After working at Broadway for eight years, I’ll be moving on to new pastures, beginning the first of many horse puns I’m intending to make. I’m going to be working as development coordinator for a great organization called Acres of Hope Youth Ranch, which provides mentorship for teens experiencing hardship through riding horses and other related activities. I’ve been eager to move into a role that involved writing, communication, and organizational development, and it’s especially cool to help develop and grow a fantastic organization doing important work.
As I near the proverbial end of the road at Broadway, I’ve spent time reflecting about what I’ve learned from two tours of duty and eight years working as a barista. I tend to think pretty large-scale and societal, so others who also think that way will especially get what I’m saying here, but my hope is this little reflection gives a window into some of the thoughts I’ve carried with me as I’ve worked at Broadway, and also gives a sense of the impact a really special place like Broadway Coffeehouse has made on me and others.
Therefore, without further ado…
Every task and thing matters and is glorious.
What a way to start, I know, but this is really the foundation for everything else. Though it may not sound like it, this point is pretty practical. Everything matters. Nothing is meaningless. This was one of the first lessons that was impressed upon me working at Broadway, and was taught to me by a lot of different people (Jacob Davis, Alison Hattan, and Daniel Gossard are three noteworthy folks in this regard, but there’s many more). Each of them either directly spoke to or modeled an attention to detail and a “heartfelt way” that infused ‘ordinary work’ with special purpose.
When I talk about “glory” I want to define what I mean. The Hebrew word for glory speaks to the weight of something. It carries the connotation of “weighty matters”, “the weight of glory”, something being profound or significant. There’s a verse in the New Testament that says “in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” I often think of Christ as the “antidote to Ecclesiastes” in this way. ‘Vanity of vanities’ is a view of work that resonates with a lot of people, but a phrase like “in the Lord your labor is not in vain” carries special weight when you’re scrubbing a toilet or pouring a cup of coffee. Because of that, during my first stint at Broadway, one of my most regular prayers was “God, I pray that this matters.” Eight years later, for many reasons, I’ve seen that it has.
The reaction people have towards even the most lopsided, wonky latte art heart speaks to the significance of doing latte art. There is a ‘glory’ to latte art, if you’ll indulge the silliness. One of my favorite things is when new baristas pour art they are embarrassed by, and a customer comes up and gasps and says “It’s beautiful!” We do latte art even if it is in a to-go cup. We leave the lid off and set it beside a drink with latte art because of the reactions it gets. I know some people think this is stupid and inefficient. We do it anyways, because there’s something about it that touches people and creates a brief, but important, connection.
What we do is always more interconnected than we think.
I first started thinking about the topic of honor in relation to the journey coffee makes from something picked off a plant, processed, imported, roasted, and finally turned into a drink. I’ve heard a lot of coffee instructors over the years emphasize that the quality, flavor, and potential of a coffee ultimately comes from the farmer. Without a well grown and well processed coffee, you can do every trick in the book and there will still be a ceiling on how good it can be. Everything else in the coffee industry is just stewarding the quality that’s already there from a farm.
As a barista, I’ve come to think of myself as a part of a sequence of hands that I refer to as “The Honor System.” A farmer may grow coffee that has the potential to win awards, but if those beans get thrown into a big bin with a bunch of low-quality beans, or if the importer cuts corners and the product gets moldy in some sea crate, or if the roaster burns it to a crisp, or if the barista doesn’t dial it in, or doesn’t keep the espresso machine clean, none of that matters. At any point in the process, negligence can undo a lot of other people’s hard work. As I barista, I take on a degree of responsibility to honor somebody else’s hard work.
I’m both dependent and responsible. I’m dependent on the hard work of somebody else, and I’m responsible for the stewardship of that other person’s hard work. This applies in any setting where you’re working with other people. This way of thinking views even the most solitary work as still being interconnected. As a writer, I’m stewarding the thoughts of generations before me. Perhaps I can even improve on things through my efforts, but I’m never starting from scratch. Even a farmer is building on a past foundation, a family farm, the education of a teacher.
Looking for ways to actually make those connections in person always enriches our experience. Talk to the person who grows your food. If you’re a potter, see how clay is prepared. If you’re a construction worker, go see where they make drywall if you have the opportunity. If you’re a state worker, the bylaws you’re having to sift through were somebody’s labor. And by all means, when we have the opportunity to fix or redeem low-quality work and leave things better than we found them, do so!
I’ve found seeing the interconnection of most industries has given me appreciation for the role I specifically play. This is especially something a manager should do if they’re intending to lead other people. Appreciate their jobs as mattering. Your industry or field wouldn’t exist without them.
We live in an Honor/Shame culture whether we acknowledge it or not.
A lot of people have asked me how I’ve been able to work a service job for eight years. At the heart, what I think they’re asking is “how do you deal with people for that long?” It’s a valid question. People can be mean, and that meanness can be both exhausting and even contagious.
In cultural anthropology, you’ll sometimes hear people talk about the guilt-shame-fear spectrum. To vastly oversimplify, many Western cultures are often spoken of as Guilt/Innocence cultures, while many Eastern cultures are spoken of as Honor/Shame cultures. Guilt has to do with a fear of punishment, while shame has to do with a fear of being discredited. Working in the hospitality industry, I’ve concluded that in addition to the Guilt/Innocence dynamics, we live in an Honor/Shame culture whether we acknowledge it or not.
Imagine a mean customer. Should they go to prison for being mean? Almost certainly not. Does that mean that their meanness is fine? No. Ask any burnt-out waiter who hates their life because of the callousness of strangers, and they will tell you that it has a profound effect on them. Plenty of things aren’t illegal to do, and so people give themselves free reign to do them.
Other cultures have a well-defined framework for such things. The way you greet someone coming into your home or business, the way you talk to another person, the etiquette and language of what respect sounds like and what disrespect sounds like. These things are well-understood and generally held in regard. Our culture’s compass is spinning on such things. In the Pacific Northwest, perhaps the closest thing to ‘having the language’ to describe a breakdown of honor and respect is saying, “hey man, it wasn’t cool how you treated that guy.”
One man’s “not cool” is another man’s “dishonor.”
Regardless, respect and disrespect matter. I’ve been able to stay in a service job for eight years because I’ve developed a rhythm of processing and letting go of disrespect in a healthy way. It’s also one of the hardest things. Forgiveness is at the heart of being able to work in the service industry.
I went through a very difficult time after COVID where I was really bitter about customer interactions. For two years, people had treated us poorly, even shamefully. People gave full vent to their frustrations on minimum wage employees. That’s shameful. But it also made me bitter. I’d lash out at customers for even seeming to be impatient or disrespectful. To my regret, many of those people just felt intimidated by the coffeehouse setting. Ordering at a coffee shop can be intimidating, and what I read as “impatient” was actually just them feeling anxious. I had to go through a journey of forgiveness to “the public” so that I could be kind and patient. That’s something that will last far beyond working at a coffee shop.
Respect matters. A formative experience for me was walking into an unfamiliar coffee shop in Portland along with a homeless person, and seeing how the barista looked at us. Imagine walking into a business and having the person behind the counter be immediately dismayed and even angry that you’re there. The barista certainly didn’t do anything illegal, but they definitely failed to show honor and respect.
Care about people beyond what they have to offer you.
Finally, one of my favorite things about Broadway is how we make it our aim to empower and develop our team. When I started at Broadway I was not in a healthy spot, and I was pretty stressed in a way that affected me at work. Luke and Daniel (my managers) gave me a review where they were direct about the issues, but also expressed a commitment to walk alongside me in improving. We brainstormed possible solutions and over the next six months they helped me put them into practice. It made a big difference. That review was a wake up call, for sure, but the way they cared about me as a person was evident. What made the strongest impression was that our team leaders cared about me beyond what I had to offer them.
We recently had a Broadway reunion, which is insane for a coffee shop. There were over eighty people there, and even beyond that, so many additional people expressed fondness for their time at Broadway and felt that it had benefited their life. None of them work at Broadway anymore, but we’ve been able to make a lasting impact by seeing that we had the ability to enrich people for what came next.
As I reach the end of my time at Broadway, I’ve grown in a lot of ways because of the care and investment of other people, both leadership and fellow baristas.
It’s a pretty simple final point, but it’s the lasting legacy of eight years. The decision to care about others is, perhaps, the “secret sauce” to a workplace people look back on fondly, even when they’ve moved on to new things. That’s certainly true for me.
Amateur Hour 