I am a barista at my hotel. I make coffee for guests and the food we have available on the menu.

My hotel would be busy with conferences because we are the biggest conference hotel in Atlanta. I will make coffee for 300 – 400 guests a day. From white mochas, mochas, lattes. From the guest’s name on the cups to writing the order. Interacting with people from all over the world flight attendants, guests from Florida, China, all over here to visit my city Atlanta, GA. Our lines are so long it seems like my shift is never coming to an end.

Pros: I love meeting new people and make guests happy to stay at my property.

Cons: Rude guest who blames their nasty attitude on not having their coffee. However, it doesn’t get to me.

There’s nothing like putting a cup of great coffee in someone’s hands. I loved that part of being a barista. I love that part of making coffee and espresso for family and friends. The secret ingredient in all great food, I would content, is love…and passion. I am passionate about coffee. Whether I’m brewing a pot, a pour over, or espressing shots the goal is great coffee. As a barista, I loved when customers would recommend I make their drink. That meant that they understood the care I put into crafting their drink. I love when I brew my daughter a fresh cup of coffee and she gushes. I love handing my son a freshly pulled espresso shot while he’s studying. And then the “mmm” that follows. When you love what you’re doing it makes working as a barista very satisfying. And this holds true whether you’re working at a Starbucks or the local coffeehouse. Starbucks is a great case-in-point. There’s a big difference between the craftsmanship you’ll experience from baristas in a big city vs. the baristas in a Safeway in the middle of Kansas (no offense intended). You can just as easily get a bad cup of coffee at your favorite local spot as you can at a chain coffee outlet (maybe less often). So to answer your question, I love being a barista. I love providing good coffee to good people. I’m not big on sledging milked up, fructose highed, espressed beverages at raging speeds. But that’s not what baristas do.

I’m working as a barista right now in a chain restaurant and I love it.

I love coffee and making drinks is a lot of fun. My store has a lot of regulars, that run from the guy who stops in to get a small green tea every afternoon to the two gals and the kids that are in all afternoon most days. There are some we talk to a lot (the two gals and the kids know what’s going on in my life, what I’m doing with myself, and I know the same for them).

We have a drive-thru, and I think that’s the only thing I don’t like. I have a hard time understanding people over the headset and it’s frustrating for both them and me.

The worst thing that’s ever happened was having a drink thrown at me. One of our machines is faulty and doesn’t always steam the milk. When steaming it, it’s hard to tell if it’s steamed or not if you don’t have the thermometer in the pitcher, and in a rush, we don’t always do that. The machines have a built-in thermometer and stop steaming when it reaches the ideal temp, so it’s not too big of a deal. I was making a latte, the milk didn’t steam, I didn’t notice, and handed the drink out. The guy was angry, and instead of explaining what was wrong so I could fix it, he took the lid off and threw it at me.

That’s the only negative experience I can think of, though. Well, that and having to be up at 3:30/4 if I open. That’s never too fun.

Personally, for me, I think it is a great learning experience. You get to interact with a much wider variety of people than one would do when just working a basic retail job focused on a specific item or interest (i.e clothing, tools, books, etc). Practically everyone drinks coffee or tea so you meet many different types of people.

Whether they are your co-workers or customers, it is a crash course in dealing with people. Whether you like them or not, you will learn skills that will last a lifetime on how to treat and deal with people.

Personally, I didn’t become good friends with most of my co-workers. I wasn’t and still am not very gregarious or interactive with people I don’t know well or feel comfortable with. But I learned how to not judge and deal with various different personality types while facilitating a healthy work environment and being professional.

Also, it is a great way to break through stereotypes and assumptions about people. You’ve seen that girl who constantly flips her hair as she talks about the guy on the cover of GQ? Well, she is studying to be a mechanical engineer. That other girl about to graduate high school is pretty well versed in foreign films and can dive into a conversation about German cinema when a German tourist orders an espresso. The single guy on staff who always hums religious hymns actually is an atheist, who hums the hymns to remember his father who was a pastor. That girl who looks like a total bitch? Well yeah, she is a bitch, but she doesn’t mean to be and she is totally unaware of how she comes across. So I guess she isn’t a total bitch and is pretty harmless.

Not everyone is how they appear on the surface, and sure some people are as crazy on the inside as they look on the outside, but it is very valuable to learn to deal with crazy and how to not agitate it out of people.

Starbucks is one of the most fun jobs I’ve ever had. I often say that it’s the most tedious and rewarding thing I’ve ever done. Being a barista teaches you far more than making coffee. It boosts your responsiveness, your reflexes, your customer service, and gives you a brand new understanding of coffee and where it comes from. Often times, after you start working at Starbucks, Dunkin and McCafe just don’t cut it anymore. You’ll find Baristas steering away from a lot of coffees, not out of pretentiousness, but because you start to value the real thing. Your pallets open up, and you’re able to distinguish flavor notes found in coffee. I would recommend this job to absolutely everyone, with the knowledge however that not EVERYONE is made to be a barista and that’s okay too. It’s a group of people who care a lot about what they do and put a lot of work into that.