Huffer has a mom…
Preteen huffer girl and her mom came in last night. Mom reeked of weed and could hardly hold her head up. They spent about $10 buying drinks and madeline cookies and sat down at a table near the espresso bar. Mom began to cry and was speaking softly to huffer girl for over an hour. They put their nearly empty cups on my bar and left. They returned about 25 minutes later, along with a cloud of weed stench stronger than before, wondering aloud where their drinks went. I let them know that I threw them in the trash. Appalled, they demanded replacements for their “nearly full” drinks. I obliged, because I didn’t feel like being a dick to these troubled people. Another hour went by, mom still crying into her frozen caramel blender drink, moaning to huffer girl about this, that and the other. As they got up, mom asked if I could make her a small chocolate frozen blender drink to take to her friends. She promised to return with the money to pay for it in 10 minutes. Sure, what the hell, I thought. Over an hour later, mom came back with money in hand and a nearly empty cup from the frozen chocolate blender drink. She could hardly speak, she was so baked, but I managed to understand that the whipped cream on the drink tasted sour, and could she have another. As you’ve gathered by the theme of this post, my response was… SURE! What the hell! At this point, I’m fascinated by how this will all end. But surprisingly, the final exchange was uneventful. I handed off her drink, got a genuine-feeling thank you from huffer mom and a dollar tip from huffer girl.
On their way out the door, they were approached by a woman who was dirty and disheveled. She looked to be in her 60s, in the way that a 40-something hard living woman looks to be older than she is. She was asking for money, but huffers had none to spare. Undeterred, homeless woman came in and explained that her son had come in earlier for iced coffees and cakes, but the coffees had spilled on the cakes and they couldn’t eat them. This presented a huge problem for homeless woman, because, she explained, she was diabetic and needed the sugar from the cake to manage her condition. I asked which of the cakes it was, and, licking her lips and leaning on the pastry case window in the way that starving waifs do in movies, she pointed to the blueberry coffee cakes. I don’t think she could read, because she seemed surprised when I said blueberry. I handed her two pieces, got God’s blessing from her, and she was on her way.
The corporate coffee experience’s official position on customer service is that we should to find a way to say “yes” to situations that arise. This thought never crossed my mind, as my heart guided my hands with these people, not letting my brain get in the way.
