As if my day job wasn’t enough, I’ve signed a contract to write a technical book in five months. The workload would break a normal man, but because I have no social life, I stand a good chance of succeeding.
My mind tends to wander when I work alone, so I prefer to write at Starbucks. Recently, one barista has done the unthinkable – she’s not only remembered my name, but she calls out when she sees me: “Hi, Sefton!” or “Good morning, Sefton!” or “Have a great night, Sefton!”
It would be one thing if I was ten years younger or even moderately good looking. But I’m a bald, creepy-looking guy with poor posture and a tendency to avoid eye contact. I hate being acknowledged, let alone addressed by my real name. Sure, I’ll wave and give her a friendly response, but inside, I feel like a vampire hit by a blast of sunshine. It burns!
Why must you remember me, barista? Can’t you see that I’m just a loner seeking a small measure of anonymous camaraderie? HOW CAN PEOPLE BE SO CRUEL?
You need to develop a persona that gives her the idea that you’ll abduct her and lock her in a cage in your basement. Once she gets the creepy vibe, she’ll shut the fuck up.
You sound like CGP Grey. If this happens, he’ll go out of his way to go to a different Starbucks for a while until they forget him. Though he tries to rotate often enough that no one recognizes him anyways.
It really, really freaked him out when he complained about something on his web show and it got fixed. He says that there are times when he’s “on” and you can meet him, but, the rest of the time, he wants to be left alone. At most, give like a nod of acknowledgement or wave if you see him. (And do not say “You’re CGP Grey!” Even Brady finds that awkward.)
My brother started going into the same place every morning at the same time. The barista started greeting him “Hi Brad!” every day, it even got to the point that the barista would have his usual ready when he walked in, “Hi Brad, here you go!”
He stopped going eventually because his name was not Brad, but he was too embarrassed at that point to correct him
Once, with a thicker-skinned waiter (local greasy spoon), I said “Look, I appreciate the friendliness. But when you yell my name out when I come in, everybody turns and looks at me. I’m too shy for that.”
With the perky barista (who’d start crying if I said that), I whispered “Shhh, I’m here to write anonymously. If you call out my name, competing writers will want to steal my notebook. Or I’ll be deluged with fans. I need to keep it on the down low…”
So of course she treats this like a game now, and whispers “hi” to me when I get to the front of the line. But that’s preferable.
Oh, I did switch coffee places once because a friend of mine would walk in and immediately drag another chair over to my table (after I’d surreptitiously removed all the chairs)… and chat. And chat. And then his three friends would always show up and prowl the cafe for chairs so they could have raucous political discussions at what I still thought of as my table.
I’m thinking of putting together a “Writer’s Disguise Kit” for coffee joints… ooh, different looks for different genres! Penning a noir thriller? Here’s a fedora and loosened tie and a tumbler of scotch. Wacky “road trip to Burning Man” memoir? Here are your pink shades and floppy hand-made leather hat…
I choose to live in NYC because, as E.B. White wrote, it “confers the gift of anonymity.”
I don’t go to coffee shops – I roast and grind my own at home, it’s far better and cheaper! – but the counter guys at my favorite pizzeria know me and greet me (thank god they don’t remember my name) and it always makes me hesitate before I enter.
Unfortunately, there are too many of them back there to abduct and lock in a cage in my basement.
To each their own and all, but personally, I’m not bothered by a service worker knowing my name. Don’t get me wrong; you’re entitled to your feelings.
I can better comprehend being bothered or annoyed if the barista tries to engage you further - asking about personal details, or anything other than merely addressing you by your name.
Then again, I tend to skew the other way. When I was in law school, I practically lived at a particular Starbucks (it’s where I did my reading, so I’d spend hours there, 4-5 times per week). I always try to engage service workers with pleasantries, so they don’t feel like they are viewed as automatons and are actually treated like people.
After a few weeks, I built up a rapport with a few of them, and when I walked in the door, they’d start making “my drink” before I even approached the counter. They’d also save a scone or two for me if they were running low on a particular type. Then, sometimes, mid-day, they’d give me another free drink or scone. We knew basic details about each other - name, hobbies, etc. I’m not saying I’d ever go so far as to invite them to go bar-hopping with me, but if I ever saw them out, I’d say hello.
But that’s just me. I fully understand that others prefer a much more detached relationship with baristas and the sort.
Just out of curiosity, on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 1 is “the mildest of annoyances” and 10 is “seriously considering ceasing patronage of this Starbucks”), where do you fall?
I imagine the baristas are trained to establish bonds with customers for repeat business.
Think of it this way: you balance out the customer from hell who makes tiny, unimportant demands for how their coffee is prepared and takes up valuable customer time airing their complaints. They’re on a restricted diet, they’re having chemical imbalance issues, they wonder why a certain item is no longer carried and talk in explicit detail about it, etc. You at least get a positive response from them, and you don’t make waves enough for them to want to spit in your coffee.