A story about making coffee
In my first secretarial job, after having been a waitress, a soda jerk, a record store clerk and even a brief stint working at Express at the mall, I had this boss who wanted me to make him coffee first thing in the morning. I had a lot of other work to do, and at the time, I didn’t drink coffee, so I was like, why do I have to make the coffee if I don’t even drink it? What the hell?
So the first pot of coffee I made was pretty bad. When you’re a waitress, all that stuff is portioned out into bags, so you just pour the bag into the filter and push the button. That’s not how a Hamilton Beach coffee maker works. So my boss showed me how to make coffee. But, to be a jerk, I made shitty coffee again the next day. Every day he showed me how to make coffee, and every day I would make the worst coffee possible. Sometimes I’d just rebrew the used grounds from the day before. Sometimes I’d put in a quarter cup of grounds, sometimes I’d put in an entire cup of grounds, and they’d spill over into the carafe. Sometimes I’d brew decaf, sometimes I’d mix half tea and half coffee in the filter. My boss, Jay, could never understand why the coffee was always so awful, because he’d shown me how to make it like 20 times.
Finally Jay said to me, “Look, you make fucking horrible coffee, don’t ever touch the coffee maker again, OK?”
Okay.
Did you ever know that you’re my hero
and everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle
‘cause you are the wind beneath my wings.
