Last Tuesday, June 21, marked one year since I began ‘real’ employment outside of home.
In my family growing up, we worked hard on the farm all year round, making sure gardens and animals received prime care. However, farm duties do not bring in much pay – unless you are one of the lucky family members who sells farm products. Despite the hard labour and meager income, I love the farm and if I could have earned money for college working there, I would have stayed. But that is not how my story played out.
Last spring, after a couple months of searching, I found myself a position and a decent income away from home. It was novel and exciting for me on June 21, 2021, to step through the doors to my very first day of my very first job. After a little book training, I put on the green apron and hurried out into the hustle and bustle of work as a Starbucks barista.
I loved my job.
I could go home skipping after an eight-hour shift, ready to tell of my adventures of the day. I had never seen so many people! I had never experienced such an exciting challenge as creating nearly one hundred beverages in under an hour. I never did get quite as fast as other girls at those lattes, but instead was placed on drive-through to operate the fun little headset and greet people at the window. I was a strong, reliable barista, and I loved how my superiors depended on me.
Like many stories, mine did not remain optimistic and rosy. I found out in due time that the work world is just as rotten at times as the rest of this fallen world. Management proved itself poor in areas and my reliability meant that I was worked hard. Various circumstances led to my leaving Starbucks – in very good spirits and with a good relationship with my manager – four months after beginning work. Now I am established in what my old coworkers call a ‘boring office job’ with a good friend as a boss, and I look back cheerfully at hectic Starbucks.
Having worked nearly eight months away from Starbucks, I consider what were really my favourite aspects of my first job. While I do miss the free drinks, I do very well without them and cannot attribute any life-changing moment to making or consuming an epic Frappuccino. What I miss most – and what changed me for good – was my experience of people.
There were two different groups of people I met as barista: the Customers (God bless them!), and the Coworkers. Thinking back on both, I come up with a few little points and memories that struck me as important to my Catholic life, and my outlook as a writer.
With the Customers, I found the real struggle of the fast-paced world we live in. There’s no time for conversation – no, the greet-order-handoff routine at drive-through does not count as conversation – and I realized that this is what a modern evangelist in any form must deal with. We run into numerous passing strangers throughout the day, and no one has a moment to spare for anyone outside of their little world. Working in the service industry only highlighted for me how people interact with the world only to receive something in return. Heaven help us when people do not get what they want!
Coworkers offer a different life experience. I formed good acquaintances during my short stay at Starbucks, but I cannot begin to recount how this quasi-community formed and influenced me. My favourite, most prominent encounter with a coworker near my age ties into both my love of the Church and my love for literature.
Over lunch I was reading a novel I had just purchased from Ignatius Press, much engrossed in the story and holding the book so the rather shocking cover was visible. Ginny’s curiosity was piqued when I told her I was reading A Bloody Habit by Eleanor Bourg Nicholson, and we enjoyed a fun, interesting conversation on Catholics and vampires. My short chat with Ginny made me think how easily a book bridges gaps and initiates unpredictable conversations. Ginny had only to see the cover, ask a question or two, and we were suddenly discussing the non-Twilight meaning of vampires!
I’ve only set down a few, broken fragments of my memories from four months, but I like to give little snapshots into the world of a fast-food worker. For some of us who are not working in the world of people, it is good to look at how a majority of the population lives. And for anyone who works in the craziness of the world, do not forget to think about the real, living people who are hidden under their busy, absorbed attitudes.
Copyright 2022 Maggie Rosario
Maggie Rosario
Maggie Rosario was homsechooled throughout both elementary and secondary school. She is currently a liberal arts student at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College in Barry's Bay, Ontario, where she continues her pursuit of music, creative writing, and literature. She gladly takes any opportunity to attend college dances or hiking trips in free time.