In today’s economy of €7 pints and the Buttery charging for individual ketchup sachets, it is pretty much impossible to bankroll a successful social life at Trinity without a secret trust fund. If this is a situation which sounds familiar (sans trust fund), you may be left with no choice but to join the ranks of brave soldiers on Indeed.com. You must valiantly carve out time between Vinted sessions in the library and the twelve contact hours of your humanities degree in quest of more noble pursuits: a career as a barista. It appears that the experience of waiting ten minutes for a watery latte while the two workers behind the counter aggressively flirt at each other has become a common enough experience to become a cultural phenomenon (I’m looking at you, Kaph). Paradoxically, society has deemed a job which gives you the hands of a chimney sweep and shoes with a faint odour of milk to be one of the trendiest positions you can find yourself in as a student. It is also one that is slightly illusive in nature as the price and quality of coffee from cafe to cafe ranges vastly, somehow simultaneously lowering and raising the barriers to entry. But fear not arts block comrade, as you have stumbled upon a comprehensive guide as to how you can secure a job of your own and hop on your “barista bullshit”, so to speak.
In order to be considered for this highly sought after position, you first have to go forth and find somewhere to hire you. This may involve a lot of doomscrolling jobs.ie, but for the best results you should walk into the shop and bother them with pointless chit chat until they realise that you’re the perfect fit. The first attribute you need is to be aggressively outgoing, while also ready to be aggressively humbled.
There will come a time in every barista’s life where they are approached by a passive aggressive customer because their boiling hot americano is too cold, the popular chain of oat milk you use has too many ingredients, and the sweet treat they ordered isn’t to their taste. It is important to remember that all of these things are your fault and you must apologise from the depths of your heart. The key here is to ask the customer how they would like this situation to be rectified in a patient tone as they will either:
- Realise they sound dumb and will leave you alone.
- Cut off any further line of argument as you did exactly what they said.
- Be satisfied and leave you alone.
You will very quickly learn that after a full week of college and peeling yourself out of bed mere hours after you were on an elevated surface in the Pav, being left alone is the end goal of every interaction.
Next, you must lead with gratitude that you are building soft skills that will serve you for life. This includes a strong work ethic, only making the mistake of lifting with your back and not your legs once, and developing the patience of a monk. Before you can be the nonchalant cool girl with the college students at midday, you must gentle parent the frazzled white collar population during the 8am rush.
You will have this conversation a minimum of 15 times before someone your age should even be awake:
“I have an oat milk cappuccino for Paul!”
“I ordered a cappuccino but it was with almond milk and my name is James”
“Then I’m really sorry but this coffee’s not yours! Yours will be ready soon.’’
Your only respite from this will be the subtle “breaking the fourth wall” eye contact with sound coworkers as your gaze slowly pans from the pile of dockets lined up beneath you both. There will be a lot of misdirected anger for no reason. It’s okay, you’ll both be sipping an iced matcha in peace in T-4 hours.
Finally, the bread and butter of every barista, the cherry on top, the reason you wanted the job in the first place: The cool vibe you bring to the table. If you’ve spent enough time on campus this won’t be a problem, you’ve received your foundational training in obscure outfits, rollie smoking, and pleasant small talk. At the end of the day there are worse ways you could be earning your humble minimum wage, and you get to wake up early and pretend you’ll catch up on your lectures later instead of doom scrolling and then going out. Who knows, maybe one day, after you’ve graduated from your esteemed career of loitering outside the library, you might even become manager!
