The Cranky Cow

I thought that, by leaving Starbucks, I was leaving behind 'The Crazy Bitch.' Well I was right in thinking that. But she must have a sister up north because shes been replaced by 'The Cranky Cow.'

From our kitchen window we get a view of a house and in that house resides 'The Cranky Cow.' She seems to randomly come out of her house, scream about something or other (really loudly) before hobbling back inside again. Yesterday she screamed at a man because he parked across the road from her house. According to her the whole road is part of her front garden. So she hobbled towards his car screaming, 'Get out!! GET OUT!! Get out of my garden!!!' As she slowly got nearer the man decided it was better to heed her words and he drove off.

At night (sometime around 3 in the morning) she had another screaming fit (I don't know if screaming really describes it, its more like a loud strange angry mumbling sound with high pitch screetches dispersed throughout). It turned out the next day that all my flatmates as well as myself had heard her despite the fact that we were all in our rooms trying to get to sleep and the kitchen windows/kitchen door wasn't open. Additionally it turned out that none of us understood what she was screaming/angry mumbling about.

Today she had a visitor. He was sitting in her garden with her. But then she started screaming at him to go into her house. He carried on sitting in his seat. So she got up, yanked his seat from under him and took it indoors. Then she came out, screamed something else (again in her strange angry mumbling way) and the man eventually gave in and went indoors.

I can see its going to be an interesting year, especially since I get to watch her exploits from the comfort of my kitchen. I just hope I don't ever end up on the receiving end of her angry mumbling.

Leeds

Today was my moving up to Leeds day. After a long but not as long as we expected car journey we got to my accomodation residence. So far i'm really happy with everything. My room is on the top floor of my block looking out into the residence courtyard (both of which i'm happy with) and my room also seems very comfortable. I'm really happy with it. And to top it all off, all of the people in my block seem really nice (though theres still one more to meet, i'm guessing they're coming tomorrow). So its all positive so far. I look forward to properly exploring the town tomorrow.

Cashier Tears

I just went to the supermarket to get my parents a newspaper. As I handed over the money to pay for the paper the cashier woman started crying. Then she started laughing hysterically. Confused I took my receipt and left.

Ex-Starbuckian

I finished my last shift at Starbucks today. It hasn't really sunk in yet. I'm really going to miss my fellow baristas.

Today was really just another day (well another very busy day) but with all the 'special' (and I use special to signify either their good or bad qualities) customers making an appearance. Its almost like they knew I was leaving and wanted to say goodbye in their own special ways. There was the old woman with crazy hair (no, not The Crazy Bitch. Her hair is crazy in a different way) who won't order anything that isn't contained in packaging (to make sure the food is sterile). Once I 'contaminated' her plastic cup (which i'd given her for her juice drink) because I dared to put ice cubes in it (with a scoop of course). There was the 2 and a half shot, semi-skinned, extra hot caramel macciato woman who always tries to get free drinks out of us and pays for her drink with a cheque (well thats after she pretends she doesn't have enough money whilst eyeing up our tips box). There were the nice friendly regulars (including the one who was upset i'm leaving because it means she now has to retrain someone else to make her drink exactly the way she likes it and to select the perfect almond croissant from the daily selection). I even have a new nickname (given to me by the children of one of our regulars). I am Mr. Tall. My manageress was also given a nickname. She is to be known as Mrs. Small. The Crazy Bitch made a much appreciated appearance, giving me a scowl as she made her way from the toilet to the stores exit. And, to top it all off, we were graced with a visit from Mr. Extra Hot But Not Too Hot! I couldn't believe it. I burst out laughing as soon as I noticed I was about to serve him. I even then had to make his drink. He tested it and was happy. Then 5 minutes later I got another visit from him. In the 5 minutes waiting at the bus stop a terrible thing had happened. His hot chocolate had slightly cooled down!

Oh Starbucks how I shall miss you!

Return of the crazy bitch!

Well she never actually went away but since the airconditioning broke she tends not to stay in the store (or should that be in the store's toilet) quite so long.

The airconditioning has now been fixed. As a result today I had the misfortune of being shouted at by her:

The Crazy Bitch: 'Why are these newspapers here covered in plastic. How dare you cover them in plastic! How am I meant to read it?!'

Me: 'Well you start by paying for it,' (I may have been a bit rude but I did have a queue of customers to serve).

The increasingly irate Crazy Bitch: 'Why have you covered it in plastic?! How am I meant to read it?!!!!'

Me: 'The company who prints the newspapers covered it in plastic to hold the paper and all its magazines together. We have nothing to do with it. Do you want to buy the paper?'

The Crazy Bitch just walked out.

Oh how i'm going to miss that crazy bitch, her sour face and her crazy gravity defying hair!

Last days

Yesterday was my last day at the hospice. Today I actually received a card saying thank you for my help which was a pleasant surprise.

In major news, as of yesterday, they have fixed my Starbuck's airconditioning! I leave tomorrow. But its been weird having the airconditioning again. It takes me back to months ago when I started at Starbucks (I can't believe i've been there for half a year!) and everything was working. As much as i'm ready to move on to uni its going to be sad to leave. But I haven't left yet so its off to work tomorrow morning for one last shift.

Oh and in addition to fixing the airconditioning just as I leave they have also decided to introduce a new even more chocolaty hot chocolate (along with many other chocolaty foods). Bastards.

Fountains of craziness

So far today has left me feeling drained and confused.

I went with my sister to the Haringey Council headquarters to hand in some form which she'd filled regarding her student loan (Haringey Council had mucked up her loan and so demanded some new form be filled in so they can muck it up all over again and if I sound bitter its only because they've also mucked up mine for something like the 5th time and i'm starting uni in a week). Anyway as soon as we walked in we were greeted by a very long queue for the reception desk. So we queued. We queued some more. And about an hour and a half later we finally got to the front of the queue. The receptionist asked how she could help us. Before we could actually answer she'd got a ticket, stamped it and given it to us, telling us to sit and wait for out number to be called.

So we started our waiting (which was effectively another queue). Another hour went by. The place was filled with frowns and a general feeling of being fed up (accompanied by the screaming of children and angry women). Eventually we got to the front of the queue. We went over, handed in the form, got a receipt and left. So thats two and a half hours of boredom to hand in a form which should have taken a couple of minutes at the most.

On returning home we noticed water jetting out of the ground by the Crouch End Clocktower (it was jetting up as high as the clocktower). Adding to the confusion was the fact that we encountered quite a few random outbursts whilst walking down the street. When walking past a bus stop one woman suddenly screamed out, 'I forgot! I forgot!' and a little later whilst still walking a woman suddenly made a very strange, undescribable and rather loud noise.

So now i've got to sort out my student loan for the sixth time. Haringey council said they'd changed the amount they were giving me (because they weren't sending me the right amount for my university despite the fact that we'd got my university to send them a letter telling them how much I should be getting). I got the letter from them today where they've supposedly corrected my loan amount....................apparently changing a loan amount actually translates as sending the original amount all over again. They didn't make any change whatsoever. So todays bound to get even more interesting, especially when my mum gets on the phone to them.

Can someone let me back in..............please?!

It was even worse today at work than yesterday. In fact its so bad my manageress decided the store will be shut from tomorrow onwards until the air con is fixed (of course the next two days happen to be my days off so it makes no difference to me).

But on a more positive note today I got a M.U.G. award thanking me 'for working so hard despite the heat' and wishing me all the best with my studies which was really nice. The M.U.G. award apparently 'helps partners recognise co-workers for "Moves of Uncommon Greatness" that help them achieve their goals.' To be honest I don't think i've made any moves of uncommon greatness (I think it should really read moves of uncommon stupidity after what happened to me at the end of my shift today) but it was really nice of my Starbucks branch to give me the award. I shall wear my mug badge with pride!

So onto my 'move of uncommon stupidity' I managed to lock myself out of my store today. I was finishing my shift and wanted to quickly refill the plastic lids in the store before I went (as you do). But there weren't any left in the storage area in the back of the store. So I went to the outside storage area to look. I forgot to prop the door open. After a few seconds of lifting various boxes I found the box containing the lids. I also then heard the door slam shut. It didn't occur to me that this would be a problem. But when I looked at the door I realised there was no handle on the outside. I was stuck in the backyard of the store and there was no way any of my fellow baristas would know.

Luckily our store's backyard leads out onto a back alley so I managed to open the back gate and walk all the way back around to the front of the store. I could see the other baristas' confused faces as they noticed me walking back in through the front entrance when they thought I was still searching for lids in the back of the store. I'm sure they were thinking how are we going to restock our lids without him.

Wheres that water coming from?

I've been away from work for almost two weeks. I expected by the time I came back that all the problems would be fixed. Of course I was wrong. Things have got worse.

The air con still isn't fixed so as usual its boiling. Customers are still walking out because of the heat. The freezers have again broken because its too hot for them. The new money counting machine isn't yet connected to the main computer, the rubbish men haven't come in over a week so theres a massive pile of rubbish in our starbuck's backyard..................the list goes on.

And the other problem of getting some nasty customers isn't fixed either. I had to serve an incredibly nasty woman today who thought she was in a restaurant and wanted constant service. She got even more upset because she couldn't cut her breakfast panini into little pieces (she demanded a metal knife but we only have plastic ones) and could not eat her breakfast panini when it wasn't cut into little pieces. And things got worse when she demanded to know where her milk was (she wanted to add her own milk to her americano but wanted the milk brought to her table and was upset that she had to go to the condament bar).

We were also visited today by the mysterious 'I like eating food in the toilet' person. Todays snack was various chocolate bars.

Oh and we have some large machines in various positions around our store that occasionally blow cold air. We have to keep pouring buckets of iced water into them to make them occasionally blow the cold air. Unfortunately if you add slightly too much water (which strangely shows up on the machine as only being half full) you get an annoying surprise. A stream starts to flow from the machine (all over the electric wires) and results in a lot of mopping and paper towel drying (I don't think 'paper towel drying' is a verb but whatever).

So yeah, its going to be a good last week.

Back

Well this holiday was very eventful. We did so much that I don't really feel up to writing a very large picture filled blog entry about it. But it was very fun. We saw lots of family friends, made some new friends, saw some beautiful czech towns, cities and scenery and experienced a very fun czech wedding amongst other things.

Maybe i'll write a proper blog entry about it soon.