Tomorrow...C-day! (Coffee Day :)

Hi family, friends, countrymen & foreigners!


Well, tomorrow's the BIG DAY: I will be part of the team serving legitimate :) customers.


No idea what will be my station! It could be:


- p.o.s. (point of service - cash register)
- cup caller (the one who marks the cups and calls out to the bar which beverage needs to be made)
if it's not busy, these two stations can easily be combined


- bar (hot drinks)
- c.b.s. (cold beverage station - cold drinks DUH!)
obviously, these two can also be manned by one person at non-peak hours


- something else?


I'm rather nervous about it, to tell you the truth :/
p.o.s. training wasn't possible (due to software problems) at the times that I was assigned to it when we'd invited customers to come in and "be our guinea pigs". I could dedicate all my time to advising and cup marking.


Last Wednesday (the day before the official opening), we had Family Event Day for which we could bring someone along to show the store, sample coffee (and more!) and introduce colleagues.
I picked up Maeve from school and took her along. There was a meeting first, so I put her in a corner of the store and made her do homework :D
During the meeting, last minute questions were answered and points of improvement discussed, after which Helene (one of the two store managers) handed out flowers to key people.


Sooo many have put in an amazing amount of hours to get everything in order in time and you could see the lack of energy on peoples' faces.
Thank goodness we're borrowing three "star-team" partners from the UK (Mark), US (Ryan) and France (Olivier) for three weeks to help us get on our way!!!


The store was packed during the event (it was the second edition of three that day) and it was fun to see Maeve actually sampling coffee at Jeroen's table. She enjoyed it, especially with the caramel/nut cake that was offered as a food-pairing with this type of coffee :D
We then got a tall Strawberry Cream Frappuccino for her and a tall Raspberry Blended Fruit Juice. For insiders: S / CRM and RJ ;)
I think I'll go over the recipes one more time tonight...or maybe not... aaarghh!


Everybody was sooo sweet to Maeve :) THANK YOU LOVELY PARTNERS!!!


We were also offered champagne with a (verrrry sweet) pink cake pop and we got to raise our glasses with the president of Starbucks EMEA, Rich Nelsen.


On our last day of training, Silvi'd also noticed my talents concerning customer communication and we talked a bit about the possibility of these being put to use in the other store that's going to be opened within a few month's time. That store (in the Beethovenstraat) is expected to become more of a social gathering spot with a great deal of regular customers.
We'll just have to wait and see how things are going!


Finishing off by wishing everybody a blessed Easter (yes, He lives!),


I remain, faithfully yours,


Sundae