Morning Meeting Etiquette Before Your First Work Meeting
- BrittGirlAus
- Feb 10, 2020
- 3 min read
Updated: Mar 26, 2023
It’s between 8 and 9 am each morning that Sydney and Melbourne coffee connoisseurs are purchasing the most coffees (insidesmallbusiness.com.au). The data suggests this is the coffee they get as they swap runners for work shoes before hitting the office. It also suggests that their first-morning meeting is with their barista.
With such a rush of coffee nuts hitting their local cafes in seemingly organised mobs, there is a certain morning etiquette that you might want to know so you can make your barista’s day that much better.
Have you bean clear?
People will sometimes stumble over their coffee order at the till. They might mumble their own Shakespearean sonnet of orders, or they might simply say ‘one coffee, please’. In the busiest times of the day, the communication between the cashier and the barista can be limited to the till receipt, so if they can’t catch your order you might be getting a macchiato instead of a mocha.
Even if you do stumble through your order, there is no stress or animosity attached to that. The cashier is there to help, and in my experience, a slower order actually helps the barista burn through a handful of coffees before more is added to their workload.
A good practice is for the cashier to repeat the order back to the customer. Understandably, the customer mightn’t have properly woken up yet, and this can sometimes stir some grumbles. But the etiquette here is to apply patience to your cashier. Generally, the coffee grinder or milk wand is right beside them and it’s very difficult to hear morning mumbles through ‘fzzz’s and ‘krrr’s.
This goes for the cashier, too. Have patience with the morning utterances because your customer is in the same, noisy environment.
Don’t skim the details
If you want decaf or can’t have lactose, be sure to share this at the till. There are always forgetful moments, but you’d be surprised how often the latter is ‘missed’. It will cost extra to have special milk, and because of that some customers have manipulated the system. Countless times I’ve witnessed a customer after ordering their coffee ask the barista to make their drink with soy milk, and in the busiest moments of the day, it’s not an easy exercise to put that through the till. So, the customer skips on being charged.
Getting those details right at the cashier will help the barista immensely. We want to get your order right, and we want to make it well.
The morning grind is hard. Take a seat and relax!
Have you ever been asked to do a job you know you can do well, but suddenly you have someone hovering until it’s completed? When you order a takeaway coffee, there are no qualms against you taking a seat. In fact, it can relieve the pressure on your barista. The process of making a coffee is interesting to watch, and I understand that pre-coffee state where staring into the distance is a symptom (we’ve all been there). But in these coffee-crunching, morning rushes, there is usually a handful of coffees in front of your order. So, take it easy before your day’s work! Take a pew and maybe catch those extra Zzz’s.
In contrast to this, when it’s quiet a chat with your barista is always welcome. I’ve loved having a quick chinwag with the amazing array of people I’ve served!
Keep clean, keep cups
Reusable cups are making a dent in the 1 billion cups we send to landfill each year (news.com.au). However, researchers have found that even after a thorough cleaning, plastic reusable cups can contain a very high level of residual bacteria. And when the cups aren’t cleaned properly, they can become home to dangerous bacteria (thejakartapost.com).
These risks are best avoided when the cup is cleaned immediately after being used. Otherwise, this can potentially cause a health risk for cafes. This may be difficult as reusable cups are meant for when you’re on the move with, coincidently, limited access to cleaning supplies. So, the best practice for your local café is to give them a clean cup, but the safest practice for consumers is to clean it immediately.
This extends to baby bottles. In one of my previous places of employment, an unsanitary bottle was handed over to a colleague for cleaning. Simply opening the bottle was foul enough to create a lingering smell and enforce an all-inclusive ban on staff accepting baby bottles.
So, in the morning debate of flat white or latte, take a moment and think: how can I make my barista’s day easier? Because if your barista is cared for, so is your coffee.
Brittany is an experienced barista having worked for both large and small businesses. She most values the interactions with regular customers, and the ones that take the extra mile to help their barista during the morning rush.
Source: LinkedIn
Image: Photo by Porapak Apichodilok from Pexels
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