Credit is an important part of our society. Without credit, very few people would own homes, cars, or make important investments for their future, and infrastructure would crumble. We here at Way of the Coffee are entirely behind the concept of credit.

But if the cashier winces after running your card, smiles politely, and says “I’m sorry, your card didn’t go through,” it’s because they’re trying not to announce to everybody else in the café that you’re a bum with no money. You have less than money, you have negative money. So much negative money that nobody will give you more, because you're all set.

Customers get incredibly indignant when their cards are declined. “What do you mean it didn’t go through? Why?” Let me take an educated guess, from years of experience and post-graduate studies. You either maxed out, or your card was reported as lost or stolen so the issuing bank put a hold on it. Either way, telling the cashier to try it again isn’t going to work. The little machine is going to keep telling them that you’re a bum or just plain irresponsible. When you open your wallet to discover you have no money in it, do you close it and reopen it, hoping that it was malfunctioning the first time?

Finally, they give up, and wildly throw their arms in the air, sometimes collapsing on the counter, despondent over their wretched situation in life, sometimes bellowing their anger to the Heavens. No matter what, they turn their anger on the cashier (here barista), as if there were something they could do. You're the bum in this situation, all right? You have no money, and that is your fault. Don't get pissy with me.

I'm new to this blog. My name is Nick, I'm a friend of Austen's from way back and a barista since before he was born. Well, actually he's a few months older than I am so that's impossible, but I have worked at many a coffee shop and share his anger at the coffee consumers of the world.

For my first post, I'll take a stab at the lingo problem. It is annoying when people use the names from other coffee shops, but I’d be okay with it if they weren’t insistent on calling it by, for example, the Starbucks name.

Customer: I want a venti Caramel Macchiato
Me: Okay, that’s a large vanilla latte with caramel syrup.
Customer: Uh, I asked for a venti Caramel Macchiato.
Me: I know. That’s what that is. A large vanilla latte with caramel syrup, I don’t know why Starbucks calls it a Caramel Macchiato.
Customer: Whatever. Do you just feel smart correcting me, is that it?

Well, maybe a little, but the franchise agreement of most coffee shops requires that all drinks are referred to by their official company designation. Seeing as the managers of coffee shops are usually pathetic college dropouts with no other prospects, they tend to treat the franchise agreement as God’s Law lest they be fired by a disconnected corporate schmuck. Unfortunately, that means I’ll be fired (or at least reprimanded) if I don’t make some vague attempt to correct you. Yes, it’s stupid, but can I help it? No.

I’m okay with people ordering large drinks as “venti” or “grande.” Venti means twenty in Italian, so they’re saying they want twenty ounces, which is the large for most places. I’m cool with that; I’ll just pretend they’re trying to understand a foreign culture, one drink at a time. What I can’t stand is people making up drink names, then getting haughty when I have no idea what the hell they’re talking about.

It’s common enough for people to order drinks like an “Almond Joy,” and that’s fine, because I know what the ingredients are in that candy bar and I know they want a coconut/almond mocha. Don’t make up something stupid like a “Boring” (nonfat decaf latte) or a “Penguin” (half white chocolate half dark chocolate mocha), because I might not be able to control staring at you like you’re an idiot. Do you really need a cutesy nickname for your beverage? Can you, maybe, just fucking order?