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Mar. 19, 2007
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
TROUBLE BREWING
Learning the lingo just part of the Starbucks experience
Jennifer's nonfat caffe mocha, extra shot, is a tall order in both senses of the word.
This first-time barista has no idea where the nonfat milk is kept. I
turn to Georg de Gorostiza, manager of the Starbucks at 651 N. Rainbow
Blvd., as I have all morning. This time, however, he stands silent. I
told him to let me handle this one all by myself.
I hate when people listen to me.
"You have three minutes to get the drink out to the customer," de
Gorostiza explained earlier. And that's not from the time the order is
placed, but from when the customer first falls in line.
Starbucks — named for the first mate character in "Moby Dick" —
was founded in Seattle in 1971 as a small coffee-bean retailer. That
one store has erupted into 12,440 worldwide, 175 in Las Vegas alone
and, if you haven't checked back there in a while, possibly one in your
tool shed.
"Coming right up," I tell Jennifer.
One group of Las Vegans you don't want to disappoint is commuters before their morning coffee.
"As soon as I figure out what to do next," I add.
Confounding my confusion are the voices in my head. These aren't the
usual ones. They're blasting out of the headset worn by all Starbucks
baristas, to track every order in the store.
"Two venti sugar-free cinnamon dolce lattes breve, iced grande
cinnamon dolce, grande cinnamon dolce latte!" one of the voices screams.
Starbucks is another language — literally. Nearly half of all drink descriptives, placed in haiku-rigid order, are Italian. (Venti is
movie-popcorn large, latte is espresso with steamed milk, breve is
steamed half-and-half milk.)
The only Italian I'm fluent in is expletives and pizza shapes. But I
doubt how much even an Italian-English dictionary would help,
considering all the English words that make no sense here.
"Tall," for instance, means small. "Bright" means acidic. And if you
ask for a "hot coffee," you receive a confused look instead. ("Hot" is
implied, and you are expected to specify a coffee blend, such as
Colombia Narino Supremo, Guatemala Casi Cielo or — the most popular
because it's the easiest to say at 7 a.m. without any caffeine in your
system — House.)
The last time I drank coffee, it came in one blend: coffee beans
with water. Its entire complement of accessories consisted of milk,
sugar and Sweet'N Low. And there was only one size: mug. If you wanted
more, you got a free refill.
"Everyone's trainable in this," de Gorostiza said, "everyone."
De Gorostiza, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas business grad and
seven-year Starbucks employee, teaches company culture at the main
regional training center at Rancho Drive and Charleston Boulevard. All
new valley hires receive 20 hours of training here.
Well, almost all. My training lasted two hours. And those two hours
began at 5:30 a.m., which, truth be told, is not my peak
attention-paying day part. (I had to fool my body into thinking we were
just going to the bathroom.) And I was cut a break. On the early shift,
baristas normally punch in at 4:15 a.m., five days a week.
"I don't know," said barista Brooke Blashaski, 18. "You just get used to it."
Starting salary is $7.30 per hour, plus health insurance.
Most Starbucks baristas (Italian for bartender) aspire to wear the
black apron of a "coffee master," the ultimate certification of
expertise in bean tasting, growing, roasting and purchasing.
My goal is not to wear the hospital gown of the burn unit at UMC.
(Two orders ago, the tall hot cup dispenser refused to immediately
dispense my short right index finger, resulting in a painful, but
fortunately bloodless, slice.)
I began making drinks on DTO (drive-through order). There are three
times as many jobs on DTO — window/cashier, order-taker and
drink-maker — as on the front counter, because the pace is more than
three times as intense. Only 45 seconds are allowed between the
customer's drive up and drive off. (A timer on the screen keeps count.)
"She kind of did four drinks while you did one," de Gorostiza noted
of barista Rayne Keys, before he promoted me to the front counter. (At
least that's how he described my transfer.)
Baristas need to be experts not only in the drinks they make, but in
who they serve them to. My co-workers knew the names of half of this
morning's customers, and at least two-thirds of their drink orders.
"How was your birthday last week?" Keys asked one customer.
Finally, I find the nonfat milk — behind the metallic door below
the Verisimo 801 espresso machine. Unfortunately, my search commenced
only after pushing the button on said machine.
"Never do that," de Gorostiza warned earlier, "because it takes longer than 10 seconds to steam the milk."
Espresso shots must be poured within 10 seconds of being squeezed
from the grounds, de Gorostiza explained, or they turn from brown to
black, settling out of suspension into their bitter components.
It takes every concentrated drop of de Gorostiza's strength to
resist the urge to dump my crappuccino. But he promised not to
interfere, and the clock is already at 4 minutes and ticking.
At least I'll get the topping right. I marked the cup LTWC, for
"light whipped cream." And I do remember where the whipped cream is
stored. It's just that I can't tell which canister is the regular and
which is the light.
My request for clarification elicits storewide laughter.
"There's no such thing as light whipped cream!" de Gorostiza screams, breaking his silence. Jennifer just meant to go light with it.
"I love it!" de Gorostiza continues.
The same cannot be said for Jennifer.
"What did you do to it?" she asks about the contents of the cup it took 6 minutes to runneth over to her.
The Verisimo 801 button I pushed twice was the wrong one, de
Gorostiza says. It's labeled "double." Jennifer's drink contains 4
shots (called a "quad"). And each of those shots is more bitter than
the last.
As de Gorostiza scrambles to fill the order correctly, barista
Ronnie Stamps takes me aside to offer his own advice. He pours some
water, apparently heated to the temperature of the sun's surface, into
a cup. He then approaches me with the cup, but trips. The cup
somersaults through the air before landing on my green Starbucks apron.
Laughter erupts again. Stamps switched his cup for an empty one at the last second.
Finally, Jennifer enjoys something at Starbucks this morning.
Fear and Loafing appears every Monday in the Living section.
Levitan's previous adventures can be found at
www.fearandloafing.com.
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