Decelerating a decline

It is immensely frustrating to be bad at something simple. To make matters worse I seem to be especially bad at doing simple things when under observation. The minute an authority figure or an examining body shows up I seem to fall to pieces. I desperately wish I were one of those individuals who thrive on pressure and who only perform when in the presence of someone worth performing for. Alas I am not like that, I am most certainly something of a slow burner. Never any good at first impressions I like to think I am someone that grows on people. As it is with people so it is with jobs. Three weeks in and I am still a complete liability to my fellow ‘baristas’. On the surface it sounds simple. I make people coffee.

The bourgeois of the Low Lands shunt and clatter their way into Edinburgh’s West End every morning in a frightful mood. These caffeine deprived, expensively dressed, SNP voting graduates are doubtlessly yet more despondent for having noted the continued nosedive of their investment accounts in the morning papers. By the time they reach me, dressed like a clown and huddled behind a large metallic espresso machine, they seem ready to unleash hell.

“Triple Tall Skinny Decaf Vanilla Extra Hot Mocha, No Whip” they growl. And then they come, one after the other in a high paced cascade of customisable caffeine. For someone like me, who for the past six years has been used to seeing his subject matter progress no faster than the rate at which he could read through musty and faded history books in musty and faded libraries, the change of pace comes as something of a shock. I panic, skinny drinks come out as skimmed, extra hot drinks come out so hot they appear to melt the plastic lids and when someone orders a blasted Frappuccino then that’s it, all manufacturing operations cease for a good five minutes as I negotiate the unfamiliar terrain of blended ice and vanilla syrup. And I live in the perpetual fear of mixing up my soy and dairy products and inadvertently sending someone into a lactose intolerant coma.

Yet things are improving, albeit slowly and with lots of relapses. I remember what I was like a Little Chef when I first began – a complete nightmare quickly loathed by the more experienced staff for single handily running aground their tightly run ship. I also remember how, as I came to understand the ins and outs of the job, I built strong and lasting relationships with these very same people who initially feared the sight of my name coinciding with their own on the weeks rota. I hope the same will be true of this job and I suspect it will be, although there will be many more miserable shifts to endure before these broad, sunlit uplands are reached.

In the meantime another unsettling development has been gathering momentum. My financial parachute, so generously offered by my grandmother for the purposes of my degree, has ran its course and I appear to have hit the ground with an all mighty thump. Given my hourly pay and the woefully inadequate number of shifts allocated to me per week it appears that after rent and food bills I am actually losing money. Month on month I go deeper into the (full interest paying) red with only the occasional pay cheque from Her Majesty’s Armed Forces to temporarily drag me up above the waterline. I am experiencing financial waterboarding.

Given that I intend to save money for a teaching degree this situation is one that I really can’t afford to endure for much longer. Either my hours need to increase or I need to once again begin the soul-destroying process of job searching. I fear my residency within this limbo zone, between education and life, shall continue to be a tumultuous one.