NDM Interview Series | Tavi Wallace
As somebody that drinks a mountain of coffee every day, I speak sincerely and from the heart when I say that baristas make the world go round.
Starbucks alone employs an incredible 254,000 people.
The absurd numbers make sense though, according to Gallup:
- Just under two-thirds of U.S. adults drink at least one cup a day
- Coffee drinkers average 2.7 cups per day, unchanged from 1999
- 25% say they’re addicted, but only 10% want to cut back
I had the privilege of interviewing Tavi Wallace, a barista who has worked at Starbucks and Please and Thank You, a local (Louisville) coffee shop to learn about the day to day of an integral member of this prolific industry.
Topics that we discussed with her:
- Large chain vs small shop work environment
- The most absurd drinks you can reasonably order
- Adult diapers
- Whether baristas mess up your name on purpose for fun
- What the most rewarding and most frustrating parts of being a barista are (hint: it hinges on your behavior, so be nice).
- Boomer vs Millennial work habits and ethic
- And more…
So, top your cup off and enjoy.
Ryson: Today we’re interviewing Tavi Wallace for Non-Desk Matters. Tavi is a barista.
So, tell us about your first non-desk job, not what you do right now. Your very first one.
Tavi: My very first non-desk job, I was 16 years old and I wanted a cell phone. And so my mom said “well you have to pay for your own phone.” I know it’s hard for children to understand these days but I decided “OK I’ll be a cashier at Kroger.” They’re always hiring. So that’s what I did for about two years.
Ryson: What did you like about it?
Tavi: I found out that I’m an extrovert from that job. I genuinely liked talking to most of the people that came through. It’s really interesting to get to know people and you basically know what everybody eats from being a cashier. So, it’s always fun to talk about food.
Ryson: That is interesting. What was your least favorite aspect of it.
Tavi: Sometimes when I would have to push carts in the rain to the store and I can only push like a max four carts at a time. Or, I grew up in a meat free household. So having to bag red meat and getting blood on my hands. If it would leak, it was like low-key traumatizing.
Ryson: Nick, my roommate, has worked at Kroger as well and he has some unspeakable Kroger stories that we can talk off-recording. So your current job is as a barista for Please and Thank You which is a local coffee chain. How did you find this position, how long have you been there?
Tavi: I don’t think I ever told this story because it’s so ridiculous. I’ll say first how long I’ve been there because it’s a lot shorter, six months. I started last fall. I’m a runner and do not do fashion stuff, but I got asked to do a fashion show with Anthropology’s fall lineup last year and I was like “Sure, I guess so, this will be interesting.” And the hair stylist for that fashion show was best friends with Brooke who is the owner of Please and Thank You. And I got to talking about coffee and all this stuff and I guess I said it at the right time and at that exact point Brooke was looking to hire someone that already had barista experience. So Katie (the hair stylist) took a picture of me and sent it to Brooke and said hire her. [Getting food awkward pause.]
Ryson: And you have worked at Starbucks before as well, correct?
Tavi: Yes.
Ryson: Which job do you like more.
Tavi: Please and Thank You.
Patrick: Why? What’s different about Starbucks as compared to Please and Thank You? And really I’m asking more for the work environment, or the amount of customers you deal with, not so much whether Starbucks coffee tastes better or different than Please and Thank You.
Tavi: Pros and Cons: The hours at Starbucks — sometimes you don’t get out until 10:45 at night and you have to be there before 5:00 in the morning. The hours are 7–7 at Please and Thank You. And then, yes there’s definitely less customers, which if it’s just completely nonstop all day that really wears on a person after a while. So I think just the stress level is lower [at Please and Thank You] and in the long run that actually has turned out to matter a lot more than I thought.
Ryson: All right. You interact with a lot of people on a daily basis. Do you have any good stories that you want to tell?
Tavi: When I was looking at the questions I was trying to keep it to a minimum. I think I have a couple of funny ones that are better. Some horrifying ones too. I’ll tell the funny ones. I have two; they’re both from Starbucks, and then I have a Please and Thank You one that happened like three days ago. Somebody at Starbucks left an adult diaper right by the drive-thru speaker box. I don’t even know how. I was there, I’m not making this up.
Ryson: Was it used?
Tavi: Yes. So people were pulling up. We did not know why, every time we were like “Welcome to Starbucks. What can I get started for ya?” People would start gagging or not say anything. Or like somebody drove away and we were like “what is going on” and somebody finally, like an older woman, said “You gotta get this thing out of the way!” something like that. And so we were like “What is it ma’am?” because we couldn’t see through the camera. We can only see the outside the car basically. And she was like “It’s a giant diaper!” We did not get paid enough to do this, but one of my coworkers put gloves on and took a giant trash bag outside to get it. There were no cars coming through. You could hear her dry heaving. Then one night it was about 6:00 p.m. We got a phone call from a Starbucks down the street that was closed for some plumbing issues . What I thought they said is: “We’re having issues. We are sending about 40 people from “Death Chat” to your store.” And we were thinking it was like a death metal group. We were really confused and expecting all these people wearing black to come in. We were like “Well thanks for the heads up” but it was deaf chat D E A F. And so it was an interesting experience. We were short staffed so there were two of us and the entire store was silent. I used a piece of paper to take orders. When new customers would walk in there would be absolutely no noise, but it was packed.
Ryson: The Please and Thank You story?
Tavi: Yeah. Most recently I caught someone trying to steal a Lemon Loaf and called her out on it, and she screamed F-you in my face and threw it at me and ran out the door. That’s a quick one but things like that happen often unfortunately.
Patrick: So I have a question about when people come to order and you all write the names on the cups. Is there a conspiracy where you guys just make up names on purpose? What is going on with me getting a cup and and says something that is not my name!
Tavi: I can’t confirm or deny if I know people that do it for their own entertainment.
Patrick: So it’s a real thing?
Tavi: Maybe.
Patrick: Maybe. OK. It’s a two part question: What’s the most obnoxious drink I could order, and what is the longest most complicated drink I could order?
Tavi: I feel like there’s hundreds of thousands of combinations of things they order at Please and Thank You. Luckily, there’s probably only about a sentence long drink you could order but I mean you get into the paragraph level with Starbucks where you’re like — I’m trying to think — probably any time frappuccino comes out of your mouth. We kind of go “time to get the blender out.” So I’m not a huge fan. And then if you’re adding a shot to a frappuccino that adds another step so definitely frappuccinos. And then let me see if I can remember a regular customer’s drink that is a good example of what happens when you let people control every aspect — “venti decaf, nonfat, three and a half Splenda, no foam, two pumps of toffee, sugar free vanilla latte. With whip!” They always want whip on their nonfat drink, it’s an oxymoron.
Patrick: Like the Diet Coke with your Big Mac.
Tavi: Frappuccinos get that way too.
Ryson: Couldn’t do it.
Tavi: I don’t understand it. I just like black coffee.
Ryson: I’m with you on that. What is the most satisfying aspect of work for you?
Tavi: It’s going to sound simple but probably when somebody comes back and says like “This is really good. Thank you for making a quality drink” which happens a lot more at Please and Thank You. Just people saying thank you.
Ryson: What is the most frustrating and then what is the most challenging part of your job?
Tavi: Frustrating is probably when you ask somebody “How are you?” and then they immediately de-humanize you, and they might just be like ready to order, in a rush. But if you say “how are you” and they say “large black coffee” it’s like “oh you’re a large black coffee” you know. Just say good and then order, just that extra word.
Ryson: So the best and worst part of your job is the people.
Tavi: Oh yeah.
Ryson: Just depending on how nice they are.
Tavi: Mhmm.
Ryson: Ok. What are some challenges?
Tavi: Some current challenges… I actually welcome these, which is why I’m glad you asked these separately. Please and Thank You has a lot of unique business aspects and one of our mottos is “loud music and no decaf.” And so when someone comes up and starts to order something decaf, we get to say no. And when someone says, “can you turn the music down,” we get to say no. And we have nothing sugar free or non-fat. So, we get to maybe ruin people’s day.
Ryson: You get to be a little pretentious.
Tavi: It’s a very treat yourself kind of thing. And yes, I definitely get satisfaction from being like you can’t have a “sugar-free nonfat three Splenda with whip” drink. I’m sorry. You can however, have a latte.
Ryson: How many customers come in every day? Do you have a general idea?
Tavi: I don’t know the numbers that we make.
Ryson: Do you know how many drinks you make a day?
Tavi: Weekends are about double the business of a weekday, hundreds regardless.
Ryson: What would be the percentage breakdown of customer interaction versus administrative work?
Tavi: I have a lot more responsibility at Please and Thank You so, customer interaction at Starbucks was probably 75 percent, and Please and Thank You is probably 65 percent. Which isn’t that much less but it is nice to do different things too.
Ryson: Cool. What’s the perfect order at Please and Thank You?
Tavi: Black coffee and a cookie. Make sure you get that cookie.
Ryson: That’s right. So what do you think the public perception of being a barista is?
Tavi: That we’re all a little bit angsty with tattoos and nose rings and know way too much about how a bean was roasted. Like a hipster basically.
Ryson: Do you think that something can be done better to shape public perception of being a barista? If so, what is it that you think your in general viewed in a negative or positive light?
Tavi: We are definitely viewed in a positive light. We are like legal drug dealers for most of the public but I think when I was at Starbucks it was a tween girls dream. At least once or twice a week a 15 or 16 year old would be like “you’re so lucky to work here.” What I would have wanted to do is just put a little green apron on them and say “You have no idea. Go make your frappes.”
Ryson: Why do you think there is a positive perception of baristas, besides being a legal drug dealer?
Tavi: We’re friendly and we give you caffeine. Maybe we can seem like we are frazzled but that’s because we’re dealing with hundreds of people that all want specific things.
Ryson: And most of the employees you work with are your age?
Tavi: Yes. At Starbucks, it ranged from high school to, there was a 60 year old woman. But now I work with peers.
Patrick: Was there a difference between working with someone who’s 60 versus someone who is in their early 20s?
Tavi: Yeah. There’s like a different work ethic. She [the 60 year old] was a schoolteacher, so maybe it’s her personality and not as much her age but she’s very very organized. She was constantly reorganizing the store and our boss was like “please don’t do that.” Whereas, a lot of people my age are like, well I’m here to get the job done and then I’m going to clock out. We’re going to do it tomorrow. Doesn’t matter if everything’s, you know, pristine. Not that we are sloppy.
Ryson: If you could swap jobs with anyone in the world for a month and the person you swap with has to be a barista. Who would you swap with?
Tavi: It would be a National Geographic photographer. Traveling and getting to take pictures, I would probably cry all day, every day with joy. Yeah. Getting to see the world and document it.
Patrick: Where would you wanna start?
Tavi: New Zealand. Especially if it is getting paid for it because it’s an expensive flight. And as far as switching with them, I think everybody needs to work in the service industry for a week at least. So they’ll tip better and have a better idea when we’re having a bad day — what having a bad day looks like.
Patrick: So what’s the best way if someone wanted to get in contact with you to chat about the conversation with us today? Are you on the Twitters, Facebook or Instagram?
Tavi: Instagram: @tav_wall.
Patrick: And what’s next for you? What’s the next six months or a year look like? Are you staying at Please and Thank You for a career or are you doing something different?
Tavi: I will be staying there. I got a full scholarship to pursue my masters in marriage and family therapy. So I will be back at school forever it seems.
Patrick: Thanks again for your time, Tavi.
Ryson: Thank you.
