Overbrewed Morning

I work with an awesome bunch of partners at Starbucks.

Yesterday morning, while I was running the shift at my store, one of my fellow partners collapsed onto the floor. Besides instigating a loud utterance from me of an expletive right in front of customers, this changed my plans for the morning just a little bit.

To the best of my knowledge, the partner who collapsed is fine; she received medical care at a local hospital.

Some of the amazing people and their actions which got me through the morning:

• The customer who came to the collapsed partner’s aid and graciously became part of our team for a short while. She even more graciously tried to insist to still pay for her drink, even after all of the help she provided. May she never have to receive a free cappuccino for the same reasons again.
• The other two partners on my shift. These rock solid, unflappable ladies kept their wits about them and stayed calm. Their grace and composure was key in allowing me to do what I needed to do to manage the situation.
• My store manager. For being my support from afar, who flew in to help nearin. Her laser sharp focus smoothed a bumpy path, and provided me the reassurance that I handled things well.
• One of the unflappable ladies who provided transportation to the ill partner, handled an ever changing in car situation with expertise, and didn’t complain too much about cleaning up puke.
• The other unflappable lady who understood that celebrating the small victories of the day was an important part of getting through it.
• The SSC Partner (headquarters partner), who was in line for her coffee and ended up going store to store to find an additional person to help out with making drinks.
• The Partner from across the plaza, who blazed in rearing and ready to go at a key moment, and didn’t complain when I forgot to ask what his name was until five minutes after he had already been making lattes.
• Another partner, the fruits of the SSC partner hunter, who flew in to help and graciously worked an amazingly short shift to get us through the hump. May I one day discover your home store.
• Many others whose amazing actions included doing the ordinary in extraordinary circumstances.

My general lessons from that morning include:

• Paramedics aren’t always right.
• Sometimes all you can do is grab the reins, hold on and plan for the next five minutes, because you don’t know what will come in the next twenty minutes.
• People who wear green aprons are amazing; those who wear black aprons are amazing too, but they’re just green apron wearers who are also coffee geeks.
• When in doubt the F-word should not be used in front of customers, however if I just said the F-word in front of customers something really bad has probably happened.
• Coffee is amazing, but people are more amazing.