A Couple of Quick Stories from Peet's

The afternoon rush (somewhere around 3PM) isn't very pleasant. Every other person is on their cell phone, nobody really looks at anybody else, the optimism of a new day is gone, and rudeness abounds everywhere, probably including Peet's workers like yours truly.

I ring this lady up. "Iced coffee, butter croissant, iced vanilla latte." Thirty seconds later, I give her her iced coffee and croissant. She looks at the iced coffee (which is what it sounds like, ice plus coffee) and says, "I can't drink that! Take that away! I didn't want that. I want an iced coffee, you know like a frappucino or something. Throw that away because I won't drink that."

I point out that we serve those too, but that they're different from iced coffees. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I think what you're talking about is our freddos. As you can see, it's different from our iced coff..."

She cuts me off. "I don't want that. You can't make me buy that. I don't want it."

By this time, there's a queue of people waiting to order something. This lady has already paid for everything. I do some quick thinking, I figure out a way on the register to make it so that she pays the difference between a freddo and an iced coffee on a clean order. And she's finally on her way.


Another story from the other day. A couple of South Asian ladies are roaming the middle part of the store. There's nothing in the middle of the store. On one far end are the drinks. On the other far end are the coffee beans. The middle of the store might as well be the DMZ, there's usually nothing there, at least for customers.

I'm crossing this DMZ to go and help somebody with a coffee bean order but I notice the two South Asian ladies. I don't stop but keep on going by.

"I want some of these samples." One of the South Asian ladies flags me down and points to a sample snack tray with empty sample cups and a few crumbs strewn here and there. Apparently, there had been chocolate covered toffee things out for sampling earlier that day.

"I'm sorry, but we don't have any more of those for sampling today." I look around the area and find some biscotti that were labeled for sampling. I also notice one of my co-workers walking toward the coffee bean customer I was originally going to serve. "But we do have these biscotti to sample."

"Fine, we'll have some of those." I cut up the biscotti, put the bite-sized pieces into new cups, and the take one of the cups each.

With bite-sized biscotti in hand, one chimes in, "Do you have anything else?"

I see that there are also some chocolate eggs (probably from Easter) set aside for sampling too. "We have these as well."

"Fine, we'll have some of those too."

I ask, "Can I help you with anything else?" while glancing over to drinks section to make a hint.

"No. Our husbands come here every morning for coffee (which is likely a lie because I work most mornings and I there aren't any age appropriate South Asian men ordering coffee on a consistent basis). I, we, don't like Peets. I like Starbucks much better. Your coffee here is too strong."

And both women with both hands having a sample, walk out the door.