Coffees, Dishes and a Brat

In New Zealand a black coffee is a “long black”—made from a shot of espresso added to hot water, not out of a filter or press, while a “short black” is just the shot. If you prefer your coffee with milk, order a “flat white”; a shot of espresso with some carefully steamed and slightly “stretched” milk poured in. This is not a latte or a cappuccino, for those you must stretch the milk even more, however all three require a foamy plug on top so that you can saunter around without spilling a drop.

I prefer my coffee chugged, so that it touches my tongue as little as possible. It seems I lack the “passion for coffee” desired in all baristas.

At Oceanside Café, we also offer a range of yoghurt-based smoothies and ice cream milkshakes. These are much easier to make as they don’t require artistry or experience, you just plop approximate amounts of yoghurt, fruit and icing powder into a blender. One of the blender’s bearings must be wonky because it screams bloody murder and starts to smell like melted plastic and bad wiring after a few seconds.

In the way back, past the grill and burners and around the corner from the chaotic coffee/smoothie bench is where the dishes get done. Here, where the hot water tap lets out a stream of scalding water that will burn you, and the cold water tap should be labeled tepid, is my favourite place to work. No cat swinging here, it’s a cramped, steamy, tight space, even a swung mouse would hit its head on something. On a single little trolley we stack teetering towers of plates and cups. When the cooks cover this surface with their hot pots and pans or their dirty bowls, knives and food processor bits, we dump dishes in the sinks. I like to tackle this mess, armed with only a tatty old piece of steel wool and a single dishwashing machine.

Wouldn’t you like to make coffee, wait tables, stand at a till, roll cutlery, clean glassware, wash dishes, scoop ice cream and at the end of the day clean, sweep, mop and carry in dozens of tables and chairs? I don’t mind it, except one of my coworkers (of which there are only two or three at a time) is a nasty little girl. She giggles and flirts with the cooks, talks trash about the manager behind his back, but uses a sugary singsong voice to his face, and ignores all of my questions, even if I have customers waiting. I didn’t much care for High School when I was legally bound to go, and this girl is everything gross about high school, put on two legs.