And people are staring.
Like I am some weirdo with an appetite for dead flies.
This Starbucks has flies in it (I won’t tell you which one). Lots of them. They are bugging people, they land on their lattes and chocolate praline (maan I miss the avocado ones!). People just wave their hands to make them go away, but they keep coming back.
Even though the flies are an irritation to all of them, but when a big guy stood up and start to wait by the huge glass walls to whack the flies with a ‘Fair Trade Coffee’ brochure to fly heaven, they stare at him (which was me btw).
It’s quite unfortunate really, in our society, when someone do an unusually good deed, people will think that he is a weirdo. Well, at least they stare 🙂
I also often clean up the tables in Starbucks. I find it easier, and faster than calling up the guy behind the counter to clean the mess up, then wait for him to come, than wait him clean, then wait him to go away. Not to mention that it is a good thing to do too.
If you often visit your favorite coffee shop, take a look at your mess and the mess on the table next to you. Sometimes we turn into real jerks (Hey, I’m paying for this coffee and I can do whatever I want!) But really, what’s the effort in putting all the sugar sachets and straw wrapper crumpled in the cup, along with the plastic forks, and stack all the cups in top of
the dishes? Sometimes, seeing the mess people leave at their table, I thought that they just want to give the baristas a bad time. I mean, nobody is *that* messy!
A barista friend taught me this, while she cleaned up our mess after we hung out in a Starbucks (she has moved to another job by then). When she began stacking the cups, I asked her, “Why would you do that?” She smiled and replied, “You never know how delighted we storekeepers are when we see a customer taking out his own trash. We felt he really valued our work.” That simple conversation really stuck with me up until now, and changed my perception on waiters, clerks, bellboys, storekeepers, and baristas, of course.
This habit comes with me wherever I go. On my last trip to Australia, quite number of times when I bring the coffee cup with the trash to the barista, she smiled delighted, “Nobody ever done that here.” Or that time in Sydney, when I stacked our ramen bowls, the lady looked at me strangely then giggled while carrying them away.
Stacking bowls is just a small thing that we can do. That time in Melbourne, when I had to come down again to the lobby because the guy gave us the wrong room, he said, “You are very kind. Usually people will curse at me and they want to talk to my manager.”
Well, maybe people are staring at me right now because they think that in today’s world, nobody is *that* good.
Let’s prove them wrong 🙂
Edward, I wrote an almost similar story in my blog about 2 yrs ago, regarding how lazy we are in Jakarta, and how we treated the Office Boys/ Girls badly here. I still remember my first day working in Jakarta, I saw a glass of water on my desk and was very surprised since I usually grab my own cup and filled it up myself when I worked in the US. Here in Jakarta, people asked the office boy to buy food for us, even to clean up the mess that they created. One of the secretaries in my office even asked an office boy to deliver a piece of paper to my desk, while the distance was less than 20m away. No wonder, I have 12 office boys in my office and still we're running out of them during busy hour. Very sad, but that's the truth.
Edward, guess we have the same habit.
I'm used to stack all my plates, bowl or cups after meal, even at the restaurant. Sometimes my friends look at me and ask "What are you doing?" Well, it's just a habit and when I didn't do it, feels like missing something, do you feel that too?
Same with Leony, I have an employee at the office, she looooves to ask our cleaner girl to buy food, wash her used cups, plates.. I really hate it. Who is she?! I mean, even I (sort of the head of the office), I wash my own dishes. grrr..