Top that off with a typical Hamptons customer, and you have yourself quite a rough day. Sean Glazebrook of the Bridgehampton Starbucks certainly got it from a belligerent Hamptonite a few weeks ago.
Shortly after restocking the ladies bathroom with toilet paper, Glazebrook rushed back to the bar station to help speed up service to the long line of customers that extended out the door, as usual. About 45 minutes later, a customer came up to him and complained that the bathroom was out of toilet paper.
“What kind of store are you?” she said. “Can’t you be responsible enough to keep you bathrooms stocked with the essentials?”
‘Wow, how much toilet paper do these customers need?’ thought Glazebrook, as he had just supplied the women’s bathroom with two rolls prior to working at the bar station.
“Sorry, m’am,” he said. “I apologize for the inconvenience. We’ll be sure that doesn’t happen again.”
“Oh, and what idiot doesn’t have enough sense to put my bottle of water in a paper bag so that I don’t have to carry it with my bare hand?” she said.
Glazebrook turned around to fetch a bag, rolled his eyes and handed it to her.
“Of course, I have to put it in myself,” she said and walked off angrily.
This experience reminded me of an awful barista shift of mine a few summers back.
Exhausted from a 6 a.m. shift start, I was excited about going home in an hour when the clock struck 1 pm. That hour proved to be one of the most tortuous of my short barista career.
A woman wearing gaudy jewelry and armed with a Louis Vitton bag walked up to the counter and ordered a decaf non-fat latte. “Fill up the cup with milk to the “S” in the Starbucks logo,” she said. ‘Oh geez, one of these,’ I thought.
My coworker made the drink as requested and placed it on the bar table. “Decaf grande non-fat latte, milk to the “S,” she called out.
The woman walked up the bar to pick up her drink. She took off the lid, sniffed it suspiciously, and declared, “This smells funny.”
“I can make it for you again, ma’m, if you like,” my coworker said.
“No, it would clearly be too much trouble for you to do so.”
“Not at all, ma’m, it would be no problem,” my coworker replied.
But the reassurance was in vain. As she cast a cynical glance to my coworker, she dropped the drink onto the floor next to the bar.
“Oh, look at that, what a shame. Now I guess you’ll have to make it for me again.”
I couldn’t believe this nasty behavior. If my boss weren’t right next to me, I would have cursed this woman out and ordered her to get out of the store.
But instead, she got everything she wanted. My boss instantly ran to her side to sweep up the mess in front of her – of course, she didn’t touch a thing – and asked me to remake the drink.
“Are you kidding?” I thought. The very first thing that came to my mind was to spike the drink with multiple caffeinated espresso shots.
Fearing that I’d lose my job—or, worse, sued by this psychopath of a customer-- I made the drink exactly as she had ordered it, just as my coworker had done the time before.
Just as she was leaving, the woman came up to me and said, “You don’t seem to fit into this type of job. You shouldn’t be here.”
Completely baffled, I watched her walk out the door. At that very moment, I would have given anything to punch her in the face.
Every time I visit the Bridgehampton Starbucks, I feel a pang of empathy for all of those baristas who, one day or another, will suffer some kind of abuse from a Hamptons customer.
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