Boxes are fun

Tuesdays are very important days at the coffee shop, because our order comes on Tuesdays. Our order is our life. The truck brings everything that we need to operate, flavored syrups, chocolate and caramel sauces, cups, napkins, soaps (everything except for the milks and creams. Those come three times a week because we use so many). The supplies usually come every Tuesday between eleven and twelve, and when the truck leaves, there is a pile of some thirty or forty boxes that need to be put away.

But maybe not quite this many

Baristas S. and A. used to be the ones taking care of putting things on shelves, rotating the syrups and ingredients, and flattening boxes, but both girls left for other coffee shops a few weeks ago. For twelve weeks, I had curiously watched them tend to the shipments; most people seemed to dread the order and complain about having to take care of it. To me, though, it didn't seem any different than grocery shopping, and I told my supervisor that I'd like to give it a try. Accordingly, the next week, she assigned me the task of putting away the order. And, to even my surprise, I enjoyed it.

There was something about the challenge of fitting everything into the tiny back room of the shop that appealed to me. Things had to be condensed into small spaces, juices had to be moved around, boxes had to be placed on the very tip-tops of shelves. To me, it seemed like a puzzle, a game of trying to see how neatly I could arrange everything. I lost a round if I had to split up the vanilla syrups or put some of the mocha on a different shelf. I won if I was able to fit everything in the space available. And then there was the treat of flattening all the boxes and recycling them at the end. Finishing gave me a type of happy energy, despite the large amounts of effort the task had taken.

And this week, they let me play again! And I won even more rounds this time.