates, the packets of coffee for sale and, in the evening while cleaning the toilets, I found them stuck to the tiolets, sinks and mirrors.

Some other child that day also managed to spill 2 glasses of water over two different tables (the mother came up to me, informed me the child had spilled the water and then walked out). This was on a very busy day with people queuing up at the tills and no free tables. I know it was an accident and anyone can accidentally knock over two full glasses of water, but, when you see the staff stretched out as it is serving the long queue of customers, I would have thought it to be courteous to at least try and mop up with the 100s of tissues you had taken (and which your children had sprawled out over the tables, chairs and floor) the spill just a bit. Its not like you were too busy keeping an eye on your child because you'd been happy to let them run around trashing the place previously. But it didn't matter. With the help of my starbucks partners we managed to serve all the customers and I then cleaned up the mess. Problem solved. Or so I thought. It seems its the teenagers who are the worst culprits of making a mess. And at least with little children its expected and they go about it in a cute way. That can't be said of teenagers.

We keep getting large groups of teenagers coming in. One member of the group will buy a drink and they then think they're all entitled to take up half the shop, scream and shout constantly and stay for hours. The manageress has informed many a group of teenagers that they can't stay without actually buying something because it then means theres no room for those who actually do. Yet they keep coming. On this day, as I mentioned, we were very busy and there was no room. Yet a large group of teenagers who were being extremely loud and who hadn't actually bought anything were using up two tables and a large proportion of our chairs. So we informed them they couldn't stay and they couldn't use starbucks as a hangout if they weren't actually going to buy anything. So they then left, screaming things as they left (god knows what they were saying). We were left with a table stacked with paper napkins, mixing sticks, chocolate, cinnamon and vanilla powder containers, straws and lids (topped off with some chocolate powder sprinkled on it). If they had intended it to be some sort of sculpture I can say for sure they won't be passing their art GCSEs.

Blogging backlog

Yeah i'm really behind on my blogging. I'll get round to it in the next couple of days.

Today i'm ill. Led to me making a few silly mistakes at work (which didn't really matter business wise but were a little embarrasing). And i've had 4 nosebleeds which is nice. I'll get round to blogging about it all in a day or two.

And the weather has finally caught up with the season here (which i'm happy about because it means lots of rain and not much cold wind). So now i'm going to sleep because I feel exhausted and have a 9am work shift tomorrow morning.

Teachers

Apparently I can't escape them. Since starting my work at Starbucks i've served two teachers from my Junior school, one being my form teacher in year 6 and the other my form teacher in year 8. The year 6 teacher didn't recognise me (luckily) but the year 8 teacher did. I wonder which ex-teacher i'll have to serve next.

Interview and a fire

Today I had my interview at St. Georges. I don't have a clue how that went. I had to wait from 12.30 till 4.20 before I had my interview. But it was ok since I got talking to some of the other people who were waiting for their interviews and they were really friendly.

Then when I came home there were firetrucks and a police car on my road. Apparently some factory a few houses down from my house (and behind the houses) caught fire. It got put out. I don't know if anyone was injured but I doubt it since the factory is supposedly derelict. I haven't gone to see the damage mainly because its dark and the police and firefighters are still there but our house now smells of smoke. My mum, being her usual nosy self, is trying to find out from neighbours exactly what happened and if any of the houses on our road were damaged in any way but our neighbours don't currently seem to be home.

Bones

Its funny what people leave behind in Starbucks. Whilst clearing up i've previously found that someones forgotten their house keys or their wallet (I put them in the Starbucks office and they later came back to pick up both things). But today whilst hoovering I found someone had left a bone which confused me. As far as I know Starbucks doesn't sell anything with bones in. I may be wrong but, well, I don't think I am.

The Starbuckian

So i've had 5 full working days and they've been very eventful. I would have written after each day but I couldn't be bothered. And now I can't really remember the 'events'.

I started by being given a very quick tutorial for working the till which is a touch screen till with many sections for the many different things they sell in Starbucks. Initially its a bit confusing and difficult to find everything. So what happened next, well the manageress then got me to start utilising the till to serve customers. Thank god she wasn't too far away (she was making the coffees) so I could ask her where certain items were on the till. To make it worse it was quite busy that day. But I managed.

Thats not to say there weren't difficult customers. For example theres the odd fussy old lady (actually she has turned up every single day i've been there so far) who customises her coffee to the extreme which is a till user's nightmare (well shes my nightmare anyway). Thank god i'm not yet the one making her coffees. And she has her Starbucks mug so she can get her 10p off every drink. Theres also this man who comes in with massive orders (but there isn't any one else with him apart from a baby) and then, because putting everything into the till, writing down the various drink orders and getting the various food products/toasting the paninis takes time to do, he gets all impatient and slightly rude. However the other day when he came in I managed his order with no problems (and without getting any rude comments) so I was happy with myself. And there was this lady who couldn't speak english very well which is fine, but when she told me her order she didn't speak very loudly and her voice was drummed out with the sound of coffee beans being ground. So I asked if she could repeat it and leaned forwards a bit to aid my hearing. She then screamed the order at me (which I again had trouble understanding due to her not being able to speak english well). I felt the screaming was a bit unnecessary but, using my investigative skills (which translates as guessing), I managed to work out her order and she left seemingly happy.

I also have learnt how to grind the coffee beans, weighing and putting the ground coffee in a filter ready for using on the coffee machine the next day and how to prepare mocha mixtures for using the next day (I think in Frappachinos).

My other roles have been to clear up the tables after people go and clean them, sweep the floors, make sure the toilets remain clean, rinse and then put the dirty mugs and plates in the washing machine and to do all the cleaning and clearing up at the end of the day (which consists of many things). Next week I learn whats involved in the morning shifts. Its a 7am start.

Even houses need to sneeze...................

Its weird. I just took stuff out to the kitchen and turned the lights off there before going to turn off the computer (and then the light) in the dining room. While I was waiting for the computer to turn off I heard someone sneeze. I had just been in the kitchen and no one was there and I know my parents and sister are asleep upstairs so I found that very strange (additionally you can't hear anything in their rooms from the dining room and the sound seemed to come from the kitchen). I turned the kitchen light on again, went into the kitchen and looked in the toilet and large cupboard and obviously no one was there. So I just continued to turn everything off and now i'm writing this blog entry before going to bed. Its just weird some of the noises you hear in this house. I have to say sneezing noises is a new one though.

Work

Well today was my 'see if you would like to work at Starbucks' day and I have to say I kind of enjoyed it. My 'partners' (as I have to refer to my fellow Starbucks employees, and I am also a 'partner') are all very friendly. It was actually really busy today (apparently Saturdays are the busiest day for the branch) so the 'partners' didn't really have much chance to show me the ropes but it was enough. I didn't yet start making coffees or using the till (as I still have to be trained to do both) but I was clearing the tables after customers had finished their drinks and food, cleaning the tables, rinsing the mugs and plates before putting them in the dish washer, taking all the washed stuff out of the dish washer and putting them where they needed to go, sweeping the floor, restocking the sugars/spoons/stirring sticks etc., restocking the milk and soya milk, helping a woman get back her keys which she somehow managed to drop in the bin (which was located in a cupboard) and helping a woman put her coffees in a paper bag. I apparently have a day in Starbucks headquarters soon where they tell you about the company and what is expected of a Starbucks employee. That day is also supposed to involve coffee tasting which should be interesting.

I sorted out all the paperwork for the job and properly start on Tuesday. So thats cool. Unfortunately before that I have to go to school, sort out one last thing for my D. of E. (which is just to get a teacher to resign something as he signed his signiture where i'm supposed to sign mine), get that same teacher to send off my D. of E. book, collect my A level certificates which I was going to do on Friday if the court case hadn't gone on until so late, have a mock interview with a certain scary teacher (who set me 60 questions to prepare answers for but, due to the many different things that have occupied my time this week, I haven't managed to get near finishing) and visit my housemaster. Its going to be a fun Monday.

Deja Vu

I'm getting a strong feeling of deja vu. Last year I got two interviews at medical schools and two rejections without interview. Well guess whats happened this year. I have/had 2 interviews and yesterday I just got my second rejection without interview (from Kings College of all places, one of the medical schools that interviewed me last year).

Now we'll just have to see if, like last year, I get rejected from both universities that interview me. Whatever happens I know it will turn out for the best (and I am obviously going to try my best for my last interview at St. Georges).

The Mad Boxing Glove

The last 2 days were spent in court. Initially on the first day it involved me going up and down the court (it has about 7 floors) doing various jobs such as doing some photocopying (I speedily managed to find the court photocopier and because it was only 9am they let me use it for free!) and finding a few of the witnesses. We still hadn't found them by the time we were planned to go into court (although it turned out it didn't matter as we ended up waiting another hour and a half) and so, having waited at the court reception for about 10 minutes and going back up to the 7th floor where our court was situated, I had to go down again and get the receptionist to make an announcement on the tannoy. I gave her the names and she accidentally refered to one of the missing witnesses on the tannoy as a woman when it was in fact a man. So I quickly had to correct her. But it was ok as it worked. At that reception I found one of the three people I was hoping to find (not that I knew what they looked like but I overheard her asking the receptionist where my client was). And when I returned to the 7th floor I found the other two people. Things went ok for the rest of the day but the court case was long.

On the second day I again had to do a bit of last minute photocopying for the barrister and client. Other stuff happened but I can no longer remember. I guess I shouldn't have left this blog entry for so long, but I was so tired after the three days of court and then this morning I had my first day (well it wasn't a full day but a day for me to see if I like the job) at Starbucks.

The court case on the second day was long again. I have to say the judge this time was a bit more decent than the other judges i've seen in that he wasn't a pompous old fart. The other sides barrister however was a rude bitch (and the judge told her off on occasions). My client and her family were very friendly which made the day not quite so monotonous and I even got invited by our barrister to the barrister and judges dining hall in Grays Inn which was a very posh, historical and prestigious 'club' (which served very nice food). I didn't see Cherie Blair there (not that i'd particularly want to) although i'm told she dines there often ('with her cronies' - quoted from my mum).

On the walk to the bus stop after the court hearing finished (although the actual case is unfortunately still ongoing) there was a man dressed up as a boxing glove. I think he was advertising something (well I hope he was, otherwise I worry for his mental state) but I don't know what. As I crossed onto the crossing he was on he proceeded to make boxing gestures at me (his arms protruded from the suit and his fists were clenched so I knew he wasn't just making strange shuffling movements). I smiled (well it was kind of a nervous smile as I didn't particularly want to engage in a boxing match with a giant glove) and passed him. As I carried on walking I looked round to see him charging at me so I quickly ran across the road and kept walking. He didn't follow.

Job

Well today I had my first successful interview. It wasn't for medicine unfortunately but I apparently impressed the woman in charge of the Starbucks around the corner from me and had 'the quickest interview shes ever conducted.'

So I now have a job at Starbucks with an 'on the job assessment' on Saturday.

In other news I spent the morning in court (helping my parents, not because I did anything illegal). A lot of that time (about 45 minutes) was spent waiting at a counter for someone to come and file a bundle (a large file of legal documents) for me (and I rang the counter bell numerous times).