Jumped-Up Café Schmucks

Sometimes all you want is for people not to give you any shit.

I was running late and had to skip breakfast this morning, so as a special treat for having got to work on time and - rarity of rarities - logged in before 0900 hours, I decided to pop back out and get myself something from Costa. Costa is my massively overpriced high street hot beverage vendor de préférence and I never had any trouble with the staff in Lewes where I used to work.

However, since having been moved [without consultation - another story] to the Brighton office of the law firm that I used to but now sort of don't but ostensibly still do work for [see above], I've been introduced to an altogether different type of Costa employee: one who sees fit to lecture its customers on their pathetic ignorance of all things coffee-related.

My faux pas, if faux it was, was to order a flat white with an extra shot. A flat white, according to the girl who served me this morning, already has two shots of espresso in it, so the addition of yet more espresso would upset the delicate equilibrium of the perfectly balanced drink. It would make it more flat. Or less flat. Or something, I honestly neither know nor care.

"We can do it for you," I was told, "but it won't be the right taste."

I'm sorry: the right taste? It's a CUP OF COFFEE. Some people like their coffee strong, some don't. I happen to appreciate a hit of caffeine that would give a rhino a sweaty lip. It keeps me on the edge, where I gotta be. Woo-hah! [Bear in mind that I'm writing this under the influence of a flat white with an extra shot, just like I insisted on].

Get some perspective. You're not an artiste and despite all the shiny equipment and OCD procedural slamming and banging, this isn't a science lab. I could vault the counter and do what you're doing - immediately, without any training whatsoever. Given time and strategic use of a cattle prod, a chimp could do your job, although animal rights groups might have something to say about the steam scalds and the cheap labour implications. And very probably the use of a cattle prod on a higher primate. You're not even a 'barista', you're jumped-up café staff, so climb back out of your arsehole and MAKE ME EXACTLY WHAT I ASK FOR. WITHOUT QUESTION.

Then we'll make superficially polite small talk while I pay you.

Then I'll go away with my WRONG drink and you can curse me. Privately, and in your own thoughts.

And that, my dear, is how shops work.