Coffee confessions and realizations

I stepped out of college with a thought that life will be tougher and more confusing. You’ll be able to control your life and you are not dictated by class schedules, homeworks, projects and even extra curricular projects that you never will find reason why you wanted to be part of that team. Back on the hill, I was part of ASLA--An organization that believes in ripples of change. Creating leaders and making them find their passion to be able to lead their lives by making leaders of their own flocks. I believe in this philosophy. I believe in how each individual could create a big mark in other peoples lives and making them fulfilled in their chosen vocation, ignited by their passion.

Three months after college, I took a peep of the corporate world. I worked for a PR agency that really drove me up the wall. Getting home at 3am and needing to be at work at 7am. I easily gave up the corporate rat race. I knew it was not for me when I started going home crying. Hating my bosses (I hate hating people) and trying to squeeze out whatever energy I had left from a 35 peso lunch I had everyday. I knew I was in for a better work. So after 35 days commuting back and forth in makati, I resigned still feeling that passion and drive that would entitle me to a life led by what I wanted—what I was made for.

I opted to make the newly born coffee shop business of my family. Managing it with my siblings who also had their own futures to think of. I considered it as a meantime job while waiting for the right job that I really wanted to come. But after how many months of managing it fully, with less help from my siblings compared to the time we started, I grew to love the job.

Confession: I don’t drink coffee as much as other people think I’d drink.

Fact: I’d go thru the day without even drinking any! Unless I took a bar shift and had to taste the product before serving.

So why am I in this business? I have this weird passion of knowing why people love this drink… why they’d push it to 3 cups a day and even wanting for refills. What is it with this coffee drink that makes meetings more productive and big contracts are actually signed right in front of me. What is it with its palpitating effect that people would pair it up with these calorie filled cheesecakes, chocolate cakes and even savory pies that would only make you yearn for more? And what was it with the coffee shop ambiance that actually commenced the French revolution.

Yes, as weird as it may sound, I am interested with the art of coffee and not its taste. I am interested with the psychological meaning toward people who could not sleep without drinking a dark roasted coffee. I am interested in why people would go back twice or thrice a day to have that good old barako while reading three sets of newspapers—from page to page.

To add, I’m also interested with the science of coffee, how to extract that perfect golden creama, how to buy the correct tamper—concave, convex, and even flat! I am at awe with the perfect amount of air you have to induce with your milk to get that silky steam of milk for your latte to make that crisp latte art, for that stiff micro bubble foam for your cappuccino.

All these 517 days in the coffee shop, I took massive interest with café management. i’ve learned the proper way of costing, of getting that net profit considering all the overhead charges, not to mention taxes and even guest complaints that demand for a refund because their drink didn’t taste like the one they ordered from the green aproned baristas. I actually learned accounting for small businesses and proper way of doing inventory. I learned how to create systems of cash flow and purchasing. I learned how to do HR—to deal with conflict management and even interviews!

I really don’t know what made me veer from European international relations/foreign service officer dreams/ I will conquer the EU path. I still am interested with world events, travel literature and even diplomatic affairs. Maybe it was just really something I would be interested in and not make a career out of it. Beside, after handling such a small business with A LOT of conflict already, I don’t think I am ready to conquer the world and fix its conflicts.

So for now, it’s this. Next year I do not know. I still see myself in the service sector in the next 5 years. Perhaps even take further studies on it.

And just when I asked “what’s a girl got to do when she meets the world?” a year or so ago, the answer still is “we’ll see.”